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At 17:27 5.2.2004, Babnol Rodlox wrote:
I look forwards to your comments, and suggestions on whether or not I should do things such as reducing the present number of letters (51).
Hi, I take the liberty to copy-paste your updates page and base my comments on that.
Febuary 5, 2004 - added a chart displaying the type of Arabic found in the Mar alphabet.ITEMS UNDER CONSIDERATION:- Melding the Arabic ?s? or ?S? with the Serbian ?zh? to form a single Mar letter.
I find it *highly* unlikely that Mar would *not* end up with the same set of
extra letters for _p, tch, zh_ as Persian and Turkish used in OTL, unless
YTL is *very* different. Fortunately these characters are available in
most Unicode fonts:
pe = U+067E (body of 'be' with three dots below)
tche = U+0686 (body of 'jym' with three dots below)
zhe = U+0698 ('re' with three dots above.
ge = U+06AF (Persian 'kaaf' with stroke above)
You can see these three characters in my Raamiyaan orthography
table (which you need Adobe Reader to view, I'm afraid!)
<http://www.melroch.se/conlang/raamiyaan/raamiyaanorthography.pdf>
In fonts with a more complete Arabic Extended set of characters
you will also find 'ge' with three dots above (U+06AC) and 'laam'
with three dots above (U+06B7), which are probably the most
pertinent characters for _nj, lj_ -- at least the _nj/ñ_ having
Turkic precedent. Slavic will also need a letter for _c/ts_ and
perhaps also for _dz_. 'Hah' with three dots above would be the
traditional choice for _c/ts_, but there is nothing as well
established for _dz_. If you want to restrict yourself to letters
available in Times New Roman (sigh) I would recommend 'sad' and 'za'
for _c/ts, dz_.
- which letters can be safely dropped, and which cannot. (find out!).
In traditional Arabic-based orthographies of OTL no Arabic letters are ever dropped, since all Arabic-derived words keep their Arabic spelling (which is sacred). Which letters are used, and how, in non-Arabic words is a wholly different story, and up to you to decide Anyway the basic rule of thumb is that no Arabic letter may be dropped, but new letters may be created at will by adding dots to existing letters.
- the degree to which Romanian & Greek have entered the language of Mar as well. [they did, after all, invade the Byzantine Empire - Mar, that is]. Also, wasn?t the 800s around when the Magyars entered the region? And would the Turks or Mongols touch the language at all? What of the Latins? The Russians&Vikings and Germans?
All of those, except the Germans, I would guess.
SPECULATION:- the Vikings would be stopped at Dar-al-Mar, rather than OTL?s them going all the way downriver to Byzantium and Baghdad. (a moot point if the Vikings transit the Black Sea at a point in time when Dar-al-Mar doesn?t have absolute control over that body of water).
I guess the Mar *could* block entry into or out of the Sea of Azov,
but how they could do that and not get into open hostility with the
Rus' I do not know.
What would be the status of the Byzantine Empire and Orthodox
Christianity in YTL? Very different I suppose, with a Muslim
Bulgaria. Perhaps even Russia would end up Muslim, which of
course would affect her relations with both Europe and with
the Mongols and Tatars profoundly! Perhaps the Mongols did
*not* become Muslim in YTL, perhaps the Tatars all became
Judaic, as the Khazars in OTL...
BTW shouldn't this thread go to Slaviconlang?
/BP 8^)
--
B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@hidden.email (delete X)
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