Re: Plausibility Check
- From: "Franz Gnaedinger" <frgn@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 15 Jul 2006 00:44:25 -0700
DJensen wrote:
Is anyone willing to give me some feedback on the below points, or has
my flaunting of linguistic history (in speculating on events,
societies, organizations, etc in a hypothetical future) soured too many
people?
I wrote:
I assumed that given their global dominance, Rosetta would be most
influenced by [English, French, Hindi, Mandarin, etc) on all fronts.
Even after centuries and reforms,
their phonological footprint would remain. The sounds of the seed
languages are no longer fully represented in Rosetta, because I've
trimmed away the sounds that were the least common.
Phonology:
Consonants (36): m n n^ N p b t d t. c k g q ? f v T D s z s. z. x h h?
r r<trl> r" l j w<vls> w dz ts ts. dz.
Vowels (16): i y u I U e @<umd> @ o E O" O & &. a a.
(based on sci.lang's FAQ's guideline, as best as I could decipher)
(Note: Devanagari has 34 consonants and 12 vowels represented, so the
numbers I listed for Rosetta are not that unrealistic.)
Which sounds are most likely to collapse into others, near enough that
they might be represented by the same glyph? Particularly vowels. I
have my own guesses, but they're only guesses. I plan on having some
featural elements in the letters, for certain sounds that are likely to
remain distinct enough to warrant it. I have no qualms about a 30+ or
40+ character alphabet, the more the better.
Diphthongs and triphthongs - I'd rather not have any, would this be
doable with some well-placed and carefully considered
diacritics/features?
Given the above seed languages (but remembering that they aren't the
only sources from which Rosetta will inherit), any speculation as to
the characteristics of Rosetta's grammar and vocabulary?
--
DJensen
What is the plot of your novel? You spoke of a posthuman era.
What do you mean by that? a time after a nuclear war? or
a new species? Homo sapiens sapiens sapiens? or perhaps
humans in a new shape, genetically modified? Some years ago
I read an article in The Scientific American, as I recall, wherein
doctors improved the human body according to their ideas. If
this should be possible one day, and if also the voice apparatus
should be inflicted, language will change. Language also changes
with technology -- the more self constructed things we use, the
more words we create. English in the time of Shakespeare had
some 200,000 words, information technology alone introduced
200,000 new English words. What you need for your novel are
a clear idea about the people and their material culture. Then
you might experiment with language. For exampel yu mait jast
wrait words as spouken. Luks fanny. Then you might follow words
into the future by pronouncing them silently, over and over again,
and observe what happens to them. When you voice the words,
the phonological system of the brain sets in and keeps them
in place within what I call the verbal morphospace, which is the
reason why languages are so stable, but when you pronounce
words without giving voice, over and over and over again, they
can shift and drift. You have to try out, it's fun. So far my advice.
For the time being I can't say more, as I know nothing about the
plot of your novel.
Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch
.
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