Zompist Bboard Again

Courtesy of News Channel 5, WEWS:

'What a tragedy for Cleveland': Firefighters battle historic Tremont church fire

Is the church itself historic or is this a blaze of hitherto unforeseen intensity? (Or are we talking about the vintage section of Tremont?)

Holy cent-signs batman! Strictly speaking, the correct Unicode character for the letter is ⟨ȼ⟩, with ⟨¢⟩ being reserved for currency. (On my machine they render quite differently.) Huh. They show up almost identically for me. I’ve just discovered the existence of hemerythrin. Lots of iron in it, ma...

Very much WIP but I needed to get it down before my shift starts. Proto-Kgáweq’-Täptäg phonology /*n/ /*b *t *k *kʷ *q *qʷ *ʔ/ /*f *s *h/ /*ts/ /*ɾ/ /*l *ɹ *j/ /*a *ã *i *ĩ *u *ũ/ /*ѣ *ь *ъ/ Syllable structure is: ((X)Y)(K)C(R)(G)V(G)((R/S)(ʔ)/h) where X = /t k q ʔ ɹ ɾ l s ts/ Y = /ѣ ь ъ/ K = /k g ʔ...

Mapos Buang seems to be the only language in the world with a prenasalised uvular stop. Japhug and Caodeng Rgyalrong, Bai, and Serer, in addition to Hmong. Probably elsewhere in Hmong-Mien, Sino-Tibetan, maybe Kra-Dai. I'd be surprised if no Tibetic variety has /ɴɢ/. Taa/!Xóõ seems to have a voiced...

Reduction of pretonic syllables

[i'tsʰeː.ɲi]
Yaceigni
"chestnut"

In a somewhat similar—though not identical—way to how I unified CT and O into a single language family (Beheic), I’ve gotten 1 an idea of how to merge two of my other languages (to wit, Kgáweq’ and Täptäg, both now part of the Macro-Kgáweq’ family). I’m quite pleased. The recent discussion in the Li...

Spotify is discontinuing Car Thing. I’ll have to jailbreak it.

From what can a nominative case suffix or marker develop? Esp. if there were no nominative markers so far and there's few cases to begin with. Maybe a demonstrative or an intensifier? There’s a relationship with definiteness and accusativity…maybe indefinite > nominative? The World Lexicon of Gramm...

Loss of initial palatal stops [òːʑ.ʑé] 偽 | へうりぇう | きょーっじぇ | 허러 | kyōzzhe Kanji | Traditional Hiragana | Reformed Hiragana | Hangeul | Romanization "perjury; alibi, especially if dubious; (military slang) cover story, pretext, what’s released to the public (especially if fabricated)" Assimi...

If you're orbiting a black hole, avoid the plunging region: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/17/world/black-holes-einstein-plunging-region-scn/index.html Responsible black hole owners will put up warning tape, but this is not always present. Standards have really deteriorated since we were young, haven'...

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 11:11 pm

Man in Space wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 11:02 pm On Wikipedia just now, I have found a natlang (Bai) that spells /ɯ/ as e (/e/ is ei). I am quite astounded.

This is probably inspired by Hanyu Pinyin, in which /ə/ by itself is written ⟨e⟩ but is actually pronounced [ɤ] while ⟨ei⟩ is pronounced [ei].

Huh, TIL. This would make total sense.

On Wikipedia just now, I have found a natlang (Bai) that spells /ɯ/ as e (/e/ is ei). I am quite astounded.

*x > k / %_j [kjòːd.dʑé] 偽 | へうりぇう | ひょーっぎぇ | 허러 | hyōggye Kanji | Traditional Hiragana | Reformed Hiragana | Hangeul | Romanization "perjury; alibi, especially if dubious; (military slang) cover story, pretext, what’s released to the public (especially if fabricated)" *sS > Sʰ [ka'tʰeə̯.ɲə]

By the way, what are those x 's supposed to signify? I tried looking up the extIPA for those but the page I got on the Wiki rendered much of such things as blocks. I interpret them as simply heterorganic affricates — e.g. [tx] is attested in Navajo. Not merely heterorganic but also heterovoiced aff...

Epenthesis between offglides and resonants

[xø̀w.gʎǿ]
偽 | へうりぇう | heowlyeo
"perjury; alibi, especially if dubious; (military slang) cover story, pretext, what’s released to the public (especially if fabricated)"

And now for something a little different… /m n/ m n /b t d c ɟ k g q/ b t d c j k g q /b x t x d x c x k x q x / b' t' d' c' k' q' /ɸ ʭ s ʃ x χ h/ f x th s ch kh qh h /β z/ w z /l ɹ j/ l r y /a e i o u/ a e i o u /ɛ̯a ɛ̯e i̯e ɔ̯o i̯u/ aa ee ii oo uu …but: yii yuu /i̯ei̯ i̯eu̯/

ç > x / _VK

[xỳw.ʎǿ]
偽 | ひゅうりぇう | hyuwlyeo
"perjury; alibi, especially if dubious; (military slang) cover story, pretext, what’s released to the public (especially if fabricated)"

Loss of first in a sequence of two like vowels

[çỳw.ɺʲǿ]
偽り | つわり | hyuweolyeo
"perjury; alibi, especially if dubious"

People get sick of not having normal rounded vowels and semivowels. I don't think people are so cognizant of sound changes when they happen, or trigger them intentionally. Methinks Travis was merely phrasing it in an amusing manner. Final low-pitch vowels delete [çý.wǿɺʲ] 偽り | つわり | hyuweori "...

Fronting of central vowels after palatals

[çíᵝ.ɰᵝá.ɺʲì]
偽り | つわり | hyiwari
"lie, falsehood; (criminal slang) alibi, especially if dubious"