There are 12 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Spoken French Orthography (was Re: "Re: Colloquial French resour From: A. da Mek 1b. Re: Spoken French Orthography (was Re: "Re: Colloquial French resour From: Douglas Koller 1c. Re: Spoken French Orthography (was Re: "Re: Colloquial French resour From: R A Brown 1d. Re: Spoken French Orthography (was Re: "Re: Colloquial French resour From: Jörg Rhiemeier 1e. Re: Spoken French Orthography (was Re: "Re: Colloquial French resour From: Leonardo Castro 2a. Re: THEORY: Native languages of the Americas in popular music From: Jyri Lehtinen 3.1. Re: Something for we to discuss! From: Alex Fink 3.2. Re: Something for we to discuss! From: Padraic Brown 3.3. Re: Something for we to discuss! From: And Rosta 3.4. Re: Something for we to discuss! From: Eric Christopherson 4.1. Melin's Swedish Shorthand -- for English! (was: Re: Gateway to consc From: BPJ 5a. Re: "Re: Colloquial French resources" From: Leonardo Castro Messages ________________________________________________________________________ 1a. Re: Spoken French Orthography (was Re: "Re: Colloquial French resour Posted by: "A. da Mek" a.da_m...@ufoni.cz Date: Thu Oct 3, 2013 1:38 am ((PDT)) > Personally, I think any attempt on the conlang list to come up with an > orthography for spoken French will encounter the same problems as the > numerous attempts on this list over the years to come up with a better > Romanization for Chinese than Pinyin and/or to reform English spelling, > i.e. > - the French (Chinese, English) will take no notice of it; > - _different_ conlang versions will be produced, not just one on which all > agree - because we are a bunch of eccentric individuals :) These maybe could be called _problems_ at auxlang, but not here. Messages in this topic (10) ________________________________________________________________________ 1b. Re: Spoken French Orthography (was Re: "Re: Colloquial French resour Posted by: "Douglas Koller" douglaskol...@hotmail.com Date: Thu Oct 3, 2013 2:39 am ((PDT)) > Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2013 08:24:01 +0200 > From: tsela...@gmail.com > Subject: Re: Spoken French Orthography (was Re: "Re: Colloquial French > resources") > To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu First: > On 2 October 2013 02:00, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote: > > BTW, what happens when the sentence has both a direct an indirect object? > > "Nicolas a donné un chien à ses enfants." > > would be something like > > "Nicolas il-le-leur-a donné un chien à ses enfants." > > with all these prefixes mandatory? > Nope, because a singular *indefinite* object is not indicated on the verb > complex. "Le" is only present with definite objects. As I wrote before, > it's something I've seen in other languages with polypersonal agreement as > well. Later: > On 2 October 2013 23:06, J. 'Mach' Wust <j_mach_w...@shared-files.de> wrote: > > >BTW, what happens when the sentence has both a direct an indirect object? > > >"Nicolas a donné un chien à ses enfants." > > >would be something like > > >"Nicolas il-le-leur-a donné un chien à ses enfants." > > >with all these prefixes mandatory? > > To the best of my knowledge, no. > Actually, yes. Examples where they seem not to appear are usually > code-switching. So if I understand correctly, in Spoken French, I must say: Nicolas il le leur a donné le chiot à ses enfants. ? > > I > > do not know whether requiredness of object prefixes might depend on > > animacy or on definiteness: > > Je la connais ta mère. 'I know your mother.' (+animacy) > > ?Je la connais ta proposition. 'I know your proposition.' (-animacy) > To me, both are equally acceptable. So, it's now mandatorily: Je l'ai pas comprise la question que vous la lui avez posée au président (qui il y parlait à la réunion). in Spoken French? > > Je le mange mon sandwich. 'I eat my sandwich.' (+definiteness) > > *Je le mange un sandwich. 'I eat a sandwich.' (-definiteness) > To me, the second one is unacceptable. Object prefixes need a definite > object. Which is logical when you think about their origin. > > Neither do I know about the acceptability of dropping the partitive > > prefix: > > Ma femme ella a toujours des bonnes idées. > That one's dodgy to me. I'd put a ? in front of it :). The version with the > partitive prefix feels just more grammatical to me. So, back to eating, it's mandatorily: J'en mange du pain. in Spoken French? How about: J'en ai besoin aujourd'hui de l'argent dont (toi) tu en avais besoin hier. ? and: Ma femme elle y va au cinéma en en mangeant du popcorn. ? Kou Messages in this topic (10) ________________________________________________________________________ 1c. Re: Spoken French Orthography (was Re: "Re: Colloquial French resour Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com Date: Thu Oct 3, 2013 3:36 am ((PDT)) On 03/10/2013 09:37, A. da Mek wrote: >> Personally, I think any attempt on the conlang list to >> come up with an orthography for spoken French will >> encounter the same problems as the numerous attempts on >> this list over the years to come up with a better >> Romanization for Chinese than Pinyin and/or to reform >> English spelling, i.e. >> - the French (Chinese, English) will take no notice of it; >> - _different_ conlang versions will be produced, not just >> one on which all agree - because we are a bunch of >> eccentric individuals :) > > These maybe could be called _problems_ at auxlang, but not > here. They are irrelevant to auxlang. Many years ago, when I was in Auxlandia, I suggested that a global auxlang would be more likely to succeed if it were based on natlang (e.g. an English creole); I got well and truly flamed!! I was told in no uncertain terms that it was patently obvious an auxlang must be an artificial creation. Unless things have changed since I left Auxlandia, questions of reforming the orthography of any natlang were simply irrelevant. I guess 'problems' was not the best word to use; I should, I guess, have said 'limitations.' What I was trying to say, I think, is that as the French (Chinese, English) are not going to take any notice of an orthography we come up with on this list, would we not be better spending our time on our own conlang orthographies? This is, after all, a conlang list. The second point was rather a warning to the naive: don't expect a "Conlang orthography" because you won't get one; you'll have several different (often IME quite different) orthographies. Also, I did begin with _personally_ - i.e. it is only my own opinion. If, however, aware of the limitations, members want to discuss an orthography for _Spoken_ French, then go ahead. But it is not, of course, conlanging :) Also one further point. The reform of French orthography has been debated (more than once, I think) before on this list. Some reforms are obvious and occurred to me when i was at school more than half a century ago. But the present proposal is not for a reform of the orthography of _Written French_ but an orthography to serve as a representation of actual _Spoken French_ and IMHO demands, therefore, a good familiarity with *spoken* French. -- Ray ================================== http://www.carolandray.plus.com ================================== "language … began with half-musical unanalysed expressions for individual beings and events." [Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895] Messages in this topic (10) ________________________________________________________________________ 1d. Re: Spoken French Orthography (was Re: "Re: Colloquial French resour Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" joerg_rhieme...@web.de Date: Thu Oct 3, 2013 5:45 am ((PDT)) Hallo conlangers! On Thursday 03 October 2013 12:36:38 R A Brown wrote: > On 03/10/2013 09:37, A. da Mek wrote: > [...] > > These maybe could be called _problems_ at auxlang, but not > > here. > > They are irrelevant to auxlang. Many years ago, when I was > in Auxlandia, I suggested that a global auxlang would be > more likely to succeed if it were based on natlang (e.g. an > English creole); I got well and truly flamed!! I was told > in no uncertain terms that it was patently obvious an > auxlang must be an artificial creation. > > Unless things have changed since I left Auxlandia, questions > of reforming the orthography of any natlang were simply > irrelevant. Some things seem to have changed there: flame wars are now less common, it seems; but the notion that the solution of the "world language problem" must be an artificial language still prevails. > I guess 'problems' was not the best word to use; I should, I > guess, have said 'limitations.' > > What I was trying to say, I think, is that as the French > (Chinese, English) are not going to take any notice of an > orthography we come up with on this list, would we not be > better spending our time on our own conlang orthographies? > This is, after all, a conlang list. Indeed, indeed! I could not care less about spelling reforms. It may be an entertaining game to design a phonemic or a phonetic spelling for a natlang, but nobody here should nurture the illusion that any such orthography had a chance to catch on. This is indeed CONLANG and not SPELLING-REFORM, so spelling reform proposals are not only pointless, they are *off topic*. > The second point was rather a warning to the naive: don't > expect a "Conlang orthography" because you won't get one; > you'll have several different (often IME quite different) > orthographies. Yes. The spelling reform game works essentially the same way as the auxlang game: the supply greatly exceeds the demand. There are *many* alternative orthography proposals supplied, but the demand is actually *zero* because the majority of speakers of French (or English, or whichever language) see no need to change the spelling in use. > Also, I did begin with _personally_ - i.e. it is only my own > opinion. If, however, aware of the limitations, members > want to discuss an orthography for _Spoken_ French, then go > ahead. But it is not, of course, conlanging :) Right! > Also one further point. The reform of French orthography > has been debated (more than once, I think) before on this > list. Some reforms are obvious and occurred to me when i > was at school more than half a century ago. But the present > proposal is not for a reform of the orthography of _Written > French_ but an orthography to serve as a representation of > actual _Spoken French_ and IMHO demands, therefore, a good > familiarity with *spoken* French. Yes. -- ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html "Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1 Messages in this topic (10) ________________________________________________________________________ 1e. Re: Spoken French Orthography (was Re: "Re: Colloquial French resour Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com Date: Thu Oct 3, 2013 6:20 am ((PDT)) BTW, aren't already there spontaneous orthographies for Spoken French in informal texts such as in web chats? Até mais! Leonardo 2013/10/3 Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhieme...@web.de>: > Hallo conlangers! > > On Thursday 03 October 2013 12:36:38 R A Brown wrote: > >> On 03/10/2013 09:37, A. da Mek wrote: >> [...] >> > These maybe could be called _problems_ at auxlang, but not >> > here. >> >> They are irrelevant to auxlang. Many years ago, when I was >> in Auxlandia, I suggested that a global auxlang would be >> more likely to succeed if it were based on natlang (e.g. an >> English creole); I got well and truly flamed!! I was told >> in no uncertain terms that it was patently obvious an >> auxlang must be an artificial creation. >> >> Unless things have changed since I left Auxlandia, questions >> of reforming the orthography of any natlang were simply >> irrelevant. > > Some things seem to have changed there: flame wars are now less > common, it seems; but the notion that the solution of the "world > language problem" must be an artificial language still prevails. > >> I guess 'problems' was not the best word to use; I should, I >> guess, have said 'limitations.' >> >> What I was trying to say, I think, is that as the French >> (Chinese, English) are not going to take any notice of an >> orthography we come up with on this list, would we not be >> better spending our time on our own conlang orthographies? >> This is, after all, a conlang list. > > Indeed, indeed! I could not care less about spelling reforms. > It may be an entertaining game to design a phonemic or a > phonetic spelling for a natlang, but nobody here should nurture > the illusion that any such orthography had a chance to catch on. > This is indeed CONLANG and not SPELLING-REFORM, so spelling > reform proposals are not only pointless, they are *off topic*. > >> The second point was rather a warning to the naive: don't >> expect a "Conlang orthography" because you won't get one; >> you'll have several different (often IME quite different) >> orthographies. > > Yes. > > The spelling reform game works essentially the same way as the > auxlang game: the supply greatly exceeds the demand. There are > *many* alternative orthography proposals supplied, but the > demand is actually *zero* because the majority of speakers of > French (or English, or whichever language) see no need to change > the spelling in use. > >> Also, I did begin with _personally_ - i.e. it is only my own >> opinion. If, however, aware of the limitations, members >> want to discuss an orthography for _Spoken_ French, then go >> ahead. But it is not, of course, conlanging :) > > Right! > >> Also one further point. The reform of French orthography >> has been debated (more than once, I think) before on this >> list. Some reforms are obvious and occurred to me when i >> was at school more than half a century ago. But the present >> proposal is not for a reform of the orthography of _Written >> French_ but an orthography to serve as a representation of >> actual _Spoken French_ and IMHO demands, therefore, a good >> familiarity with *spoken* French. > > Yes. > > -- > ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf > http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html > "Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1 Messages in this topic (10) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 2a. Re: THEORY: Native languages of the Americas in popular music Posted by: "Jyri Lehtinen" lehtinen.j...@gmail.com Date: Thu Oct 3, 2013 2:37 am ((PDT)) I guess you should also consider the musical scene when assessing the vitality of a language. At least music is often used in language revitalisation projects. Around here you can find really varying music in Saami (mostly North Saami), e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiQ9pQGQKWE. There's also this guy who does rap in Inari Saami, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-56xy7NhAm4. I can't think now of any non folk groups that sing in Karelian but Myllärit has some not at all folky tunes, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfcJeTVdJT8 A bit further away there's a group who sing in Livonian, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry5aZnlYTOY. That's music in a language which is variously declared alive or dead depending on whom you ask. Again, that's trad. but doesn't shy off from taking new influences. -Jyri 2013/10/2 Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> > I think that songs in Guarani are not only "folk music" in Paraguay, > but "popular music", because they are in the music industry of that > country, with professional production, video clips, etc. There's even > a music genre called "guarania". > > E.g.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_So2t21pms0 > > Are there other similar examples? Or is it part of the unique history > of Guarani among all native languages of the Americas? (Isn't really > there a gentilic for "the Americas" in English? Can I use "American"?) > > BTW, I remember having heard an explanation for the difference in the > fates of American and African languages: the Americas were "new > Europes" while Africa environment was much more hostile to Europeans ; > European diseases killed native Americans while African diseases > killed Europeans. I don't if it's the preferred explanation nowadays. > > Até mais! > > Leonardo > Messages in this topic (4) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 3.1. Re: Something for we to discuss! Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com Date: Thu Oct 3, 2013 3:30 am ((PDT)) On Wed, 2 Oct 2013 15:09:58 -0700, Andrew Jarrette <anjarre...@yahoo.ca> wrote: [Leonadro wrote:] >> "It is necessary that I be there on time." >I think this is the subjunctive of "to be". The subjunctive is used in >correct English, but it is only distinctive in the 3rd person singular and in >the verb "to be", AFAIK. That analysis, which several people have given, is certainly the conventional one, and certainly the one that holds of historical English. But given that in modern English the category of the subjunctive is so eroded that it scarcely ever has distinct forms, is it really correct, in the synchronic descriptive sense, to set up such a category? Or should one in fact say, roughly as Leonardo was proposing, that this is just a "bare" usage of the verb which doesn't take subject agreement (which ordinarily just appears in the 3sg present, but more forms in the case of _be_)? Alex Messages in this topic (44) ________________________________________________________________________ 3.2. Re: Something for we to discuss! Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com Date: Thu Oct 3, 2013 4:29 am ((PDT)) >>> "It is necessary that I be there on time." >> I think this is the subjunctive of "to be". The subjunctive is >> used in correct English, but it is only distinctive in the 3rd person >> singular >> and in the verb "to be", AFAIK. > > That analysis, which several people have given, is certainly the conventional > one, and certainly the one that holds of historical English. But given that > in > modern English the category of the subjunctive is so eroded that it scarcely > ever has distinct forms, is it really correct, in the synchronic descriptive > sense, to set up such a category? I guess your choices here would be "use the name that's already been used for the category and that describes what it actually is" or "come up with a new name for the same old thing". You are right that, historically, this is a subjunctive, so there is a matter of continuity there. It's also true that the subjunctive is a rather week mood in English, not often met and when it is met, it usually masquerades as the indicative. On the other hand, would you propose calling the -s on "dogs" ZEE, simply because the reality is that the sound is [z] even though it's shape belies the name ESS? Historically, it's an ESS, but... Just asking how far we might have to go in rearranging deck chairs... > Or should one in fact say, roughly as > Leonardo was proposing, that this is just a "bare" usage of the verb > which doesn't take subject agreement (which ordinarily just appears in the > 3sg present, but more forms in the case of _be_)? I guess the problem here is a lot like that "customary redundancy" term over on the other thread. It answers the question, but it doesn't really answer it very well. What is meant by "bare"? Is it really "bare" at all? In what possible way is this "be" the same as the infinitival "be"? And perhaps, do we really have to dumb people down any further than they already are? Why can't we just teach children that this is the subjunctive, this is how it differs from the indicative, this is how it's well used and leave it at that? Somewhere around I have a little English grammar book that was for use in grammar schools (gosh, back when we actually hád grammar schools in the US!). I think it was called "Our Language" or something like that. Little children actually learned this kind of stuff. Words that I don't recall learning until perhaps high school Latin. As I recall, it even brought in comparisons with Old English. Wow! Sorry for the mini tirade, but I just don't see how ignoring what something actually is helps people learn any better. Padraic > > Alex > Messages in this topic (44) ________________________________________________________________________ 3.3. Re: Something for we to discuss! Posted by: "And Rosta" and.ro...@gmail.com Date: Thu Oct 3, 2013 4:49 am ((PDT)) On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 6:50 PM, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com>wrote: > "It is necessary that I be there on time." > Is this verb "be" in "bare infinitive"? > It looks that it has a subject! It is an infinitive, yes. (That is, I know of no reasons for not analysing it as an infinitive.) All verbs have subjects, I think, so it's not surprising that this one does. I suspect that this construction involves a silent auxiliary: "It is necessary that [do] I be there on time" This would explain why the verb is in the infinitive form, and it would explain the position of negation and the possibility of ellipsis after the negation: "It is necessary that I not (be there on time)" "It is necessary that [do] I not (be there on time)" And it would also explain why the pronoun takes its "subjective" form. (Contrast "make me/*I be there on time".) I don't have a worked-out story about the semantics at present, but merely labelling the verb or the construction "subjunctive" will not suffice as a worked-out story. --And. Messages in this topic (44) ________________________________________________________________________ 3.4. Re: Something for we to discuss! Posted by: "Eric Christopherson" ra...@charter.net Date: Thu Oct 3, 2013 5:48 am ((PDT)) On Oct 3, 2013, at 6:48 AM, And Rosta <and.ro...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 6:50 PM, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> "It is necessary that I be there on time." >> Is this verb "be" in "bare infinitive"? >> It looks that it has a subject! > > > It is an infinitive, yes. (That is, I know of no reasons for not analysing > it as an infinitive.) > > All verbs have subjects, I think, so it's not surprising that this one does. > > I suspect that this construction involves a silent auxiliary: > > "It is necessary that [do] I be there on time" What is your reason for putting [do] before the subject -- rather than "It is necessary that I [do] be there on time"? Also, since you specifically stipulated that the auxiliary is silent, this may not be relevant -- but for me, making it overt (i.e. "... I do be there ..." or "... do I be there ...") makes the sentence ungrammatical. The only exception I can think of right now is sort of emphatic commands, e.g. "Dò be there on time" (uncommon; sounds a little non-American). > > This would explain why the verb is in the infinitive form, and it would > explain the position of negation and the possibility of ellipsis after the > negation: > > "It is necessary that I not (be there on time)" > "It is necessary that [do] I not (be there on time)" > > And it would also explain why the pronoun takes its "subjective" form. > (Contrast "make me/*I be there on time".) > > I don't have a worked-out story about the semantics at present, but merely > labelling the verb or the construction "subjunctive" will not suffice as a > worked-out story. > > --And. Messages in this topic (44) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 4.1. Melin's Swedish Shorthand -- for English! (was: Re: Gateway to consc Posted by: "BPJ" b...@melroch.se Date: Thu Oct 3, 2013 4:40 am ((PDT)) 2013-10-01 18:45, J. 'Mach' Wust skrev: > On Sun, 29 Sep 2013 21:51:13 +0200, BPJ wrote: > >> 2013-09-29 20:32, J. 'Mach' Wust skrev: >>> Encountering shorthand systems in my late teens was a revelation >>> because it first showed me that there is something else than phonemic >>> writing. >> >> Actually it's perfectly possible for a shorthand system to be >> both phonemic and alphabetic. > > Of course, a phonemic shorthand system is perfectly possible. It is > just that me personally, I have had my _Younger Futhark moment_, so > to say, when I met stenography. > >> Melin's Swedish Shorthand which >> I've been using for almost 30 years is, and is cursive too. It >> has distinct and separate signs for all phonemes of Standard >> Swedish even for the phonemes /ɕ/, /x/ and /ŋ/ which are written >> with digraphs in longhand orthography. It achieves an effective >> cursive rythm by assigning vowels to upwards or rightwards hair >> strokes and consonants with perpendiculars, except the four >> phonemes /r/, /l/, /n/, /s/ which are frequent in endings and >> clusters and are written with loops/dots. There are some signs >> for whole prefixes and suffixes, signs for consonant clusters >> (including sC and nC clusters) and various types of abbreviations >> are the rule, but it *is* perfectly possible to write >> phonemically without any of those. > > Melin's Swedish Shorthand seems an unusual member of the Gabelsberger > shorthand systems family in having almost no contrast in stroke > thickness at all. Notionally thickness/pressure is used to indicate double/long consonants -- thats why W, whick is called "dubbel-v" in Swedish and before the modern advent of numerous English loans was only an allograph mainly used in proper names, is a thick V -- but that distinction is in practice mostly omitted as its low functional load is mostly compensated for by context. Some people instead use it to indicate an omitted syllable, and there is an extreme "ilskrift" ('speed-script'/'Eilschrift') scheme which uses thickness and the position of words relative to the baseline to indicate omitted (ending) vowels. Since I have cerebral palsy the thickness distinction is hard for me to use, so I'm very happy that it's unimportant! To indicate W in my adaptation to English I shift the values of the labial signs like this: Br > B > V > W Fr > Wh using B+R and F+R for /br/ and /fr/, and naturally using the Sv, Tv etc. signs for Sw, Tw etc. Normally I write with a rather hard pencil and let the downstrokes get or not get all the pressure they want. BTW I use Tj > Z/Tz, Sj > Ch, Sk > Sch , Sv > Schw etc., Å > Au and enlarged I > Ei and enlarged Ö > Eu/Äu on the occasions I write bits of German! > The vowels' representation is different from the > Faulmann system that is used in the more modern German systems (like > Stolze-Schrey or deutsche Einheitskurzschrift) which operate with the > script's baseline (which can be kept, raised or lowered). It yields a > very similar overall aspect, though. I wonder whether Melin came up > with his system independently form the Faulman system. He got the idea from Arends' system, but the implementation is his own. I've looked in vain for an illustration of Arends' system, including looking through my several binders and folders of photocopies, knowing that I used to have something, but the general principle is well _described_ at <http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Arends> " Die Arendssche Stenographie gehört zu den sogenannten " selbstlautschreibenden Kurzschriften, d.h. die Selbstlaute werden " nicht symbolisch dargestellt, sondern ausgeschrieben. Die " Mitlaute werden größtenteils durch gerade auslaufende Abstriche " dargestellt. Des Weiteren gibt es eine symbolische Darstellung " einiger Mitlautfolgen. For the interested German-ignorant " Arends' shorthand belongs to the so-called vowel-writing shorthands, " i.e. the vowels are not indicated symbolically, but written out [with their " own signs]. The consonants are mostly written with stright-terminating " downstrokes. Moreover some consonat clusters are indicated symbolically. In fact Melin's system was a conscious compromise between Arends' and Gabelsberger's systems, since he aimed to reconcile the two factions of stenographers existing in Sweden at the time, as well as achieving a system which was better adapted to Swedish. His choice of symbols and especially his pairings of similar long and short symbols to vowels was very well adapted to Swedish phonology: A is by far the most frequent vowel, and the pairs E /e/ ~ Ä /ɛ/, O /u/ ~ Å /o/ and the triplet U /ʉ/ ~ Ö /ø/ ~ Y /y/ do tend to merge as [ɜ], [ʊ] and [ɵ] respectively when unstressed, and E/Ä and U/Ö tend to merge even when short and stressed for most speakers in eastern Sweden. Moreover /o/ is frequently written O, although most of those words having had short /o/ in Old Swedish have a separate phoneme /ɞ/, or /ʉ~ɵ/ in western Sweden, whether written with O or Å in the modern orthography. Thus St. Swedish _mossa_ /ˈmos:a/ 'moss' is /ˈmɞːsɑ/ to me in dialectal mode (I code-switch a lot!) and _fågel_ /ˈfoːgel/ 'bird' is /ˈfɞːgɛl/ to me -- and to some west Swedes it's even /ˈfɵgːɛl/ --, sometimes written _môsa, fôgel/fûggel_ when writing dialect. It was certainly no coincidence that the westerner Melin included an enlarged Ö, officially for the prefix "över-" 'over-', in his system! I'll see if I get the time and the tech to do a writeup of my adaptation to English. I haven't given up the hope! For a short summary in longhand (as you can see it is geared towards making etymologically related words -- both between Swedish/English/Latin and within English -- look similar as well as phonemic accuracy, please refer to <http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olof_Werling_Melin>!): Swedish English Phoneme(s) ------------------ -------- -------------------- V W /w/ B V /v/ Br B /b/ Fr Wh /ʍ/ J Y /j/ Sj J /dʒ/ Tj Ch /tʃ/ Z Zh[^Zh] /ʒ/, /ʒə/ X Sh /ʃ/ XX (enlarged X) Shr/Nsh /nʃ/, /ʃr/ Ns Z /z/ Ande Nz[^Nz] /nz/ Ende Ns /ns/ De (T-height B) Th /θ/, /ð/ Nde (T-height X) Thr/Nth /nθ/, /θr/, /ðr/ Hr (H-height Tv) Thw /θw/ A A /æ/, /ɑ/ Ö Ae /eɪ/ E E /ɛ/ Ä Ee /i/ I I /ɪ/ Isk (enlarged I) Ie /aɪ/ O O /ɒ/, /ɔ/, /ɑ/[^O] Å Oe /oʊ/ U U /ʌ/ Y Oo /u/, /ʊ/ Över (enlarged Ö) Ow /aʊ/ JY YOo /ju/ OJ OY[^Oy] /ɔɪ/ A, E, O, U, R /ə/[^Schwa] [^Zh]: /ʒu/ ZhOo is simply a Zh (Swedish Z) with the U-like squiggle enlarged to Oo size. Similarly /dʒʌ/ and /dʒu/ are simply enlarged versions of Zh and ZhOo. In practice YOo becomes identical, but context usually disambiguates! [^Nz]: The signs for the endings _-ande, -ende_ which I have usurped for /nz/ and /ns/ in order to get a good sign for /z/ are a D and St with leftwards-sloping downstroke, like a rotated F and Wh. [^O]: Since I use an American pronunciation I usually use O for /ɑ/ however spelled. Sometimes I use the Swedish På ('(up)on') and Het ('-ness') signs, which are arched hairstrokes, for /ɔ/ and /ɑ/, but they are awkward to write between consonants. [^Oy]: This works because non-final /ɔɪ/ is infrequent. I used to use the Swedish Und sign, which is a leftwards- tilted Sm similar to a vertically mirrored Över, for Oy but UNd is really awkward so that sign is needed for what Melin assigned it to! Instead I usually write words like _toil_ as TUIL, and words like _tube, duke_ as TIOoB, DIOoK, which is usually unambiguous, when not writing the latter simply as TOoB, DOoK, or ChOoB, JOoK, depending on what kind of pronunciation I'm recording. OTOH I freely use Y (Swedish J) in English _i/e_+vowel words, and even Ny (Sw. Nj) in words like _union_ YOoNyON. [^Schwa]: I.e. schwa is written orthographically/etymologically, which actually works best at least for non-nativ speakers. I know what I'm talking about, having tried otherwise! /bpj Messages in this topic (27) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 5a. Re: "Re: Colloquial French resources" Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com Date: Thu Oct 3, 2013 6:17 am ((PDT)) Today I just got myself speaking "My wife she likes to buy bread in the bakery X." ("Minha esposa ela gosta de comprar pão na padaria X.") As far as I'm aware, I didn't want to emphasize or topicalize "my wife". I suspect that this kind of construction is frequently used in pt-BR only for the sake of clarity (not sure if this is also a type of topicalization or only redundancy). A friend of mine was once a student of the linguist Marcos Bagno, that is best know in Brazil for the book "Preconceito Linguístico" ("Linguistic Prejudice"), and told that he pointed out that the pronunciation of the [L] (<lh>) as [j] , although despised as something very uncultured in pt-BR, is exactly how the Standard French came to establish (and French has always be a model for Lusophone traditional literates). Actually, if I choose the right modifications that were present in the evolution of French, I can go from "Standard Brazilian Portuguese" to Caipira Portuguese ("caipira" is roughly equivalent to American "redneck" but with no racial connotation ; "caipiras" are of any race): Initially: "A minha mulher velha e as minhas filhas novas querem tirar as telhas da nossa casa." [a m'~iJ6 muL'Eh v'EL6 i az m'~iJ6s f'iL6z n'Ov6s k'E4~e~j tSi4'a4 as teL6s da nOs6 kaz6] (My old wife and my young daughters want to take the roof tiles off our house.) So, as in French, * inserting the personal pronoun after the subject, * substituting [L] with [j], * not pronouncing the plural markers of possessives, adjectives and nouns (but even colloquial pt-BR requires it in the articles), * pronouncing the verb "want" in 3PL (querem) with the same pronunciation of it in 3SG (quer) (it doesn't happen exactly for French "vouloir" but for many other verbs), and also, unlike French, * substituting [J] with [~j], * omitting final rhotic consonants where not immediately followed by vowel, it becomes a perfect Caipira Portuguese sentence: "A minha muié véia e as minha fia nova elas qué tirá as teia da nossa casa." [a m'~i~j6 muj'E v'Ej6 i az m'~i~j6 f'ij6 n'Ov6 El6s k'E tSi4'a as tej6 da nOs6 kaz6] A foreigner speaking Portuguese like this would very probably cause a lot of laugh here! "Did you learn Portuguese with caipiras?", many people would ask him/her. Até mais! Leonardo 2013/10/3 James Kane <kane...@gmail.com>: > Christophe will be glad to hear that my linguistics professor mentioned > Spoken French today. While talking about broad word order, he mentioned how > normal word orders can move around giving a VOS word order in this particular > example: 'il aime bien ses enfants, le vieux mec' - he really loves his kids, > the old guy [does]. He noted that the 'il' at the beginning was technically a > pronoun but functioned more like an affix and so doesn't count as a subject. > > I suppose it would be even better if there were a 'les' after the 'il'? He > didn't mention poly personal marking or anything but at least the idea of > verb-bound pronouns is widespread. > > > James > >> On 3/10/2013, at 7:01 pm, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >>> On 2 October 2013 19:47, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> BTW, what do you advocate for the teaching of French in schools? >> Actual French, as opposed to the fiction they are teaching right now. >> >> >>> Should the teacher enter the class and say >>> >>> "Today, we're going to study the prefixes je, tu, il..." >>> >>> or >>> >>> "Today, we're going to study the pronouns je, tu, il..." ? >>> >>> Or should s/he just teach Spoken and Written French as separate subjects? >>> >>> It appears to me that the "colloquial redundancy" approach has the >>> advantage of considering the French of books, movies, letters, >>> streets, etc., as the same language with a single grammar. >> But they are not! What you're saying is that we should carry on teaching a >> lie because it's easier than teaching the truth. The problem is that that >> lie is utterly *confusing* people, who after learning French for 6 to 7 >> years think they have a good knowledge of the language, go and spend a week >> in France, and are completely baffled that they can't understand a single >> word of what the natives are saying! And then they blame the French for >> being unhelpful (they are, but in other ways!) while they should blame >> their education for not teaching them French right! >> >> >>> In other words, is it necessary that the polypersonal approach go* >>> outside the Linguists' circle. >>> >>> Definitely yes. Clearly the current approach is not working, and I don't >> believe "colloquial redundancy" will work, especially since it's *not* >> colloquial! Formal registers of Spoken French are polypersonal as well! >> >> -- >> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets. >> >> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/ >> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/ Messages in this topic (16) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/ <*> Your email settings: Digest Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: conlang-nor...@yahoogroups.com conlang-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: conlang-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/terms/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------