Suzette Haden Elgin's Blog, page 13

BBC program on constructed languages...

I've just done a thirty-minute interview about LAadan for the BBC, as part of a segment they were doing on constructed languages; other guests on the segment included Arika Okrent, author of _In the Land of Invented Languages_, someone talking about Klingon, and perhaps a few more. The interview went very well; however, I have no idea how much of the thirty minutes will actually be used.

The show is called "Word of Mouth", and this episode goes out on 5 January at 16:00 [GMT:]; you can also li...

Phoneme lists for the four ET languages...

It occurs to me that these might be useful for those of you who are interested...


Thandi

Phonemes:
/b/, /bh/, /p/, /ph/, /f/, /sh/, /zh/, /g/, /gh/, /l/, /L/, /lh/, /r/, /m/, /n/, /ng/, /w/, /y/, /a/, /e/, /E/, /i/, /o/, /u/, /h/.



Lenadess

Phonemes:
/b/, /bh/, /p/, /ph/, /d/, /t/, /f/, /sh/, /s/, /zh/, /g/, /gh/, /l/, /L/, /lh/, /r/, /m/, /n/, /ng/, /w/, /y/, /a/, /e/, /E/, /i/, /o/, /u/, /h/.



Aubre

Phonemes:
/b/, /p/, /k/, /g/, /d/, /t/, /f/, /th/, /TH/, /sh/, /ch/, /zh/, /l/, /r/, /m/, /n/, /a/, ...

The Swadesh [core vocabulary] lists

The Swadesh lists for the four languages in the new U.S. Corps of Linguists novel are now at my SFWA website. The link to the lists is at the end of the first Announcement, at http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/Announcements.html .
If you have comments or questions, just respond to this post.

Personal note; two quick updates; postscript...

The shawl pattern is now posted at http://community.livejournal.com/crochetcrochet/1138498.html .

Personal note; two quick updates...

1. I wanted to let you know that back in November I finished the core vocabulary lists for the four ET languages that some of you were interested in, but that I haven't been able to reach my SFWA webperson to get them posted at my website. I'm working on that problem and assume that it will be straightened out soon.


2. This is truly off-topic; still, I wanted to tell you about it. The past two winters I've had to wear extra layers of clothing to stay warm, and this winter has been cold enough...

Living underground...

This underground house of ours continues to amaze me. It was 18 degrees outside at six o'clock this morning when we got up. But inside our house -- despite the fact that we have no heat source in here at all at night -- it was 64 degrees. And when we turned on our electric space heater, it went up to 66 degrees in only twenty minutes.

All summer long, heat is stored in the earth and stone around our house and in its concrete walls; then when winter comes, that heat is released into our house....

Eldering; winter holidays ahead...

One of the things that goes with eldering is that everything you do -- even things you've been doing for so many years that you could practically do them in your sleep -- starts taking much longer to do than it ever has before. It's frustrating, and infuriating, and you keep thinking that if you'd just put your mind to it you could do things faster .... but you learn that that's false.

The reason I'm bringing this up isn't because I think it will come as a revelation to any of you. I'm bringi...

Linguistics; ET languages...

I'll be following your excellent suggestions and stashing the Swadesh [core vocabulary:] lists for the four ET languages in my new novel on my SFWA website, so that those of you who are interested can see them and discuss them.

It will take me a while to get the material in order for posting; and then it will take a while for the SFWA webtech to post it. As soon as that's done, I'll post the URLs here.


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Nonfiction online: "How Verbal Self-Defense Works" at http...

Writing science fiction; the new novel...

You may or may not remember the novel I'm working on now, which has a U.S. Corps of Linguist candidate -- who has failed three of her final exams -- ordered to do a penalty monograph on the grammars of four previously unstudied ET languages. [First page, draft 17, is at http://ozarque.livejournal.com/621925.html .]

Which means that I've had to spend this past week doing the following:

1. Thumbnail sketches of each of the four languages.

2. Phoneme lists for each of the four languages. [That is,...

Personal note; thank you...

Many thanks for all the birthday wishes! I appreciate them very much.