[YG Conlang Archives] > [ceqli group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
(Sorry about the change of profile name from lsulky to handydad...I'm
trying to consolidate.) (Also sorry about the length of this post.)
I've always liked Ceqli even though I found a few things about it
that struck me as a bit idiosyncratic. (Maybe that's why I liked it.)
But after investigating a great many other loglangs and having
approximately 96 cracks at creating one myself, I keep coming back to
Ceqli. It's either the most natural logical language or the most
logical "natural" one.
I decided when I was working on my own conlang(s) that what I really
wanted was something somewhat pidginesque, a bit like Bislama, but
not so relentlessly English-based. And I wanted it to be pretty
logical and have self-segregating morphology. It should be something
that people could actually see value in learning, either as a
stepping stone to the language of a major economic power (English
now, maybe Mandarin in the future) or because it was so darn easy
that it was better to adopt it as a common tongue than learn a more
complex one.
I truly feel that Ceqli has the best chance to be that language.
No, I wouldn't take bets that it WILL be adopted as a world-wide
pidgin or creole...but I think it fits the requirements better than
anything else available.
Now some questions. I've scanned back through the group but a few
things still befuddle me:
COMPOUNDING BY DEFAULT --
I look at a sentence and am never sure, if the particle "se" is
lacking, which words are going to compound. Does "To kom pan se jin"
refer to the person who is eating bread, or the person who is
associated with a kind of bread called "kompan" ('eatbread' -- so
tasty that absolutely EVERYONE eats it). And why doesn't "To"
compound with "kom" in the sentence? Is there a list of known non-
compounders?
A suggestion: Loglan and some loglangs rely on stress to help in
segregating morphemes and words. I know Ceqli doesn't, but what if
compound words were pronounced with a particular kind of stress on
the first syllables of second and subsequent morphemes. I'm imagining
a "dipping" stress reminiscent of Norwegian (or the Muppets' Swedish
Chef):
komp n
\ / = eatbread
a
kom pan = eat bread
I've been reading stuff aloud off the website according to this
scheme and it sounds kind of cool. Or maybe a very strong falling
stress would work...something that makes clear that this is not just
the first syllable of a separate word. Or maybe a distinct stress
pattern for all EXCEPT the final morpheme in the word....
SCHWA ALLOPHONE OF "E" --
Some Ceqli words begin with consonant clusters that some speakers are
just going to have to schwa-buffer: "zbani" is going to end up
as 'zuh-bani' which is a valid pronunciation of "ze bani". I know you
love the schwa, Rex -- heck, who doesn't? -- but....
A suggestion: Don't permit the schwa allophone for "e". Use schwa
only for buffering, where necessary. I would further suggest
permitting the allophone "ey" for "e", but I suspect there are lots
of words that rely on these being distinct, so I won't.
DIPHTHONGS --
How is "uy" pronounced? Is it like in 'buoy', but faster, to
distinguish it from "uwi"?
That's it for questions and suggestions. For now.
----larry