Re: Basque & Katzner's Languages of the World

I was listening to a Basque radio station on the web the other day and was
amazed at how close the *rythm* of Basque is to the rythm of Spanish.  Of
course it was completely unintelligible, but it was a very pleasant aural
experience.

Adam

So lift the cup of joy and take a big drink.
In spite of it all it's a beautiful world.
-------Suzanne Knutzen




>From: Roger Mills <romilly@...>
>Reply-To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
>To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
>Subject: Re: Basque & Katzner's Languages of the World
>Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 00:37:37 -0500
>
>Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> >>> .  In particular, I wish his phonological descriptions (which are very
> >>> anglocentric, perhaps not surprisingly) had used IPA instead of fuzzy
> >>> things like "There is both a soft r and a hard r" in Basque.  Which
> >>> brings
> >>> me to my question: for those who know (something about) Basque, what
>the
> >>> heck is he talking about?  Trilled and non-trilled?  Trilled vs.
> >>> approximant?  Meep?
>
>I just bought R.L.(Larry) Trask's "History of Basque" an incredibly
>complete
>and as far as I can tell accurate work (a budget-buster, alas).  Very
>conservative, no wild-blue-yonder stuff, in fact he demolishes most of
>everyone's speculations about the language.   Apparently there is a tapped
>r
>(written "r") and a trilled one "rr".  The odd thing to me is that they can
>contrast word-finally (I suspect it has to do with what happens when a
>suffix is added, since it seems they're written "-r" in both cases, unless
>I've misread.)  They also contrast medially of course, but not initially;
>in
>fact Basque dislikes initial r:  Lat. rege- 'king' > errege.  Modern
>Spanish
>loans excepted.
>Fascinating book, TOTALLY fascinating language.

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