Flaidish

So Haleza Grise · Post by **So Haleza Grise** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 9:01 am

Browsing the numbers page before, I couldn't help but notice that Flaidish has made an appearance!

I remember a while back that Z said something about having devised some basic elements of Flaidish morphology or something.

Has there been any progress since then?

If so, could you kindly throw us ravening dogs a raw strip or sample of what it looks like?

Post by **zompist** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 12:24 pm

What, besides the numbers?

I've got a growing lexicon, but I'm not happy with the morphology and syntax yet-- which makes it hard to provide a sample text. The phonology is intended to be very English-like, but the grammar mostly isn't.

Like English, Flaidish has five long and five short vowels, and the long vowels have undergone a Great Vowel Shift, identical to our own except that the development of long i is more parallel to that of long u-- it takes a initial glide: it's [wI] instead of [aj]. So fiich 'ten' is pronounced [fwIch]. Long vowels usually shorten in compounds, so liffellen samfich '76' is pronounced ['lI fEl En 's&m fIch].

eodrakken · Post by **eodrakken** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 1:03 pm

While we're on numbers, I was wondering -- how many Flaids are there on Almea? Feel free to give your response in Flaidish; we'll figure it out. ;)

Jaaaaaa · Post by **Jaaaaaa** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 3:45 pm

Sounds nice! Very englishy! I actually like the sound of English... well except for the fact that almost eveyr word is monosllabic. An agglutinative English would sound awesome, and Flaid sounds like that.

whats [ch] and [&]?

Post by **zompist** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 3:53 pm

Jaaaaaa wrote:whats [ch] and [&]?

Heh, I'm too used to substituting ch for :ch on the web. I meant the English ch sound.

& is from the IPA-ASCII scheme used in sci.lang for the vowel sound in 'bad'. In fact Flaidish sam sounds exactly like English 'Sam', although it doesn't mean the same thing.

Similarly, the capital I and E are IPA-ASCII for the vowels of 'bit' and 'bet'.

Jaaaaaa · Post by **Jaaaaaa** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 3:57 pm

Ah, I see. Thanks!

So Haleza Grise · Post by **So Haleza Grise** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 5:49 pm

Do flaids have eight fingers as well as toes? Only it seems that the numbers seem to be perhaps four-based . . .

(edit) oh wait, now i see. 6=two-three. 8= two-four.

Iscun · Post by **Iscun** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 6:40 pm

When you finish Flaidish you're going to have to add Irreanism to the Almean Belief Systems page!

By the way, what/who is Irrean (Irrea?)?

Jaaaaaa · Post by **Jaaaaaa** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 7:05 pm

Irreanism?

Iscun · Post by **Iscun** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 7:38 pm

Jaaaaaa wrote:Irreanism?

The philosophy/religion of the Flaids.

Jaaaaaa · Post by **Jaaaaaa** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 8:31 pm

Ah! Thanks!

Post by **zompist** » Fri Jan 24, 2003 3:39 am

Answers to various questions...

1. I think there's about two million flaids. Sorry, I don't know the word for 'million' yet.

2. Flaids might have six toes (total). I haven't decided for sure...

3. I used to say that the founder of Irreanism was Irrean, but this is starting to seem like an un-flaidish word-- possibly an adjectival formation. I think the founder's name will be ?irre (where ? is the glottal stop and the final -e is pronounced like our long e.

Here's some sentences... subject to change later.

?ok meert ty seva ?aadno ?y max.
I / want / that / you-me / give-irrealis / a / rabbit
I want you to give me a rabbit.

Se von mosspo sery crettert.
you / not / wash-participle / your / hand-plural-definite
You didn't wash your hands.

Iscun · Post by **Iscun** » Fri Jan 24, 2003 9:16 am

The glottal stops are kind of awkward to pronounce, but then again I'm an English speaker. Either way, it has a very unique sound.

Are the [r]s alveolar approximants or are they trills?

Glenn · Post by **Glenn** » Fri Jan 24, 2003 11:02 am

Iscun wrote:The glottal stops are kind of awkward to pronounce, but then again I'm an English speaker. Either way, it has a very unique sound.

I tend to agree, but then, I'm also an English speaker.

Does anyone have any good advice on how to pronounce an inital glottal stop? (People usually compare it to the catch of breath in the middle of "oh-oh", but if I try to pronounce that at the start of a word, I don't hear anything audible at all.

)

p@,
Glenn

Neek · Post by **Neek** » Fri Jan 24, 2003 11:20 am

It's actually not that hard to pronounce an initial glottal stop. In fact, I could have said enunced three glottal stops in that lastence, five in this sentence.

An initial glottal stop is generally elided in English when the previous word ends in a consonant, or the word (or syllable) in question is of unstressed nature. They're weak things in English, maybe the Flaids hold them stronger?

Post by **zompist** » Fri Jan 24, 2003 1:00 pm

Flaidish doesn't allow initial vowels... IIRC German works the same way; a glottal stop precedes an orthographic initial vowel. I think some dialects of English do this too.

Glottal stops are generally something English speakers can do without realizing it.

Americans often have one in words like 'cotton' [ka?n]. And for me at least, "the apple" can alternate between [Di?&p@l] and [Di&p@l]. (@ = schwa). Liverpudlians say 'bottle' as [ba?@l].

(A Chinese-American girl I knew would always correctly pronounce the glottal stop in Hawai'i. It sounded cute.)

BTW, it's nice to see what you look like, Nikolai, but that zombie was adorable.

Glenn · Post by **Glenn** » Fri Jan 24, 2003 1:33 pm

I comprehend the glottal stop in Liverpudlian "bottle" or in "the apple" fairly well; it's trying to make it an initial sound (" '! ") that throws me, (unless I grossly exaggerate it, and then it just sounds as though I'm trying not to hiccup before the vowel.) Maybe my problem is in trying to say it isolation, rather than with a preceding word?

(I have the same difficulty in trying to understand Arabic pronunciation as well. Oh, well...didn't know about the German, though.)

I liked Nikolai's Li'l Zombie too.

p@,
Glenn

pne · Post by **pne** » Fri Jan 24, 2003 1:34 pm

zompist wrote:IIRC German works the same way; a glottal stop precedes an orthographic initial vowel.

That's my understanding, too.

Even word-internal vowel-initial morphemes tend to start with a glottal stop, though this is not universal -- for example, I say erinnern (from er- + innern?) as something like [E@?In@n] but some people say [ErIn@n].

But cases such as "vereisen" (to freeze up) and "beinhalten" (to contain) always have medial glottal stop, I think. (Otherwise they sound like "to travel away" and "to leg-hold"

)

eodrakken · Post by **eodrakken** » Fri Jan 24, 2003 4:00 pm

Keep in mind that the glottal stop is not only the sound in the middle of "uh-oh", but also at the beginning! To sound right, "uh-oh" has to be pronounced with a very sudden onset. In fact, this is a glottal stop.

If you're still having trouble, try pausing between the syllables of "uh-oh". Start out saying it normally, and then pause longer and longer before the "oh".

Glenn · Post by **Glenn** » Fri Jan 24, 2003 4:26 pm

Hmm...

OK, yes, I think I see(=hear

) what you're talking about...

Hmmmm...

OK, I think I've got the idea (approximately, at least). Thanks!

p@,
Glenn

Aidan · Post by **Aidan** » Fri Jan 24, 2003 5:52 pm

Iscun wrote:The glottal stops are kind of awkward to pronounce, but then again I'm an English speaker. Either way, it has a very unique sound.

Are the [r]s alveolar approximants or are they trills?

There's a third option, which is actually what I would assume given no other information. It could be an alveolar tap. (Like a trill, but not repeated, like a [d], but not held.)

Glenn Kempf wrote:
Iscun wrote:The glottal stops are kind of awkward to pronounce, but then again I'm an English speaker. Either way, it has a very unique sound.
I tend to agree, but then, I'm also an English speaker.

Oh, we make them, we just don't think it, for the most part. Some dialects (not just Liverpudlian) use them alot. Especially as allophones for medial or final /t/. Even more often we use glottalized t's where the [t] is articulated, but there's a glottal stop at the sametime. A large percentage of English speakers say final /t/'s like this at least some of the time.

Glenn Kempf wrote:Does anyone have any good advice on how to pronounce an inital glottal stop? (People usually compare it to the catch of breath in the middle of "oh-oh", but if I try to pronounce that at the start of a word, I don't hear anything audible at all.

One thing perhaps to consider is that for any stop, you don't mainly identify it by the sound made during the stop (i.e. little or none), but by how it affects the qualities of the vowels (or other non-stop sounds) around it. The sounds of stops, if any, are negligible, but the "mini-glides" between the stops and the sounds around them are much easier to hear and recognize.

You can test this rather conclusively with a program that lets you edit sound files. Praat is such a program optimized for linguistics. You can cut out the piece of a sound which is the stop, and replace it with that of a different stop, and as long as you leave the transition between the stop and the vowels untouched, you won't be able to tell the difference.

So if you hear nothing while making a glottal stop, that's only to be expected. Listen for a difference in the quality of the vowel or the aspiration, which ever is appropriate.

Ran · Post by **Ran** » Fri Jan 24, 2003 6:22 pm

Flaidish reminds me strongly - of English. Is there a particular reason for this, though?

I don't think I've ever pronounced "bottle" as /bA?@l/. I usually say /bAr@l/ with /r/ being a tap.

I do have a tendency though to say /bA?/ for "bot".

Post by **zompist** » Fri Jan 24, 2003 7:17 pm

ranskaldan wrote:Flaidish reminds me strongly - of English. Is there a particular reason for this, though?

I'm not sure what sort of reason you're looking for. It's that way because I felt like it.

I often go out of my way to make a language unlike English; it's interesting to go the other way (but knowing what I'm doing, rather than making an English-like conlang because one doesn't know any better).

It also makes the flaids a good viewpoint for stories. I'm sometimes bothered by the thought that (say) I might write about the people of Kernoh'a, and the name sounds exotic to the reader but quite mundane to the people themselves ('green island'). Flaidish names can be non-English but still sound un-exotic, because of the shared phonology.

So Haleza Grise · Post by **So Haleza Grise** » Fri Jan 24, 2003 11:00 pm

Oh, and is the -y the same as English? Or is it a rounded front vowel?

I really like the whole English-sounding idea. It makes flaidish sound comical. People elsewhere have been talking about perceived sounds of various languages; I've always thought English sounded faintly silly. I mean, a word like "cheese?" "flitter?" "mangle?"

Post by **zompist** » Fri Jan 24, 2003 11:32 pm

So Haleza Grise wrote:Oh, and is the -y the same as English? Or is it a rounded front vowel?

I really like the whole English-sounding idea. It makes flaidish sound comical. People elsewhere have been talking about perceived sounds of various languages; I've always thought English sounded faintly silly. I mean, a word like "cheese?" "flitter?" "mangle?"

Heh. More tactfully, I'd have said it sounds "homey". (For really silly, I recommend DiLingo, which is linked on the embassy page.)

The y is always a schwa. (There's a couple of pitfalls in Flaidish spelling-- I didn't want to follow every quirk of English orthography.)

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