Conlangery #29: Sound Systems and Romanization

Conlangery #29: Sound Systems and Romanization

Published: Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:00:47 +0000 \

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Transcript

utterance-id1 that's <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> day [noise] [noise] <unk> pardon my language is people are jordan quarterly with me [noise] from england to do my lovely cohost reactor richard picked john okay i was thinking that i have all the way up until i should be under and [noise] and then we have the indispensable william anna's hello [noise] yeah [noise] so how is everybody's today just oh i forgot to say um i i want to say before we get started funny story i went on so there's a scenic train here now and they have a special christmas thing and this year they license polar extra us anyway i went with my two of my nieces and my nephew and it was awkward because i've never seen that movie i didn't have you ever seen that movie nope i heard it was creepy so i didn't yeah well i didn't know about the answer <unk> hot chocolate machine so when it's time to come out with the hot chocolate the first time this lady comes out with a giant puppet of a hot chocolate machine and yeah the public doesn't end up doing a whole lot but it's like you know is everybody ready for trot chocolate and then like sort of the the cat the um the attendance started like march out into the the center i all of our our crank car and they do a song and dance routine about hot chocolate it was somewhat frightening [laughter] mm [laughter] william is rendered speechless yeah [laughter] what for some reason that reminds me of one of my mom's favorite stories about my father who once we went to when i was you know much too small to remember this we went to see fireworks and when the twenty one gun salute started my dad screamed hit the ground 'cause he's never ever been in the war [laughter] you don't know why he did that that's insane that reminds me of another <unk> a rallying and i did at the naval academy and so we're going down there and then apparently they're having a fee and also like i um college came out and on like a make a lot of guys you need to hurry up there <unk> fit a funeral which they shot at the water and i was like i don't want to get shot stupid stuff like <unk> even though i think it's just blanks but still yeah you don't wanna be on the other the business end of the blank either anyway oh really [laughter] well well like hurt a black one stupid actor was playing with the gun flipped links and killed himself oh it was like what does he like trying to shoot really close [noise] yep yeah the the force of the explosion might uh blow air too <unk> i don't care to dwell on the physics of it i'd rather talk about the physics of articulate in confidence yes um well before we get to that one less thing hey williams in new york times i'm going to link that uh that they also talk more extensively about david <unk> peterson but that was the last episode and he's not listening so [laughter] anyway him anymore yeah we'll we'll linked to this article it's it's a little bit hilarious uh in in some of the ways that the the reporter halfway gets <unk> online community but doesn't quite oh as as articles go this one's okay yeah <unk> yeah it's better than most but yeah i i love how he says uh mr peterson the thirty year old who studied linguistics at the university of california san diego is a quote unquote con lying or with a hyphen cool good [laughter] as opposed to a pro laying arena okay whatever [laughter] anyway but as william was trying to segue into and i really messed him up [noise] we are going to it's kind of uh binary topic 'cause these two topics they're kind of they're not too closely related but they're they're they're important to handle it together we think and that is number one designing your sound system you're phonology and number two is <unk> well <unk> well i sort of assume that if you were inventing a language you can handle the sound system yourself so i focussed a little bit more in preparing on the roman his age and stuff but i think the number one question for for both matters is who are you doing this for if you're inventing a language for a novel then you're under a completely different constraints um especially for roman is asian some sort of die critical insanity will irritate your editor so uh so so keep that in mind that if you want to go you may need to adjust you're roman is asian to make it easy for someone to types that you're novel yes that's that's true and that's something we'll kind of get into um yeah i think i think the main thing in <unk> excuse me i think the main thing in talking about a <unk> designing your um <unk> in conjunction with your sound system is my advice is due to the finals you first yep absolutely because basically do your phonology and then you figure out how to write it because right down the <unk> uh and do fully because what distinctions you make in the phonology are important to what you can do um well you you mentioned here that sold real structure and tactics will will ah effect what you can uh do with the <unk> absolutely absolutely <unk> especially the how complex through syllables are the people that walls came up with some fun math to measure the complexity of syllables uh-huh [noise] um but i most interested in so we're going to talk about syllable parts you have the onset which is the confident that starts to settle the nucleus which is in the quote unquote vowel and the kowtow which is what every continent it's allowed to end the <unk> if you have mostly opens syllables or by which i mean there's no kowtow or you have a very restricted set of sounds that can <unk> then that makes <unk> whole lot easier [noise] um for example not beat uses that really funky notation to indicate objective confidence it uses an ex t. x. k._n._x. and the p._x. and the reason that did this couldn't use the normal way which is to use uh an apostrophe because in not be you're allowed to end syllable with an objective confident and start a syllable with a lot of stop [laughter] yeah you you get you get this horrible confusion so he had to do that i hadn't realized that i had thought that he done and this may have happened with like the the name not me but i had talked that there were some names which this spellings were already fixed for and he had to work around those but that was actually sort of more actual linguistic thing that he had to work or um i've seen some of the original word list he got from cameron and they were often spelled differently oh okay so from er adjusted to our dog and feed to be rational rather than the <unk> so [laughter] she acts decision is entirely <unk> we have to pause yeah em sound like the wizard of oz <unk> magic <unk> okay hold on a second let me [noise] okay part but now we just had some problems to deal with an hour winds i um i was gonna say the the the classic example that i had of syllable structured playing such an important role in coming up with your writing is many languages of australia you have a whole bunch of corona consummate um anti criminal i mean the thing is maybe to tom up behind your teeth tees in retrospect top top <unk> and all that [noise] because the social structure so restricted you can use t. h. to indicate the lemon all sat around and you'd be used as r. t. indicate retrospect style and that's because the normal those towns without normally come together in the course of a normal um australian word you would not get a team <unk> are are like that followed by so you can come up with the diet grass entirely permitted because of what was the little structures like if you have a much more debt <unk> syllable structured then you have to resort to funky tactics more often yeah i can see where that would occur and that's something i didn't think about um too much uh when i was thinking about how do phonology and all that um one thing uh i want people to work <unk> mainly on repetition is i wrote a published probably anybody listening to this has already seen by by rote poached uh a couple of weeks ago that was designing design <unk> on my perfect law and i'm not really like sitting here and read this to you but i'm you know and i think there was and it it's good that were covering things i didn't cover on her because i was basically putting down like uh rubik for figuring out what what's important to you when your design your own and not really any language pacific uh changes sure so i i dislike throughout this was written very quickly so i wrote um i put down like four different aspect i'll against the accessibility of history and so and i think you mentioned a little bit of what i was finding accessibility and um and then uh you mentioned author an author have to sort of picture <unk> it's not worth the pronunciation didn't the correct pronunciation well honestly i don't know if it matters a whole lot this little return to fix <unk> they wanted to be enough so that they can keep your character distinct right which and in the big problem aged like yeah right [laughter] <unk> [laughter] yeah especially novels or famous remember to keep that in mind if you're riding when i called in fact yes [laughter] yeah [laughter] oh it's not it's not some really bad thing i haven't been back in you know a lot of different places actually because it's not just using <unk> um [laughter] [laughter] yeah but i don't know i i <unk> when you use <unk> for <unk> to do you use <unk> <unk> ah get that done a little bit little bit later <unk> elders older actually yes yes um and so actually georgia i think that the questions is laid out elegance acceptability fedex and industry are are a great way thinking about that is wild um especially fell against you know use graphs critics we look at like which is i'm sure the language and better or or is diverted fickle marxist well <unk> my my point just it just <unk> <unk> some are you having those three are good i think i would just say okay so we have [noise] why i identified for categories and people can argue with me whether these are the right things to go right sort of revert to judge things on or whether i should add something or or combine something but i have elegance which is one <unk> basically the simplest possible uh an elegant the most elegant solution will be um for a musician will be the simplest you know the the smallest number of independent <unk> the few <unk> dire critics in die graphs that can cover the whole all the funding make distinctions accessibility is how easy it is for your target audience to understand that's language specific but anyway it's that <unk> is how it looks to you what what what letters you like it's completely subjective and history is you know if you're a crazy person who does the the full owned by occurred chronic stuff do you reflect the history of the language in the um the turtle history of language in the <unk> or whatever you're if you'd been to writing system you might do the same thing there yeah yeah i mean i think i get the history of flower you can include 'cause no matter what let a teacher <unk> ninety or something and the <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> yeah i found i chairs lie for one language because i thought it hot <unk> american fare and i cherish for another language because i've <unk> i thought it was cool [laughter] yeah and um i think like the history even though it's not as based in reality you know it's it's <unk> internal history more so yeah which i didn't really think of where to put that but um basically and um those principles you might be able to <unk> mix up accessibility really to the written two icon script and all of a <unk> a lot of what we're gonna talk about will apply to <unk> pretty much any time you're transcribing it into another at least into a another system that you can do for <unk> stuff with um transcribing uh con lying words into like chinese would end up with a lot of extra challenges that we wouldn't we we don't don't want to talk about here [laughter] like here even do that [laughter] uh <unk> world war two the japanese were coming up with plans to represent all languages including english [noise] um in some combination of <unk> and <unk> really yeah that was a very small part of their war effort but it was considered uh in in terms of of elegance and coming up with a practical or saw graffiti i i begged people i'm in a big people do several things in this episode i begging people to make the common things common <unk> easy if you have two kinds of east sound make the plane eat with no die critical marks be the one that happens most often okay there was one language i saw where i looked like every <unk> over it oh okay but if the sound is that common how 'bout you just make the plane he be that and use you know would die critic for the least common burying it though that's happened <unk> because most people have to <unk> buttons to do that guy credit right and <unk> and this takes us to the sound system thing the great danger of using an automated tool to create um uh uh a gigantic word list and similarly it's a it's a problem that can happen if you're doing it by hand carelessly is no natural language has it sounds occurred was equal frequency throughout the language right which is why you need to use the multiplier zone awkward but anyway right so so hopefully if you're having you can answer the question which town is more common yeah um and get funky die critic and which one will be playing what languages that shit is is more calm than <unk> so just a plain s. is used for sure and then <unk> force i <unk> i think yeah i thought so yeah so you can think of things like that so in some cases you need this kind of balance that i'd be uh with also the idea of will people will be able to pronounce it but you know of course no one will ever know on just reading from the <unk> will print outs your <unk> correctly without some instructions but still right um it's something to consider [noise] anyway um [noise] what else do we wanna think about um well you you talk a little while ago about one grassy <unk> so the difference between a phony <unk> or <unk> or a sony makes transcription and ate phone ethic transcription is really it worked so phoney <unk> is the sort of platonic ideal of a sound [laughter] and and then and then phonetics or how it's actually realized well then this is the situation where you know of vowel might be pronounced slightly different in an accent it's available versus <unk> um i don't like calling it the the uh the platonic ideal because it it varies from language language but it what native speakers recognize as having the same time i live right whereas the fanatic is what actually comes out of their mouth right so <unk> the main reason i bring that up is if you want people to read your language you might need to compromise that rule so we always go back and i certainly i always go back to dirt opening his language too ah has a very phoney make spelling that gives a very little clue to someone without training however it is actually pronounced i think i was guilty of that one as well yeah actually yeah to think about it um see i have my own sort of method behind <unk> ah what i do with that but you know don't be afraid of that really if if if it's important for you that people pronounce it correctly and you have a lot of different of of things where people can get thrown off because of <unk> right because um the what what i think of is in uh there's a <unk> japanese one the most common ruined his asian for japanese trends lives rates uh uh <unk> which is our phone uh of uh <unk> as s. h. right right and and there are a bunch of natural languages were that's that's always you're you're difficulty i think some <unk> i mean you got some of these <unk> second languages which provided the inspiration for two i wear a v. <unk> is simply an <unk> p. that occurs between levels and our <unk> the flap is simply t. between bottles and you can choose however you want to write it but if you expect other people to pronounce the words you might want to you you know compromise that that one <unk> and then we're we're not necessarily saying do this or or don't do this this is this is er suggestion to think about <unk> about what your priorities are if you if if if you're okay with people occasionally missed pronouncing something because you would prefer that the that you had an elegant system that that was purely for anemic then <unk> <unk> since i <unk> um actually ended up with a <unk> good <unk> terribly and i hate when people are like anything you just <unk> <unk> <unk> you don't know it sounds i going to be <unk> to each other and caravan and until you know that yeah <unk> i may not make any sense um but anyway i ended up with the chicken because i waited till the end but i could have censored i could have had it hit me in and now that would have been that difficult [noise] but i didn't want to be <unk> it'd be something that <unk> steak <unk> where the people are still some language itself they wouldn't have a need for it [noise] yeah i mean some of his assumes that other people are going to be reading your language at all [noise] most of the older you so lucky [laughter] most of us do not have the experience of other people's learning our language right so i mean part of this is a little bit you know wishful thinking honestly but i mean if if you're planning to use your language you have to remember and write it as well so mhm yeah it's sort of and the morphology it's probably also a good idea to have a little bit of morphology worked out before you even do the <unk> too because there are <unk> systems out there there's sure and there's religion <unk> reasons to go that way so i mean it's just my number one advice to people it's like <unk> you don't <unk> <unk> you <unk> say during draft on the whole thing so that would be like you do a little bit of <unk> <unk> and get my <unk> my <unk> at the beginning and asking that play during <unk> and yank going to get it yeah i i my guess is some people actually do just creepy full phonology from the start and go on from there but i i do you do is i i have one sheet of paper where i put down the most basic series of constants by place of articulation so there'll be <unk> there'll be a k. almost always and that's the starting point and then they asked i want some you've you've <unk> they might want some <unk> and then you you start feeling in in and moving down the <unk> the columns am i going to have voice to my not going to voice my going to have all the nasal [noise] what sort of approximately blah blah blah but you can feel it out but i leave that big an open 'cause i might decide later hey i once they're metroplex confidence and i need the room to write them down [noise] yeah i'd have to represent them and and really if you're making going back to making the phonology [noise] uh i don't know if i said this earlier but i say i say now i strongly encourage people to create their phonology using a chart like that because you will see your series you will see um you know the snake features you'll see the uh sim a tree right most sound systems aren't perfectly symmetrical and and there are certain <unk> go ahead oh but they're not going to be in <unk> right exactly that was where exactly where i was going to most of them are not observed like cling on um [laughter] so right so laying them out like an <unk> with your you know with your place of articulation and <unk> and you know start from there and then decide if things need to get knocked out or if you want to the twist things are going to have all your name's was all of that can be done and that would give you something a little bit more natural then the bizarre grab bag that yeah [laughter] i'd probably um vowels you might want to start with one of the the the common systems like the the five <unk> three <unk> and then work from there sure square system and worked for him there so we should maybe tell people what that is so that the the three by we'll try and go is and i'm just i'm not going to talk about the letters i'm gonna make the sam's is e. ooh and ah right there tends to be a lot of alimony with those because you've only got the three and they can sort of spread out and funny wage [noise] um the the square can be in in different ways i'm used to north america where ah e. a. ah and <unk> are very common okay you tip you write you drop ooh [noise] or you can get the three system with a mid vowel somewhere in the middle and uh uh <unk> uh or uh <unk> uh <unk> and then most people know the five <unk> which is like spanish like japanese it's he who eh oh ah right and then you're seven which is the next step up usually has all of those but makes a distinction between when i called tense and lax <unk> and oh so you have a and eh and <unk> and all yeah at the most common one and then there may or may not be a <unk> like thing tossed in there as well yeah and figuring out your vows is very important [noise] when you're doing <unk> because ah once you get to the <unk> you have five letters to work with right so if you have more than five vowels which don't let anything discourage you from having more than five because there's plenty of language is english has sixteen bells yeah <unk> um quite a lot when you think about it just logically usual yeah but uh basically if you if you have a lot of <unk> you have to remember that you're either going to have to use die grass or die of critics to express them up uh right right so got us <unk> ah i have to edit [laughter] so so i i made a list of particular problems towns and i have a few devoted survival is because they really are the trickiest what'd you do about <unk> and other mid vowels <unk> uses easy with the <unk> so uh um <unk> and some other utah has taken languages which had these mid central bells and all of this um often use <unk> so you <unk> in hope he is usually actually in it is not to sound you'd expect to make some german um welsh uses the y. and i think that's a perfectly good use of why if you've not used it for something else that's <unk> well you know historical linguistics produced it's such fun spellings i just i had my i i don't know i just i always think of why as a <unk> you you you have been too influenced by why p._a. um scandinavian or scandinavian um and then if you think you know you're prepared to do more exotic things and i was a bar through it or you with a bar through it our old so they're more likely to be seen in like formal grammar is of these languages but you know maybe you can work it into the practical or <unk> well yeah so this um you mentioned the say this new you mentioned this in your notes william this is if you need it this is dole try not to go too crazy with the critics and stuff because even if it's in your code eh not everywhere specifically if you're active on the <unk> er mailing list it ah i am constantly annoyed by it mutilated <unk> strange characters they like vietnamese it looks terrible with like the fact that critics might want to avoid it i know you know if you have lots of tones and super segment tools that might look like the best way to do it but just just think very carefully before you start stacking dire critics on top of each other right so that's the problem for vietnamese has has a large about inventory and the complex tone system and it just kinda like the west aesthetically let's <unk> i've seen it was <unk> by french people right yeah <unk> but i got this show like steak on that on anyway they're dead honestly i don't know how they could do much better <unk> i don't know i'm i guess i'm i'm i'm less it is a bit bewildering to look out sometimes but i'm not sure how they could get better so i don't know it's hard to unless they you introduce tone numbers but nobody ever wants to read with tone numbers yeah so when you see the ad that great now it's just <unk> [laughter] [noise] um and there are a few languages mostly from africa where the the tents versus the open versus closed a and <unk> they actually use the <unk> the the backwards see for the all sound and the little greek epsilon eh for the s. sound yeah i've done that and that's more common and i've seen one or two con lengths that are especially um [noise] inspired by african languages that uses and then that's pretty standard these days i think yeah it's there's just a lot of different ways you can go when you are working on a a <unk> and we're talking all about <unk> because i don't know about the others well well you might be able to tell you stuff about <unk> stuff but realistically most of us are no about the pitfalls of using the the latin alphabet and probably everybody's going to have a <unk> not everybody's going to try to <unk> well here's the thing i mean going to <unk> you better have a good refund facing the sweat like alphabet <unk> <unk> because i mean maybe it's got some great maybe you know you really like the way it looks and you'd have to really like it for me to <unk> like it's dry so on and says oh i maybe say you have a ton of <unk> like i <unk> you have to have a good reason flight cases i mean you know most people here are going to be a latin and <unk> <unk> <unk> <unk> again it's it's if you if you want an audience um actually the russians have a lot of practice coming up with <unk> because they have all of those interesting languages within the soviets fear yes yes um but [noise] sort of rolling back a little bit vowels i always find the hardest time coming up with the systems of roman is they should regulate the highest discuss that i that many led a slight then right after so many horrible things you can do to them well here's the thing is you have like i said we have you have five letters and also almost all of your um super <unk> you know funny makes stress <unk> <unk> anything like that most of those are going to be <unk> are you are going to born a mark on the bell right somehow so you end up with a lot of things like um you have to just sort of figure out what you you need to do with um uh i kind of laughing when i'm <unk> i'm <unk> i'm sorry [laughter] ah but i i said when you have a bunch of house i'm just you know non <unk> lettuce that he can ears [laughter] like i <unk> [noise] you know if she <unk> they made up to that age you know you can you know with the <unk> l. at the slash he can i said i went out a bunch of them can stand it looks really <unk> yeah basically it on my time it's forgivable to have an ashtray and like you know what <unk> yeah the uh slash okay well and you just you just want to do you want to also think about what what diet critics and what what ah characters you're using and seeing you know any cute and grave and 'til the and um the whom loud or <unk> whichever you're calling it depending on how you're using it um will all probably be supported on most systems but there's like um so i i put this into the notes and here um i was taking a chinese test on line and chinese uh <unk> this test for some reason was half half in <unk> which was a little annoying to try to read but um and the first place but it uses a cue grave uh macro ron and uh karen over the vows to mark the fork out this site however was not displaying <unk> or care on so i lost like more than half of the tone information so you know you have to understand also where you're posting things about this if and uh most of the time people support unit code but you know occasionally you will have to deal with that so don't use a lot of odd dire critics unless you have to especially you know that that diet critics pecking we're talking about with vietnamese sure so that that reminds me so there's there's two issues where die critic well three issues that interact together that can lead to die critic nightmares first <unk> <unk> second long or short to buy homes third toned and a half at penn state yeah so that i'm sorry did you like <unk> but the most common tone systems of the world have step system right use the low tone or high down main low mid hi those are easy tone contours then you start to get into all sorts of fun so i like she was navajos an example here 'cause it's end up <unk> much the same because they had to deal with the same issues vows can be long or short they can have normal or high tone they can be nasal oral so what they do so normally for nasal vows you put it 'til the on things but that doesn't work because you need an accent mark to mark tone so they use they they stole from polish and they use a gun neck which is that little tail so you you're writing a with a tail on it you gotta nasal eight and that leaves you space above the letter to put the tone mark so normal vowels are written without any market all anti bottles are written with a <unk> so what how do you mark along viable you're not have room for make round so they simply bite the vowels twice um that's that's kind of standard isn't it it it i think in some languages that standard um it's fairly common but not in fact common i mean there's no particular reason the languages australia couldn't have used a simple die critic to mark lung vowels but maybe they were other people with typewriters meant for the english language would you know who would have found it difficult to keep adding accents [noise] so the convention in australia and languages even though you don't usually have lots of other die critical fun going on is simply to make long but i was written twice yeah [noise] um [noise] so for me that's always the nightmare long and short vowels versus quality versus tone cause i i tend to make ten languages more often than than probably a lot of people do and medicare like kind of language once but i couldn't do it on your <unk> your bed accents and you're right um all other things being equal to town in three ten systems are easy to deal with and a lot of common contour tone system will mess with your head his 'cause 'cause 'cause you have to find some way to mark all of them and depending on you know you might have four to six tones here so you have to have unique ways mark all of them had money he has length on top of that 'cause it's cheaper i got out of <unk> um <unk> <unk> sure which is a long day happens in idaho as well as the say you had it but yeah that's why i'm that's why mandarin has four different <unk> diet critics for code ah which can in some cases get stacked on top of a new mom out um for opinion [laughter] [laughter] yeah and uh but the you know it's just sort of you just have to think about what you're getting um how you're going to it's uh it they're just so much of this stuff just depends on what your languages so without knowing what your languages specifically we can't give you too much of your um uh the uh advice specifically so but we have but these are just sort of the general things anyway we've gone very long on this topic so i think it's time we we move on any objections that could have just plead with everyone to not use unit code unless you <unk> yeah yeah yeah we're characters if it's a completely boring sound and your sound system is not huge yeah that's all i have to say about that if you need <unk> or epsilon or the backwards see thing for your if that's the only way that it will work the way you want it to that use it but don't allow smoking and <unk> yeah <unk> yeah i <unk> have a reason for it it's fine yeah you know yeah <unk> yeah you do you have a <unk> that can trust with um the veal or nasal plus gee now still you can <unk> i love it oh anyway [laughter] oh oh well but you you have a reason to use it but anyway um we need to move on so we are going to do something different today in that we are instead of doing a <unk> we did a poll recently and most people were uh happy with this idea that we would <unk> occasionally feature natural language is instead of um <unk> <unk> <unk> which is all like there were people who didn't like the idea for three people who who who objected to it outright and two people who suggest a better idea but forty but most of the people who respond as our whole were positive about it so here we are today featuring a natural language which is the <unk> language is called um we we call it much soon but <unk> <unk> much soon it is a poster knowing language um it is it still alive no it is dead is dead language it <unk> it was at one time spoken in <unk> california near the sign of <unk> so um if you know where that is i just know it's in california but and i really if anybody's going to try to google this language just dull just come to our show notes and click on the link because it's very difficult to google but we picked for this language is because the grammar that we're using for the show is the dissertation of mark <unk> the inventor of clean on yes now we should mention that he wrote this on a typewriter using starting off from the the american is transcription system but as a function of both of those things he has some odd ways of transcribing the the phonology because you know he wrote it on a typewriter right well let's get to that in a second um [noise] this dissertation is interesting to me for a number of reasons because how it was written is pretty funky [noise] once upon a time the world was good and bow as was you know the linguistic anthropologists didn't he and his students felt that you studied language by going out into the field and hanging out with people the last you know fifty people speaking some language and you learned about the language and it's context and culture and all of that and then there was darkness on the face of the deep end the name of chums ski who said that language isn't a ton of his formal system that you can study like symbolic logic <unk> theory and all of these great dissertation on dying languages replaced by dissertation on quizzes deletion <unk> what do you mean it just this american tradition of documenting languages as part of your job of becoming a linguist died when <unk> came up with his <unk> <unk> this grammar exists because <unk> went into the archives of university and found piles of field to notes infield recordings of a language that they were no speakers left for they were all gone by the time he got to writing this thing up yeah i notice that he's he's siting people all over the place this is my this is him <unk> constructing what this language was from other people's note from other people's notes fortunately he had what that must be terrible like when our state fair math attract faster figuring things out with being able to ask them things i i can't imagine being like why didn't you asking this why didn't you ask them life l._a._x. rubbing saliva on us [laughter] he can't right so the grammar that we have here is necessarily incomplete there are things he can't no cause he cannot do exactly what bianca wants to do which is go ask someone uh-huh yeah complete i i think it's remarkable accomplishment that he was able to do this with material you had yeah it's it's a very i have not gotten i i will confess i have not gotten through the whole thing i was just before the episode trying to skim through it is very very law and involved and very very thorough and as such it has you know like fifty pages phonology it fully a third of this document is about the sound system and phone i let's let's hang lightly <unk> but that's explained that you know kid <unk> ask things that you think i'm going to be wrong to see if you can get the negative proof but there's no syntax chapter well the one thing i did like about the <unk> that usually don't find income lanka is that it had found a logical processors which you don't find that often yeah i'm wrong but i enjoy <unk> <unk> here's the thing since we're not we're evaluating this language it saying that lying so probably when we're talking about a <unk> <unk> we need to be looking for things to draw out of this information that we can incorporate into con lightning artistically so that's one thing is look at his that look at the point of logical processors and this languages see what you can come up with see see if that kind of thing is something you would like you you should treat in your own uh i was wrong there's over a hundred pages of <unk> yeah and it's so one interesting thing about the phonology that i just wanted to mention is because there are a bunch of other coast and languages he has some historical beta for example the ancestor language at one point had <unk> that is <unk> <unk> that sort of stuff katy with little w those <unk> subsequently disappeared however some interesting things happen to known in verb ah roots um when they're derived from various kinds of chapel's happened and sometimes you get k. and sometimes you get w out the other end and he's able to point to to um historical president precedent so i think [noise] um this language is documented mostly from a chronic rather than a die chronic standpoint but there's enough die chronic stuff to give you an <unk> some great ideas i think on getting die chronic stuff into your <unk> without being overwhelmed by you know if you want to invent a language why should i have to invent another language first [laughter] and then drive it <unk> but but this gives you some things to think about some some straightforward stuff some historical stuff to work with mhm yeah you can you can do some of that and that way you can you can learn what um what things a linguistic well it would be able to discern for my language about a prayer language right and that could serve to limit your work when you're when you're trying to give a sense of <unk> without actually depriving boy although i do invite beyond cut to look on page twelve this is a common feature of the languages of california and it becomes a stronger featured the further south you go is that a distinguishes dental from retro flex confidence <unk> soon is way up north compared to the other end so it only has the one retro flex not unlike click on [laughter] i mean it's fun to do it for one found but don't do it for five well and um we should say okay yes it only has one rough to flex but it only has one stop series and uh right only voice lists and it's a rich reflects stop so it's not that it's not like it there there's not even in <unk> in that particular instance but there is there is no nasal for it there's no africa it it's just one it hits the own call them yeah but i mean there's some <unk> to stop it's not like it's true you know they decided to add like two might approximate i actually am i thinking nasal are never are are not are usually not symmetrical with the the stops the and a lot of uh all the others the <unk> the interesting thing is that there are six stops there were only three <unk> so uh sure but the dental l._v. alert column is full all the way down the retro flicks only has one i mean presumably i mean this is clearly in area effect right so you couldn't ya i'd getting back to our original topic you can justify the occasional weird sound in your language if you can say you know it's neighbors have this sound out especially <unk> way that's a good <unk> <unk> not the whole <unk> thing yeah the the <unk> bag of weirdness is yeah yeah yeah yeah you never want to go with a <unk> but as we can see here you know a natural language will tend to have one or two odd things at least and in this case this sort of oddly has one retro flex whereas yeah i can see the dental and the power polls are almost full mhm all how <unk> how common as it set language <unk> uh stops <unk> that <unk> um [noise] that's weird because the veal or nasal everyone hates i now it has a beer or only occur in very controlled environments some languages have a perfectly we'll have nasal for every part of education and others will only have and an m. and whatever happens 'cause i was doing <unk> <unk> on like p._a. and ask <unk> and and i kinda stopped facing rash p._t._a. and <unk> and then i went to see the <unk> like you said the exact same <unk> i am so lucky that english that staff because see they never aren't that common i don't think well <unk> except that remember english is ah veal or nasal is extremely uh it's it's only <unk> yeah the only a quota only ever occurs is a code uh which is uh fairly strong and i think that happens i think that's often what the ah constrained isn't it is it that it can only be a coat and a lot of like it is but there's um there are some places like australia once again comes to mind where every place of articulation we'll have a nasal equivalent usually in in many of these languages but this one this one has this uh this is something that that uh is makes this hard i'm not sure if he me met that this is uh <unk> and <unk> if it if i <unk> yeah but it looks like it should be the powerful nasal i think so yeah um so <unk> em and and you know what's what's interesting about this i mean we're we're kind of obsessing on the sound system and his language um there are various grammatical processes it's not a heavily polly synthetic language like some of it's neighbors another native american languages um but it does do things to roots to produce different kinds of stems and that produces all sorts of affects that changed bible links um that shuffle caused syllables to disappear um accents to shift so one of the reasons this language has such an enormous section unsound the sound system is because there's so many <unk> uh more <unk> more of a funny make changes going on in terms of the grammar there's some interesting derivation of elements and it seems a little preoccupied with some voice i mean more than english is certainly um but that doesn't seem to be anything remarkably strange dramatically about this language that jumped out at me as you want to see if you want to say excuse me if you want to see um some uplifting it was at work so you can do this which includes the magnificent example sentence you far did on me [laughter] some page two twenty one if anyone wants to go to say that in <unk> oh <unk> that is not ah one that somebody made up about us in there that's that's probably was one on one of his tapes right some of them <unk> somebody said that helped me in a library <unk> [laughter] [noise] um right it has uh pro clinic and included varieties pronouns which appears to be i don't think um verbs are conjugate admit we've had various kinds of <unk> going on [noise] um what was i going to say it has a mediocre passive [laughter] yeah i didn't catch the whole uh oh what do you call that crap anyway <unk> act everything right you know the <unk> [laughter] that's the thing with this stuff well i can't really say much more 'cause i'm just now like <unk> through the the morphology section no there's there's a lot of interesting stuff there that that someone who's used especially people [noise] excuse me especially people who are stuck in in the european or you know japanese are turkish write these are the languages every linguistic student hears about there's a lot interesting going on here if you are not used to looking at languages of these types it actually has a couple of different types of redo publication yep in here so that you can have uh the it has c._b._c. reduced location or like the first the first constant constant <unk> gets <unk> and then there's <unk> you can <unk> the whole family lives oh georgia if we should talk about the the natural language monica sometimes which has you know a good doesn't kinds of reduced location which is triggered by all sorts of things and yeah <unk> a wonderfully crazy language yeah um um <unk> yeah <unk> most of these languages that were picking have grammar is available freebie on the web which is i hope we can stick with that um yeah most people wouldn't normally know about this but berkeley has a big archive where a lot of these native language is if the documentation is out of copyright they make them available [noise] so that's how i picked this one yeah and you know we'll we'll we'll make sure we look for stuff like well <unk> well make sure that we look for languages that you can find on line and some warm at least and uh late yeah these publicly available grammar that are public domain [noise] maybe if we can find if we find grammar on the like public library sites and stuff we can do that yeah ooh page two eighty seven has a special kind of imperative suffix which she caused the i don't know where the accent on that would be the end of tubes imperative which means go to law blah blah go dance so we're back you go you're in <unk> <unk> does this language have much um i keep i keep trying to i i i keep messing up saying realizing that this is a natural wax which does this language have any weird um <unk> that it does not much talk of that in this and <unk> when you're dealing with just sentences it's harder to come up with natural yeah it might be difficult when you can't ask questions as <unk> i i it's a pretty large document and it's scanned so it's hard to search and um so i i don't recall much in the way of mood yeah i think i'm going to sometime later <unk> read it but i don't have time to read the whole thing now but yeah this is and if you like us talking about natural language is once in a while um shoot isn't email if you if you like this idea that we were doing this um we are running fairly long in this episode yes so we're gonna have to ah um cut off on here but you know without sorry i just saw another derivation of ethics i missed through the position of cause addictive <unk> infrequently get tested but seems didn't mean to cause someone to be in a position to yeah [laughter] that's a page twenty that's neat that's okay i see the end that they've been part of now um gees but anyway um shoot us an email if you like this idea and you know you can you can suggest that likes to now oh i i may try to modify the forms you can do that but yeah um we won't do this all the time this is just like an occasional thing but uh i hope you guys like us highlighting this and really we weren't able to tell you everything that was <unk> very long so well it just seems like a good way to bring up languages people might not otherwise i've run across <unk> necessary natural language s. s. will come a classy chased that we may not be able to find getting con wrongs just because you know natural language just lacking some crazy race and that good <unk> yeah it's it's a great way to find features that nobody else uses like or anything interesting example sentences [laughter] yeah [laughter] so um i think that we can sort of wrap this up again if you like this this idea students in email will do this sort of from time to time when we feel like it i'm not gonna like do like every other episode the net lying but every every so often will do it so um anyway <unk> do you have any final wisdom nope okay william don't use <unk> as a viable [laughter] i'm gonna i'm gonna also as i said before when he says that don't use <unk> either uh but anyway uh then i'm going to say <unk> you more listening to bond lawyer you can wind up on <unk> on winery can also follows on google blossom <unk> online or [noise] if you would like to be drawn lying <unk> directed arab or just say hey you can email and the library at the mailbox you can also sent audio while so that address <unk> three zero war eight seven three two one [noise] part of the music was gridlock derek hey learn his band no the y. [noise] no one definitely got pregnant and <unk> watch and i probably get back in the first one and that way uh [laughter] raising our time i have to do that way <unk> slugging prey so this morning i'm like oh we have we have <unk> today so i went up to my coffee shop with a new book and i read all sorts of stuff [laughter] but not for the episode [laughter] funny thing about not being able to <unk> you're pretty much spend a lot of <unk> the famous british bureaucracy so i'm internet famous today he managed to get some face time for his cat that's hysterical [noise] a few times now i've heard you use the phrase where you say that something broke your head [laughter] is that a normal part of your regional dialect or is that some but i don't think it's a regional thing i think it's an idealistic cool thing from that time frame that channel ah <unk> cox and i'm <unk> i'm in the chat but i'm not laugh at some of her name was caught

Tags

  1. Conlangery Podcast
  2. Podcast
  3. conlang
  4. language
  5. linguistics
  6. Mutsun
  7. phonology
  8. romanization
  9. sound system

Conlangery Podcast/Conlangery 29 Sound Systems and Romanization (last edited 2017-09-06 18:38:58 by TranscriBot)