Re: Syllabaries [was Re: t-shirt]

Matthew Kehrt wrote:
>
> Eviendadil has a pseudo-syllabic alphabet.  Each syllable is one
> character, but the characters are constructed out of symbols for
> sounds.
In other words, just like the Korean alphabet?  Or am I misunderstanding
what you mean?

Watakassí uses an interesting variant of a syllabry.  There are
characters for V, CV, and CLV (that is, consonant-L-vowel).  The ClV are
descended from ligatures of the old Cë (ë = /@/) with the LV characters.

Now, in addition, there are various diacritics which go underneath or on
top of the characters.  On top of the character is the fricative mark.
This makes, for instance, <pa> into <fa>.

Underneath the characters are marks for stress, vowel length and for
coda/gemination.  The coda marks are for -f, -s, -v, -z and -n.  They
are historically derived from the old pë, të, bë, dë, and në.  The mark
for vowel length is historically derived from kë (as most long vowels
are descended from Vkë -> Vk -> Vx -> V:).  The mark for gemination is
derived from the old rë character.  The interesting thing about that is
that it goes on the *preceding* character.  Thus, _katta_ would be
indicated by _ka_ with gemination diacritic and _ta_.

There's also a mark for L by itself.

Now, for the origin:

The syllabry was invented by an Elder.  She borrowed the fricative mark
from the syllabry of the Sanle Language, which was the dominant language
of the area.  All of the characters were CV, with the vowels i, e, a, ë,
o, u, and consonants p, t, k, q, b, d, g, m, n, r.  /h/ was indicated by
/k/ with fricative.

Now, Common Kassí had CV(C) syllables.  For C1VC2 syllables, the
convention that won out was using C2ë underneath C1V, i.e, _kan_ would
be _ka_ on top of _në_.  For /j/ and /w/, hi/hu above hV was used.
Thus, _ya_ would be hi above ha.  This convention was eventually lost.

Later, when /q/ was lost, the qV series was used for V.  Also, when the
vowel system simplified, symbols were dropped.  CLV is derived from
CëLV, thus, when those merged into a single syllable, Cë on top of LV
were used for CLV.  Gemination is derived from rC, thus the use of the
gemination mark, which is derived from underput rë.  Today, there is no
productive "stacking" of characters, so that /ja/ is just _i_ followed
by _a_ (as in my new orthography, see relevant post).  The individual L
is derived from _rë_, but used as, originally, its own syllable.  That
is, modern _kalta_ is from _karëta_, while _karta_ became _katta_.

There is, however, an pseudo-alphabetic component.  Not just in the use
of solitary L, but also in the use of TI, etc (in referring to the
script, the following convention shall be used - capitals are the
characters themselves, period indicates division between characters, and
lower-case is diacritics, with * for gemination).  /tSa/ is rendered by
TI.A, thus, TI is often used simply to indicate /tS/ (which was,
originally, underlyingly /tj/).  There is, however, no way to
distinguish /tj/ from /tS/ (in romanization, t'i and ti).

Writing is morphophonemic.  For instance, the prefix uaf- is always
U.Af, and the plural suffix -i is always  written as I, even in words
like uafifkálii (books), which is U.Af.If.KÁ.LI.I (while a purely
phonetic transcription would be U.A.FIf.KÁ.LIi.  There's a constant
debate over what the proper balance is.  For instance, some write the
comparative infix -tu-/-p- as TU always.  There is a productive rule
that turns /tw/ into /p/, so that in a case like ziikú/zipikú
(beautiful, more beautiful), it would be written as ZI.I.KÚ and
ZI.TU.I.KÚ, while the more common orthography has ZIi.KÚ/ZI.PI.KÚ.
Also, many will write things like SU*.KLÚ.I for the plural of SU.KLÚ
(foot).  However, geminates can only exist between vowels, thus
_sukklúi_ would be pronounced as _suklúi_, and is often written that way
(SU.KLÚ.I) - I use that convention.

As you may've gathered by now, there is no one accepted orthographic
convention.

The word lalásta (bird) has a slightly irregular plural - laflássi,
historically it was laflásti (the -a in the singular represents original
-ë, preserved due to the -st- (la lástë/laf lásti [-i always replaced
-ë] -> lalásta/laflásti -> lalásta/laflássi), the plural is written as
LAf.LÁs.SI, preserving the first syllable in the singular stem
(LA).LÁs.TA.  Phonetically, of course, it should be LA.FLÁ*.SI.

> "The difference between physicists and mathematicians is that
> physicists get to play with toys." -Mr. Casebolt, my Physics teacher
I like that quote.  :-)

--
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God gave teeth; God will give bread - Lithuanian proverb
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