Iac Marscheir
Citizen of Talossa
yak marsh air
Posts: 782
Talossan Since: 12-3-2016
Baron Since: Qet Miestra tent zirada.
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Post by Iac Marscheir on Nov 10, 2017 12:57:14 GMT -6
Personally, I feel that the current orthography has the perfect amount of quirkiness. It's got some weird digraphs and thorn and eth, and enough diacritics to make it interesting to look at, but it's not over the top bristling with them and adding more sounds than the language needs to be understandable.
If it's hard for people to tell the difference between /æ/ and /ɛ/, get rid of e and replace it with ä denoting the /ɛ/ sound. That gets rid of another sound. AFAIK, there aren't any words where ä and e are in the same place and distinguishing the two requires distinguishing the vowels. As a corollary, you could revert the infinitive ending to -rë, but you'd no longer need the diaeresis over the ë.
I actually wouldn't mind a feminine-noun/qualifier final a with breve. Looks kinda cool, and Romanian, I think, has a relatively understated role compared to other Romance languages. I would not recommend a with circumflex because that's the stress-marked form of the a with diaeresis.
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Post by Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun on Nov 10, 2017 15:06:02 GMT -6
Okay, let us do this:
I am quite fond of Î, î. However, I always thought that circumflexes looked clumsy, and I know not why. I would not be against replacing it with Ï, ï.
As for the Schwa [ə], Talossan reduces a lot of unstressed vowels. Therefore, the letter Ë, ë should, if at all, be employed only in words where a Schwa is a primarily-stressed vowel. It is debatable, whether prepositions would fall under this category, but I could support that words such as për (in the sense of “for, in support of, agreeing to”) be written with a diaeresis.
I am absolutely fond of Å, å, and I believe it is an important phoneme of Talossan. I advocate for bringing it back.
I am all for a feminine marker on the A, a ― but do let it be a Breve. As I said, I dislike Circumflexes. Keep the letter Ă, ă. It should be used for nouns, adjectives, and adverbia derived therefrom.
I am just not sure whether I could support a comeback of -rë (for irregular verbs only?).
As pertaining unto the matter of mutations (yes, I know; va c'hupă), I want this settled. I hate the uncertainty of it, I hate that nobody likes it, and I hate that Talossan seems not right without it, either.
I would love to reduce the di-, tri- and quatrigraphs that we have, into more compact letters.
I hate <Gnh, gnh>, which used to be <Gñh, gñh>, I think; but adopting Ñ, ñ for it might prove problematic, since, at one time, it was used for [ŋ]. Ň, ň is ugly. Ń, ń as well. We might just use Nj, nj? That has the benefit of eliminating confusion between <gn> [gn~ŋn] and <gnh>, as well.
I also dislike <schc> for [ʃt͡ʃ], especially when a back vowel follows.. I would propose just plain using a diacritic for that. Either Ş, ş, or Ș, ș, or Š, š, or Ś, ś, or Ṡ, ṡ. I am partial unto the cedilla variant, because it reminds me of a C underneath an S. But whatever works for you, works for me.
Also, can we get rid of the apostrophe that makes the <C'h, c'h> [x] sound? Let us use some other letter with ANY diacritic but an apostrophe. At least, let it be a COMBINING apostrophe, for heaven’s sake!
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Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN
Seneschal
the new Jim Hacker
Posts: 6,635
Talossan Since: 6-25-2004
Dame Since: 9-8-2012
Motto: Expulseascâ, reveneascâ
Baron Since: Feudal titles are for gimps
Duke Since: Feudal titles are for gimps
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Post by Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN on Nov 10, 2017 16:11:04 GMT -6
I would not recommend a with circumflex because that's the stress-marked form of the a with diaeresis. The breve is a bitch to spell on a standard Windows or Linux international keyboard, though.
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Iac Marscheir
Citizen of Talossa
yak marsh air
Posts: 782
Talossan Since: 12-3-2016
Baron Since: Qet Miestra tent zirada.
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Post by Iac Marscheir on Nov 10, 2017 16:16:12 GMT -6
I would not recommend a with circumflex because that's the stress-marked form of the a with diaeresis. The breve is a bitch to spell on a standard Windows or Linux international keyboard, though. I'm pretty sure there are ways to map certain characters to certain keys using your computer's settings.
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Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial
Batetz las maes, perf. —— Freelance glheþineir (I only accept Worthless Internet Points™ as payment)
Posts: 448
Talossan Since: May 12, 2014
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Post by Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial on Nov 10, 2017 16:26:16 GMT -6
I would love to reduce the di-, tri- and quatrigraphs that we have, into more compact letters. I hate <Gnh, gnh>, which used to be <Gñh, gñh>, I think; but adopting Ñ, ñ for it might prove problematic, since, at one time, it was used for [ŋ]. Ň, ň is ugly. Ń, ń as well. We might just use Nj, nj? That has the benefit of eliminating confusion between <gn> [gn~ŋn] and <gnh>, as well. I also dislike <schc> for [ʃt͡ʃ], especially when a back vowel follows.. I would propose just plain using a diacritic for that. Either Ş, ş, or Ș, ș, or Š, š, or Ś, ś, or Ṡ, ṡ. I am partial unto the cedilla variant, because it reminds me of a C underneath an S. But whatever works for you, works for me. I was toying with the idea of respelling gnh and glh to nh and lh respectively. Pro: more compact, more Romance than nj (yes, because Portuguese and also Occitan... wait, isnt Talossan supposed to be related to Occitan or something? How fitting) and it doesn't look as ridiculous (maybe a con?). Con: we'd have to change the CÚG into CÚL. ¡el þoror!
Similarly, I noticed that l'Översteir has 16 words which have sc followed by either e or i, and 53 which have schc followed by either e or i. My idea was to respell schc[e/i] as sc[e/i]. Pro: compactness! Con: we'd have to change the 16 instances of sc[e/i] into s'c[e/i], which is what you wanted to avoid with gnh/gn/g'n. That's the best I got for now.
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Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN
Seneschal
the new Jim Hacker
Posts: 6,635
Talossan Since: 6-25-2004
Dame Since: 9-8-2012
Motto: Expulseascâ, reveneascâ
Baron Since: Feudal titles are for gimps
Duke Since: Feudal titles are for gimps
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Post by Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN on Nov 10, 2017 16:37:52 GMT -6
The breve is a bitch to spell on a standard Windows or Linux international keyboard, though. I'm pretty sure there are ways to map certain characters to certain keys using your computer's settings. I know this, but it was convenient how pre-2007 Talossan used only characters in the standard Windows/Latin international keyboard set-up. (No coincidence, of course, that that would have been very convenient for the computer-knowhow-challenged KR1.)
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Iac Marscheir
Citizen of Talossa
yak marsh air
Posts: 782
Talossan Since: 12-3-2016
Baron Since: Qet Miestra tent zirada.
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Post by Iac Marscheir on Nov 10, 2017 17:44:50 GMT -6
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Post by Alèx Soleighlfred on Nov 10, 2017 23:29:52 GMT -6
Con: we'd have to change the CÚG into CÚL. ¡el þoror!
No you wouldn't need too. There's such a convenient thing as exceptions in linguistics :)
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Iac Marscheir
Citizen of Talossa
yak marsh air
Posts: 782
Talossan Since: 12-3-2016
Baron Since: Qet Miestra tent zirada.
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Post by Iac Marscheir on Nov 11, 2017 8:31:42 GMT -6
I think glh should stay as it is, precisely because it’s impossible to not notice. Besides, it appears more often than thorn and eth combined, so it’s a pretty good identifier for Talossan texts.
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Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial
Batetz las maes, perf. —— Freelance glheþineir (I only accept Worthless Internet Points™ as payment)
Posts: 448
Talossan Since: May 12, 2014
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Post by Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial on Nov 11, 2017 8:34:16 GMT -6
I think glh should stay as it is, precisely because it’s impossible to not notice. Besides, it appears more often than thorn and eth combined, so it’s a pretty good identifier for Talossan texts. I agree, but I think the same thing about gnh. I'm just saying that if we change one, we should change both.
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Iac Marscheir
Citizen of Talossa
yak marsh air
Posts: 782
Talossan Since: 12-3-2016
Baron Since: Qet Miestra tent zirada.
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Post by Iac Marscheir on Nov 11, 2017 8:37:42 GMT -6
Also, on your note about the occurences of schce and schci, if they’re hard to say (and let’s be honest, they are), get rid of the c, make it sche and schi.
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Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial
Batetz las maes, perf. —— Freelance glheþineir (I only accept Worthless Internet Points™ as payment)
Posts: 448
Talossan Since: May 12, 2014
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Post by Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial on Nov 11, 2017 10:31:48 GMT -6
No no no no no! This is not about how words are pronounced, only how they're spelled! That's my issue with the 2007 Arestada: it wasn't anyone's business to decree that some words are now pronounced differently. Let's not commit the same mistake over and over.
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Post by Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun on Nov 11, 2017 12:39:37 GMT -6
Also, on your note about the occurences of schce and schci, if they’re hard to say (and let’s be honest, they are), get rid of the c, make it sche and schi. Now, come on! [ʃt͡ʃ] is not at all difficult. I submit that, if you can pronounce ashtray (which surfaces, more often than not in American English, as [ˈæʃt͡ʃɹʷeɪ̯]), then you can pronounce <schc(i/e)>. You know what really is difficult? ... Nothing! Because if it exists, then somebody can pronounce it. And if somebody can pronounce it, it is not difficult for that somebody, such that it is not difficult objectively. The only difficulty is for the non-native to get used to the new movements that the muscles in mouth and throat must make. And, in any case, spelling is not concerned with how (perceivedly) difficult the pronunciation of phonemes and clusters are. That is a matter, which the collective of speakers decides over time.
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Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial
Batetz las maes, perf. —— Freelance glheþineir (I only accept Worthless Internet Points™ as payment)
Posts: 448
Talossan Since: May 12, 2014
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Post by Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial on Nov 11, 2017 13:34:02 GMT -6
The point I was making is that what is and isn't hard to say is entirely subjective (exhibit 1: this thread), and therefore it shouldn't and mustn't be our goal to "purge" Talossan of diffucult to pronounce sounds -- because, as I said, what is and isn't difficult is subjective.
This doesn't mean that word pronunciations can't change, indeed they do, and once they do they get respelled, as can be seen with û which used to be a distinct vowel but has since undergone soundchanges towards [ʊ], as it seems. Once the pronunciation of [ʃt͡ʃ] shifts to [ʃ] to enough people, it warrants an orthographic update. This is different to how î was treated in 2007; instead of changing în and îm to in and im (which was justified since [ɨ] and [i] before [n] and [m] sound identical, so KR1 and Gariçeir wanted this to happen), î was replaced everywhere with whatever vowel made sense etymologically, effectively acting as if it had never existed.
Therefore, I'd like to reverse this unjustified change in phonology. Please.
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Istefan Perþonest
Cunstaval to Fiôvâ; Regent of the University of Talossa
Posts: 1,024
Talossan Since: 2-21-1998
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Post by Istefan Perþonest on Nov 11, 2017 23:49:02 GMT -6
I'm pretty sure there are ways to map certain characters to certain keys using your computer's settings. I know this, but it was convenient how pre-2007 Talossan used only characters in the standard Windows/Latin international keyboard set-up. (No coincidence, of course, that that would have been very convenient for the computer-knowhow-challenged KR1.) To be fair, even people with extensive computer know-how would have had difficulty using characters outside of a single 8-bit ISO/IEC character set back before UTF-8 finally won the war for "default" Unicode encoding. Latin-1 was particularly convenient in that that the Windows "US International" keyboard was designed to produce it, but of the available ISO/IEC 8859 standards in the mid-1990s, Latin-1 would have been the most logical choice for Talossan on grounds of linguistic affinity anyway (the most Romance languages being covered by Latin-1).
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