If natlangs were conlangs

[Kuchigakatai]

I don't think Akkadians text or chat much these days (and they also lacked a glottal stop, as far as we know).

Akkadian scholars could have an ASCII-friendly convention to replace the traditional right half-ring of Semiticists.

[Xwtek]

It's pronounced as rising in that environment. I'm not sure I agree it's high rising (although there probably are sources that say it is).

Whoops sorry, my Mandarin teacher used to say it's pronounced as the second tone. It's actually another simplification, like b and p is pronounced as each other. (In Javanese p has no aspiration, but b does)

Actually, I believe that a substantial number of Mandarin speakers pronounce the third tone with sandhi and the second tone identically. Some 2nd tone characters that are often followed by a 3rd tone character, like 潛/潜 (qián), are frequently mis-interpreted as a 3rd tone character with sandhi because they are pronounced identically by some speakers. A quick Google of "qián third tone" in Chinese (潛 三聲) shows that the confusion isn't limited to any specific region.

Ok now I'm confused. According to Ninchanese, it's low rising. https://ninchanese.com/blog/2016/10/19/ ... i-chinese/

[Vijay]

I think M Mira's saying that it's low rising for most speakers but high rising for some others.

[mèþru]

Is this use of <7> common in Hebrew or Akkadian? In Arabic it's <2> that is generally used for the glottal stop, <7> generally standing for /ħ/ instead.

Hebrew usually just omits the glottal stop in transliterations. The glottal stop is really only useful when talking about morphophonological history; most Modern Hebrew speakers can't tell the difference between a glottal stop and a hiatus.

[Richard W]

I don't think Akkadians text or chat much these days (and they also lacked a glottal stop, as far as we know).

I thought the use of VC-V instead of ...-CV was how contrastive glottal stops were written.

Isn't most Akkadian chat written by non-Mesopotamians?

[Zaarin]

I don't think Akkadians text or chat much these days (and they also lacked a glottal stop, as far as we know).

I thought the use of VC-V instead of ...-CV was how contrastive glottal stops were written.

I think you're right actually.

Isn't most Akkadian chat written by non-Mesopotamians?

Well, most of it seems to be written by Germans and Frenchmen these days. But if we're talking about original cuneiform texts, as far as I'm aware the majority come from Assyria and Babylonia, with outliers in Persia and the broader Middle East. Perhaps you're thinking of Sumerian texts, many of which come from later Babylonian and Assyrian scribal archives?

[Richard W]

Isn't most Akkadian chat written by non-Mesopotamians?

Well, most of it seems to be written by Germans and Frenchmen these days. But if we're talking about original cuneiform texts, as far as I'm aware the majority come from Assyria and Babylonia, with outliers in Persia and the broader Middle East. Perhaps you're thinking of Sumerian texts, many of which come from later Babylonian and Assyrian scribal archives?

Modern Europeans are the sort of non-Mesopotamian I had in mind.

One has to be careful though - it seems that most users of Ogham are irish citizens - but the language it is usually used for is English.

[Xwtek]

Nahuatl, you should choose a proper terminology, why is the term "Absolutive" and "Possessed" when you can use the term "Non-construct" and "Construct"?

[Vijay]

How is that "proper terminology"? Absolutive vs. possessed seems more consistent with how languages around Nahuatl are described whereas "construct" seems to be limited to Afroasiatic and doesn't mean the same thing as possessed in Nahuatl.

[Xwtek]

How is that "proper terminology"? Absolutive vs. possessed seems more consistent with how languages around Nahuatl are described whereas "construct" seems to be limited to Afroasiatic and doesn't mean the same thing as possessed in Nahuatl.

Usually, absolutive means absolutive case (i.e. subject of intransitive verb or object of transitive verb). So, it would be causing confusion: "Why is transitive subject that doesn't have possessor is marked with absolutive?"

[Nortaneous]

Wikipedia's page for Cahuilla uses "absolutive" and "construct" (but that's as opposed to AA *absolute*/construct)

[akam chinjir]

"In Banawá, consonant-initial words have a trochaic pattern, and vowel-initial words have an iambic pattern." (B. Hyde, Extrametricality and Non‐Finality; or via [ahem]sci-hub[/ahem]).

[M Mira]

Whoops sorry, my Mandarin teacher used to say it's pronounced as the second tone. It's actually another simplification, like b and p is pronounced as each other. (In Javanese p has no aspiration, but b does)

Actually, I believe that a substantial number of Mandarin speakers pronounce the third tone with sandhi and the second tone identically. Some 2nd tone characters that are often followed by a 3rd tone character, like 潛/潜 (qián), are frequently mis-interpreted as a 3rd tone character with sandhi because they are pronounced identically by some speakers. A quick Google of "qián third tone" in Chinese (潛 三聲) shows that the confusion isn't limited to any specific region.

Ok now I'm confused. According to Ninchanese, it's low rising. https://ninchanese.com/blog/2016/10/19/ ... i-chinese/

I think M Mira's saying that it's low rising for most speakers but high rising for some others.

Actually, I can hardly tell the difference in register if the contour isn't flat. I'm a bit surprised too, since it can't be influence from substrates, as Hokkien, Hakka, and even Cantonese have register contrasts for non-flat contours.

I probably pronounce both the 2nd tone and the sandhi'd 3rd tone as 24.

[Xwtek]

Not bad at all, but this is rather ingenious and funny. In Bislama, the third person pronouns are:

SG: em
DU: tugeta
TRI: trigeta
PL: olgeta

Even if this is actually unrealistic, it's worth it.

[Richard W]

Not bad at all, but this is rather ingenious and funny. In Bislama, the third person pronouns are:

SG: em
DU: tugeta
TRI: trigeta
PL: olgeta

Even if this is actually unrealistic, it's worth it.

Possibly generalised from the second person pronouns, which are closer to normal English usage. Southern American English y'all is an example for the plural, and I think Lithuanian judu shows the inclusion of a cardinal in a dual number. English you two isn't so far removed, but I wouldn't claim it had been grammaticalised. The number system is a substrate feature.

[Xwtek]

Not bad at all, but this is rather ingenious and funny. In Bislama, the third person pronouns are:

SG: em
DU: tugeta
TRI: trigeta
PL: olgeta

Even if this is actually unrealistic, it's worth it.

Possibly generalised from the second person pronouns, which are closer to normal English usage. Southern American English y'all is an example for the plural, and I think Lithuanian judu shows the inclusion of a cardinal in a dual number. English you two isn't so far removed, but I wouldn't claim it had been grammaticalised. The number system is a substrate feature.

Well, I just mean that the conlanger of this language found a way to insert a joke. The fact that this is actually realistic makes this joke actually funnier.

[bradrn]

Not bad at all, but this is rather ingenious and funny. In Bislama, the third person pronouns are:

SG: em
DU: tugeta
TRI: trigeta
PL: olgeta

Even if this is actually unrealistic, it's worth it.

Possibly generalised from the second person pronouns, which are closer to normal English usage. Southern American English y'all is an example for the plural, and I think Lithuanian judu shows the inclusion of a cardinal in a dual number. English you two isn't so far removed, but I wouldn't claim it had been grammaticalised. The number system is a substrate feature.

Well, I just mean that the conlanger of this language found a way to insert a joke. The fact that this is actually realistic makes this joke actually funnier.

Maybe I’m being ridiculous here, but I don’t see the joke…

[Xwtek]

Possibly generalised from the second person pronouns, which are closer to normal English usage. Southern American English y'all is an example for the plural, and I think Lithuanian judu shows the inclusion of a cardinal in a dual number. English you two isn't so far removed, but I wouldn't claim it had been grammaticalised. The number system is a substrate feature.

Well, I just mean that the conlanger of this language found a way to insert a joke. The fact that this is actually realistic makes this joke actually funnier.

Maybe I’m being ridiculous here, but I don’t see the joke…

https://pastebin.com/TLRt3UXF

[bradrn]

Well, I just mean that the conlanger of this language found a way to insert a joke. The fact that this is actually realistic makes this joke actually funnier.

Maybe I’m being ridiculous here, but I don’t see the joke…

https://pastebin.com/TLRt3UXF

I did see that, actually, but didn’t see it as being a joke. Tok Pisin has the same thing as well:

3s: em (< “him”)
3d: tupela (< “two-fellow”)
3t: tripela (< “three-fellow”)
3p: ol (< “all”)

It has the same thing in all it’s other pronouns as well; Wikipedia has a nice chart.

[Richard W]

Maybe I’m being ridiculous here, but I don’t see the joke…

https://pastebin.com/TLRt3UXF

I did see that, actually, but didn’t see it as being a joke. Tok Pisin has the same thing as well:

3s: em (< “him”)
3d: tupela (< “two-fellow”)
3t: tripela (< “three-fellow”)
3p: ol (< “all”)

It has the same thing in all it’s other pronouns as well; Wikipedia has a nice chart.

The 'joke' lies in the etymology of tugeta. Allegedly it derives from English together, with the first syllable being misanalysed as the numeral tu. It's not sure as there doesn't seem to be a second person pronoun *yutugeta, and the phonetics are a bit odd. I'm not aware of Tok Pisin having a pronoun *tugeta, so it's not quite the same thing.