Talk:Logogram Project/Stage 1
Ran's musings while working through Chapter 1 of Greek: An Intensive Course
Ancient Greek phonology is actually surprising similar to Japanese. The vowel system, the long and short vowels, the pitch accent, all seems rather reminiscent of Japanese. Of course, the phonotactics aren't Japanese at all.
In any case, given the following claims made by Wikipedia about the Classical Period:
- All the plosives are still intact, including the aspirated ones
- The spiritus asper is pronounced, etc.
- The various vowel letters and digraphs actually reflect real phonemic differences
- etc.
It seems that the Japanese vowels click themselves into place (but not the consonants):
(Vowels)
a | あ | aa | ああ | ai | あい | au | あう | aai | ああい | ||
e | え | ee | ええ | ei | えい | eu | えう | eei | ええい | eeu | ええう |
i | い | ii | いい | ||||||||
o | お | oo | おお | oi | おい | ou | おう | ooi | おおい | ||
u | う | uu | うう | ui | うい |
(Consonants)
p | ぱぴぷぺぽ | b | ばびぶべぼ | ph | ぱは ぴひ ぷふ ぺへ ぽほ |
t | たちつてと | d | だぢづでど | th | たは ちひ つふ てへ とほ |
k | かきくけこ | g | がぎぐげご | kh | かは きひ くふ けへ こほ |
m | まみむめも | n | なにぬねの | ||
r | らりるれろ | l | らりるれろ? | ||
s | さしすせそ | (z?) | ざじずぜぞ | zd | ずだ ずぢ ずづ ずで ずど |
h | はひふへほ |
Zeta-row --> use Japanese ざ row or ずだ digraph?
Or.... the "Ionic alphabet"?
p | はひふへほ | b | ばびぶべぼ | ph | ぱぴぷぺぽ |
t | たちつてと | d | だぢづでど | th | たちつてと+゜ |
k | かきくけこ | g | がぎぐげご | kh | かきくけこ+゜ |
m | まみむめも | n | なにぬねの | ||
r | らりるれろ+゜ | l | らりるれろ+゛ | ||
s | さしすせそ | z | ざじずぜぞ | ||
h | あいうえお+゜ |
(Consonants not being followed by a vowel)
What to do with these?
p | ぷ | b | ぶ | ph | ぷふ | ||
t | と | d | ど | th | とほ | ||
k | く | g | ぐ | kh | くほ | ||
m | む | n | ぬ | n /_C | ん? | ||
r | る | l | る? | s | す |
(Kana that are not being used)
や ゆ よ わ を
(Test - as can be seen, consonant clusters aren't being handled very well)
tékhnee | てくほねえ / 技ねえ | tékhnai | てくほない / 技ない |
tékhnees | てくほねえす / 技ねえす | tekhnóon | てくほのおぬ / 技のおぬ |
tékhneei | てくほねえい / 技ねえい | tékhnais | てくほないす / 技ないす |
tékhneen | てくほねえぬ / 技ねえぬ | tékhnaas | てくほなあす / 技なあす |
agoraá | あごらあ / 市らあ | agoraí | あごらい / 市らい |
agoráas | あごらあす / 市らあす | agoróon | あごろおぬ / 市ろおぬ |
agoráai | あごらあい / 市らあい | agoráis | あごらいす / 市らいす |
agoraán | あごらあん / 市らあぬ | agoraás | あごらあす / 市らあす |
ánthroopos/-e | あんとほろおぽす/-ぺ / 人ぽす/-ぺ | ánthroopoi | あんとほろおぽい / 人ぽい |
anthroópou | あんとほろおぽう / 人ぽう | anthroópoon | あんとほろおぽおぬ / 人ぽおぬ |
anthroópooi | あんとほろおぽおい / 人ぽおい | anthroópois | あんとほろおぽいす / 人ぽいす |
ánthroopon | あんとほろおぽぬ / 人ぽぬ | anthroúpous | あんとほろうぽうす / 人ぽうす |
érgon | えるごぬ / 仕事ごぬ | érga | えるが / 仕事が |
érgou | えるごう / 仕事ごう | érgoon | えるごおぬ / 仕事ごおぬ |
érgooi | えるごおい / 仕事ごおい | érgois | えるごいす / 仕事ごいす |
érgon | えるごぬ / 仕事ごぬ | érga | えるが / 仕事が |
Also.... the biggest question of all:
Do we use hiragana or katakana?
I'm inclined towards finding some excuse to keep both.
-- Ran 19:04, 13 February 2008 (PST)
- I'm not sure if it's okay for me to just leap in like this, or even if the project is still active, but I have a number of observations and suggestions:
- How about using the -u katakana for final consonants and clusters? Thus ανθρωπος would come out as 「あんツ゜ろおほス」. Another option might be to adopt some hentaigana for this purpose.
- The 'Ionian alphabet' seems to make the most sense, but I'd be tempted to try to add ψ, ζ, ξ as extra modified versions (in addition to dakuten and handakuten) of the π-, τ- and κ-rows, respectively, since they palpably form a series, particularly in earlier forms of the language when ζ was still an affricate.
- If the Japanese script were adopted at the same time as the Phoenician one was adopted *here*, then the language would have been at a stage where digamma (capital Ϝ, minuscule ϝ, pronounced /w/) still existed, so that (for example) οἰνος ('wine') would have been ϝοινος (woinos). This phoneme had died out by the Classical period, and the letter with it, but it would certainly be an interesting complication to the system if the script retained an (unpronounced) distinction between わゐ?ゑを (with digamma) and あいうえお (without), so that (ϝ)οἰνος would be rendered をいのス rather than おいのス.
Josy 20:52, 18 May 2009 (UTC)