Sew'Kyetuh wrote:This is the other part that gets tricky. Which was why I tried introducing the possibility that Etihus doesn't use letters. But I'm not sure.
This chart:
All natlangs and any developed conlang to be spoken I came across has a chart like this or something to it that can be organized. Even Klingon (which is in the example). Klingon as a fictlang from an alien planet uses a basis of language communication by earth-based natlangs by doing this, even if the choice of consonants is strange. You can break down Klingon into these parts, letters, which are then used to make up the rest of the language, just like natlangs. There are rules that dictate, in every language I've seen so far to be spoken, what is typically allowed in correlation the arrangement of those consonants (or only certain ones) and vowels (or certain ones).
I skipped all of that for Etihus. As a language, it is not possible to make that chart and doing so I'm afraid would betray how the language fundamentally functions. I'll try to explain with my response to Ahzoh...
You may have "skipped it" -- but if E is a spoken language, then a chart very much like that is implicit in the language! The chart you showed is simply the phonemic inventory of Klingon. You'll find one for English, French, Quenya, Vrkhazian, Avantimannish, Esperanto, Cantonese and every other language out there, living, dead or otherwise, that is spoken with something akin to a human mouth.
You are incorrect when you say it is "not possible" to make such a chart. Speak enough E for us, and comparing that with the chart of 40 or 60 named semaphonemes, anyone here can produce just such a chart of the sounds you use when speaking Etihus. Please understand: how your conlang "works" is not relevant to the sounds that are being made by its speakers. We English speakers make sounds that do not appear in what we write (we never write glottal stops, for example, yet they're all over the place; we have several "A" sounds that are distinct yet are all written with the same letter). This doesn't stop us from producing phonetic charts.
Ahzoh wrote:
phoneme: the basic unit of sound identified by speakers
phone: the actual sounds spoken by speakers, regardless of whether they identify them or not.
grapheme: the basic unit of writing, e.g. letters. Graphemes do not always represent every phoneme and some mark more than one.
Yes, which is why in one of my videos I use (my own term)
"semaphoneme", which is all 3 of those combined, with the addition of being free morphemes. Etihus as an oligosynthetic language labels each morpheme with a grapheme. See aUI by Doctor John Weilgart, which uses semaphonemes for an example outside of my creation.
In Etihus Each free morpheme has its own grapheme and phone. These then are the smallest most basic unit of the language, phonetically and graphically. Even though they are the smallest units, least common denominators. If you try to break them down further, the conlang no longer holds up. [/quote]
Why would you think the language would no longer "hold up" if we explore units smaller than the semaphoneme? I mean, I gèt that E speakers use a writing system that has one symbol for each of the language's 40 or 60 basic meaning-units. I do not understand why you seem to be so resistant to the exploration of the underlying sounds of the language as they are quite apart from the native writing system.
Take ari [æɾɪ] as an example. In all other languages (to my knowledge) you would attempt to pick apart this morpheme, dividing it up phonetically for examination and usage into [æ], [ɾ], and [ɪ]. But Etihus does not break down those sounds as units.
Frankly, it doesn't really matter what "Etihus does" or does not do within its own context. A linguist does indeed break down things like
ari to see what it's composed of and what, if any, submeanings there may be within it.
Clearly, if
ari is a fundamental unit in E, then no further meanings can be extruded. That doesn't mean the
sounds can not be further examined.
Instead, æɾɪ is the simplest unit and it has a grapheme to it, even though it has two syllables in it! And unlike letters (which simply represent a sound and a sound only), [æɾɪ] also has semantic meaning behind it.
"Ari" might be a simple semantic unit -- a simple unit of meaning -- but it is clearly not the simplest phonetic unit.
And there is also ih [ɪh]. Both ari and ih share [ɪ], despite being in the same "alphabet" and having no relation to each other. But if you were to speak the word ari+ih, you would merge them into arih. Ih as a suffix becomes a descriptive/adjective to the prefix which serves as the subject/agent within the word itself. But if you reverse them for ihari, you get a new word in which now ari as a suffix is describing the ih as a prefix.
Okay. And?... So what if you get a new word when you reverse their positions?
What does its function have to do with its constituent sounds?
Nothing. I think you're hanging yourself up on this notion of "semaphoneme" as a universally irreducible unit. Semantically, it may be irreducible; but phonologically, it is clearly not the simplest unit. (And remember, our job out here is to help you descríbe the language, not uphold its internal propaganda!).
There are 40 such semaphonemes in the Etihus in the "alphabet". (Yes, I know that technically by true linguistic definition, an alphabet is a list of letters for writing in which consonants and vowels are set as "equals" [unlike Hebrew]). And I [just now] figured Etihus could technically use logograms, so it's weird to have an ideographic language using logography which also happens to have an "alphabet". But as I said as well, there are 20 semaphonemes outside the alphabet.
Weird? Probably not so weird. I have a conlang that mixes logograms, syllabary and alphabet for its writing system. Japanese is a good example of a natlang with a mixed system. Rebus writing, txtlish, ad-copy-speak they all use a mixed system in English to some extent.
I don't know if this might be useful but it's interesting trivia anyway: This means Etihus cannot do acronyms.
English acronyms are a function of the writing system. It might be interesting for you to read up on how Chinese, Japanese and Korean form acronyms, since they don't have "initial letters" from which to form the new words. If E speakers discover the need, they will find a way to do it!
Because Etihus compiles graphemes, morphemes, and phonemes into the same basic units, it means that I have been able to build a CSL (constructed sign language) for it. Etihus allows a deaf person who has never heard anything, to use the exact same language as a speaker to communicate. All they have to do is sign one of the 60 semaphonemes in sequence.
This is actually an interesting aspect that most conlangers dón't get into -- sign languages.
Basically what you're proposing is a kind of 'manual alphabet' scheme whereby deaf people simply make a series of signs that parallels the sound utterances of the hearing population. I would imagine that deaf people alive at the time the extra-dimensional Teachers came along and taught everyone to speak Etihus simply would have been given manual signs to go along with the spoken signs everyone else was using. Stands to reason they sign the same language everyone else speaks!
Just my opinion, but I really think deaf people *there* are short changing themselves: they are being shackled to the same two-dimensional, linear progression that word-speakers are limited to. Even *here*, anyone who can only use the manual alphabet is limited to this same progression, for they must S-P-E-L-L-O-U-T-E-A-C-H-I-N-D-I-V-D-U-A-L-W-O-R-D and one letter at a time. Real sign language *here*, though, is three dimensional in its usable space, and things like time and magnitude can be dealt with in non-linear fashions.