I am quite interested in the program...

And what did you program it in, btw?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Aidan Grey" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2001 2:04 AM
Subject: Hi again, new lang, and a lang tool


> Hi all,
>
>     I'm returning from a hiatus from conlang (mostly
> due to a dead computer). It's been a while, and a good
> thing. While I missed the conversations and the neat
> ideas, I found that it was difficult to keep Aelya
> sitting still. I kept trying to incorporate every neat
> thing that was mentioned. The resulting mess of 76799
> phonemes, 98679 cases, 23897 tense and 83 moods was
> difficult to deal with, to say the least. Aelya still
> hasn't stopped squirming, but it's getting there.
>
>   In the meantime, I started a new language, looslely
> inspired by the Shanthic language from the RPG
> "Skyrealms of Jorune". Here's a short description of
> it:
>
> Tatra 'the tounge'
>
> Phonology: unvoiced consonants predominate
>           vowels: a,e,i,o,u
>           diphthongs: ai, au, ei, eu
>           consonants: t, p, k, kh, h, ' (glottal stop)
>                       l, lh, r, s, sh, n, m
>
> Morphology: rich in particles, less so in affixes.
> Number is never marked.
>           nouns: are not marked for case or number.
>           adjectives: only marked for degree of
> comparison.
>           verbs: these are marked for person (but not
> number) and tense/mood. There are 4 persons, with the
> 4th being "the other guy". The three tense/mood
> distinctions are present, perfective, and irrealis,
> which covers future, subjunctive, conditional, and
> imperative.
>
> Syntax: OSV, modifier-head relationship in almost
> every case.
>
> A sample:
>    Apseka tla' tras ulu hi akatu'u lhi kho til.
>    I gave those dogs you saw to the young boy.
>
>    A-pse-ka   tla' tras ulu hi       a-katu-'u   lhi
> kho   til.
>    PERF-see-2 REL  many dog DEIC:Far PERF-give-1 DAT
> young boy
>
>     Eventually, I want to derive a newer language with
> a more complex phonology and morphology, I'm having
> problems with a couple things, and would like your
> input on them.
>
> Pronunciation: does anyone have any hints on how to
> pronounce glottal stops before consonants? I can do it
> between vowels, including the semivowels and liquids,
> but I have no idea how to pronounce it in other
> places.
>
> Stress: how to do? I'm familiar with a lot of systems
> that depend on long vowels to indicate the stressed
> syllable, but I haven't a clue how to decide which
> vowels are long and which vowels aren't. Also, I'm not
> familiar with the ffects, if any, that a glottal stop
> would have on vowel length.
>
> Fricativization: I know that stops are usually voiced
> intervocalically (in general, in world languages, I
> mean), but when do fricatives occur?
>
> Vowel dropping (I forget the linguistic term): are
> there any semi-universals for how and when this
> happens?
>
>     Thanks in advance for any advice you might have.
>
>     I also want to mention something that I brought up
> ages ago. When I was a kid, I had this elaborate
> system of coding to transform English into another
> language. Here's how it worked:
>
>    Start with the word to transform, I'll use 'sun'.
> Each 'letter' has a code of 2 digits. The codes are
> assigned from the letters on a diagonal basis. Say
> that the code for 's' is 32, for 'u', 51, and for 'n',
> 37. First we place the code digits for 's':
>
> s  u  n
> .  3  .
> .  .  2
>
> then 'u':
>
> s  u  n
> .  3  5
> 1  .  2
>
> And finally 'n':
>
> s  u  n
> 3  3  5
> 1  7  2
>
> Then you simply look up in your grid what s, position
> 3,1 equals. And again for u at 2,7 and n at 5,2.
> When building the grid, you assign codes and letters
> as you go. Say that I'm building grid still, and that
> the positions don't equate to anything. Then I can
> simply assign what letters I want, based on whatever
> root I want as and end result. So I say that s(3,1)=s,
> u(2,7)=o, and n(5,2)=l. I found that when you start
> with this process and a living language, you end up
> with a system that provides words with a continued
> 'flavor' of whatever language you're using. I used
> this method to come up with my simple roots for Tatra.
> Then I can develop from this simplistic method into
> some real language creation.
>
> One of the reasons I started using this method again
> was that I had problems coming up with unique roots -
> they all started to sound the same. Using Langmaker
> helped sometimes, but when you have a list of 63
> 'words', it gets more and more difficult to decide
> which one means rabbit and which one means zinc. This
> helps with the problem, and if I don't like my result,
> I simply plug in a new word, a synonym, and there's my
> root, ready for development.
>
> Finally, I bring all this up because I've created the
> program I talked about before my hiatus to do this.
> The process of building a grid goes amazingly quick
> when you have a good sized list of target words to
> start with, and it's nice to have this sort of
> "instant translator" to hand when you can't think of
> what 'star' should sound like. Someone recently
> mentioned the benefits of relexification, and this can
> be a handy tool for that. But it can also be used to
> generate true roots and then to procede from there.
> Anyway, the upshot is that if anyone would like a
> copy, or a better explanation, feel free to say so!
>
>
>
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