Posted by Panu Höglund on 6:44 6/29/01
In reply to: (none)
What languages do the Ilii speak, and have you already written grammars or dictionaries for them? What about Flaidish? How do we pronounce Syxesteer?
I haven't ventured on a grammar, mostly because I want something very alien... something literally unlearnable and unpronounceable by human beings. Much as I admire Klingon, it's not a very alien language; it's simply as un-English-like as Okrand could make it; but that mostly meant borrowing from exotic human languages. I want something such that the very categories of terrestrial grammar don't apply. Lojban, in a way, attempts to meet that description; its adherents say that it's an attempt to defy Universal Grammar. I'm not sure about that; I looked at its pronoun system once, and decided that the odd category names only obscure a not-terribly-exotic pronoun system.
I don't have a grammar of Flaidish either, but there, I just haven't got to it. I've recorded only a few words, like flaid itself, or ubeer 'vampire', as well as city names such as Syxesteer, Pickapo, and Ledley. It should be pronounced as English. This isn't as much of a cheat as it sounds: the Great Vowel Shift is not at all unprecedented. So Syxesteer is pronounced (using Verdurian equivalents) SÎks ê stir.