Wednesday, July 17th, 2002

Time	Event
12:20a	Pidgin Takes Flight I've been distracted from Novvocu recently as I've been toying with another pidgin, Pidanjinu. Just playing with a phonology really. Unlike Kalisise, I want to have a language that uses all 26 letters; few of my languages (maybe none) do. The letter 'h' is always pronounced /sh/, and 'j' is always /zh/, for the same reasons I've documented for Novvocu's pronunciation. The main difference in Pidanjinu is the use of 'c', 'q' and 'x' for /k-/ clusters. The letter 'c' in Pidanjinu is always pronounced /ky/ as in "cute". In English, 'c' has several different sounds associated with it, the most common of which is /k/ as in 'cat', the next most common is /s/ as in 'city' or 'cent' and the third-most common is /ky/ as in 'cue', 'cupid', etc. In Latin (and we are using the Latin alphabet), 'c' was originally always pronounced /k/, but over time came to be pronounced /s/ in front of /i/ or /e/ and /ky/ in front of /u/; English borrowed this pronounciation when it borrowed Latin vocabulary. I chose /ky/ since I will use 'k' for /k/ and 's' for /s/. Example: cuna, "sugar cane". The letter 'q' is never written by itself but always followed by 'u': quava, "water"; quiso, "circle". The letter 'x' has the same value as in English (/ks/) but in Pidanjinu only begins syllables. This will take some practice to pronounce correctly: xaku, /ksaku/, "conflict"; xevo, /ksevo/, "destruction". (Comment on this)
7:31p	Preposition School No need for prep school for a language that has few prepositions. Pidanjinu, like Tok Pisin, only has two : pu - n. possession;  prep. of, from sa - n. location, place; prep. in, at, on These are also both used in metaphorical nominative compounds.  Contrast the following: fiwu-pu-wono ["grass belong mouth".] n. beard, mustache hodan-fiwu ["rope grass".]  n. munj, munja, Saccharum bengalense, Saccharum munja -- (tough Asiatic grass whose culms are used for ropes and baskets) If the compound is a type of the modified noun (e.g., rope grass is a type of grass), then the adjective form of the modifier is fused to the noun:  e.g., hodan-fiwu.  If the compound is only metaphorically a type of the modified noun (e.g., a beard is not literally a type of grass), then the preposition pu is inserted between two noun forms: e.g., fiwu-pu-wono. (Comment on this)

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