tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Feb 01 05:31:06 2002

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Re: Alphabet



Wednesday, January 30, 2002 8:52 AM ghItlh Russ Perry Jr
<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Alphabet


>At 4:32 AM +0000 1/30/02, Sean Healy wrote:
>>Well, there are 2625 possible syllables in tlhIngan Hol according to what
we know: 21 consonants * 5 vowels * (21 consonants + 3 consonant clusters +
1 null), so a true syllabary would be quite large.
>
>That's what I was thinking, though I hadn't done the math.  Thanks for the
>number.

Precisely the Amkharic situation. 21 times 5 is 105. Okay, 24 times 5 is
120. Plus 24 for the "null" = 144. I added 21 x 5 more to compensate for the
pausal form. BTW, in Amkharic, consonant + short "a" is also used for
consonant + null.

At that, to avoid making the syllabary too diversified, modifications of the
basic consonants can be used (a stroke on top meaning "a", a stroke below,
"o", etc. with the basic shape remaining intact).

Thus, nach, nech, nIch, noch, nuch will appear written with TWO characters,
the first one modified for the specific vowel, the second unmodified in any
way which would mean "C + zero sound". Imagine: writing in English, I could
cross the left vertical stroke of the "n" for "na", elongate the right one
for "e", elongate the left one for "i", cross the right one for "o", and,
say, underline the character for "u". You will recognize the basic character
anyway, won't you? This way of "crossing-elongation" could penetrate the
entire system, so that crossed left vertical of, say, "b" would become "ba",
and the ring crossed on the right, "be".

Igor



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