"Sagispeak"

[volleo6144]

PHOIBLE claims that /ŋ/ is the 14th most common sound cross-linguistically (in 63% of all languages), behind /m i k j u a p w n t l s b/. Of note is that Sagispeak uses /w/ as an alternative to a consonant pair (one that includes /t/ at that) and /j/ as an... alternative to some very uncommon sounds like /ʒ/. I'm not exactly sure what our goals for internationality are, so I can't exactly judge this any further.

Even among languages that have /ŋ/, some very important ones like English and (Mandarin) Chinese don't allow it in the onset of a syllable.

there will never be a symbol spelled "npat" since "n" is for a right flag

I mean, isn't that already ?

* as alternatives to other sounds

† all the tina diacritics

[Dave Keenan]

PHOIBLE claims that /ŋ/ is the 14th most common sound cross-linguistically (in 63% of all languages), behind /m i k j [English y] u a p w n t l s b/.

Thanks for that. In that case, I don't feel too bad about using /ŋ/, except for the fact that Stoic is meant to be an alternative to Athenian (which subsumes Spartan) and so it should have common easy-for-everyone phonemes. But we have "ph" = "f" in Spartan, and I note that's not on your list of consonants more common than /ŋ/. We do however allow that "ph" can be pronounced /pə h/ in languages that don't have /f/.

We also allow that "j" can be pronounced /h/ as in Spanish. But the symbol that has both "p" and "j" has them in the other order, "jp". So /hə p/ is distinct from /pə h/

See https://sagittal.org/Sagittal-SMuFL-Map.pdf for all alternative pronunciations.

So we could allow for "ng" to be pronounced /nə g/.

Of note is that Sagispeak uses /w/ as an alternative to a consonant pair (one that includes /t/ at that) and /j/ as an... alternative to some very uncommon sounds like /ʒ/. I'm not exactly sure what our goals for internationality are, so I can't exactly judge this any further.

We want to be as international as is reasonable. Whatever that means.

Yes, clawing back some Spartan alternative like "w", or one of the many allowed pronunciations of "j", are possibilities. Do you have a suggestion as to how they might be used for the Stoics?

In all cases except p and g, the consonant letter was chosen for its resemblance to the downward sagittal flag(s), with or without their shaft. That includes the alternatives v, w and d.

Even among languages that have /ŋ/, some very important ones like English and (Mandarin) Chinese don't allow it in the onset of a syllable.

Good point. The /nə g/ option should solve that. But some might prefer /ɪŋ/, /ɪŋg/, /ɐŋ/ or /ɐŋg/at the start of a word. We could allow some or all of those too.

I mean, isn't plus already ?

Yes.

[Dave Keenan]

Here's the correspondence between Athenian and Stoic.

Athenian		Stoic
-------------------------------------------------------
|(	nai		|(	nai	[existing]
)|(	ranai		|((	?
~|(	sanai		|(((	?
/|	pai		/|	pai	[existing]
|)	tai		/|(	panai	[unproblematic]
|\ (|	kai and jai	/|((	?
(|(	janai		/|(((	?
//|	phai		//|	phai	[existing]
/|)	pajai or gai	//|(	phanai	[unproblematic]
/|\	pakai or vai	//|((	?
(|)	jatai or wai	//|(((	?
(|\	jakai or dai	///|	?

[cmloegcmluin]

I'm hoping @cmloegmcluin can come up with IPA spellings for whatever we settle on — maybe with some alternatives for speakers for whom "ng" is a foreign phoneme, if we go with "ng". I expect "php" would be "fəp".

I've been following the recent surge in activity on the forum with interest but am busy with other things at the moment. I have starred everything and plan to respond eventually!

[yahya.abdal-aziz]

Your suggestions:

|(	nai	[existing]
|((	ngai
|(((	ngnai
/|	pai	[existing]
/|(	panai
/|((	pangai
/|(((	pangnai
//|	phai	[existing]
//|(	phanai
//|((	phangai
//|(((	phangnai
///|	phpai

almost all use only open syllables CV, if we construe e.g. pangai as pa + ngai, rather than as pang + ai.

Would it be easier for people to pronounce Sagi names if each used only CV syllables? In the above list, we'd only need to modify those of the form CCV, viz. ngnai, pangnai, phangnai & phpai. And following the lead of pangai, these could simply become, by inserting an epenthetic vowel /a/, nganai, panganai, phanganai & phapai.

[Dave Keenan]

Hi Yahya. Thanks for joining in.

I don't have a problem with pronouncing "pangnai" with an epenthetic vowel as either /pɐ ŋa 'naɪ/ or /pɐŋ a 'naɪ/. But I balk at spelling it with an extra "a" as "panganai", as a lone "a" is intended to represent the arrow shaft, and so only appear between the sets of consonants that correspond to the left and right flags.

We show existing epenthetic vowels pronounced as schwa /ə/, but that's not important. e.g. ktai  , recommended /kə ˈtaɪ/, could be pronounced /ka ˈtaɪ/.

So far, all syllables in recommended Sagispeak pronunciations are CV syllables, as can be seen in the Character Map. But the problem with /ŋ/, as Volleo pointed out, is that the two languages with the greatest numbers of speakers (Mandarin and English) don't allow /ŋ/ at the start of a syllable, which is a particular problem for "ngai" and "ngnai".

These look like fun for testing proposed IPA. But I'm not sure if I believe them.
http://ipa-reader.xyz/
https://itinerarium.github.io/phoneme-synthesis/

[Dave Keenan]

I note that Sagispeak is effectively also "Sagispell". When it was first developed, I wrote (and George agreed):

We are hoping to have fixed spelling across all languages that use latin/roman characters, and in order to do so we are happy to allow different pronunciations, with "j" being probably the widest. It has at least four different pronunciations, e.g. english /dʒ/, french /ʒ/, german /j/ (english "y") and spanish /h/. That then means we can't use any other letter that has the same pronunciation, in any language, as any of those.

In reality I think we will have to allow a limited number of pronunciations for each letter, and then recommend alternative spellings for some languages.

And that is what we have done. We have definitely favoured constant spelling over constant pronunciation. The canonical spelling has very simple and consistent rules for deriving it from the flags making up the symbols.

Spelling rules:
1. One consonant letter for each of the 8 flag types (which in most cases resembles the downward flag with or without its shaft).
2. Replace any double consonant with that consonant followed by an "h",
(and now we have the proposal of following it with a "g" in the case of a double "n").
3. If the symbol has both right and left flags, place an "a" between the left and right sets of consonants.
4. End the word with "ai" if it is upward and "ao" if it is downward.

We have suggested a spelling change for some flag's consonant, in some language, only when:
(a) its flag-derived Roman spelling might otherwise be pronounced the same as some other flag's consonant in that, or some other language, thereby resulting in verbal miscommunication or ambiguity, or
(b) when the flag-derived Roman spelling is unfamiliar in that language, and so the pronunciation would otherwise be unclear.

Examples are:
In English, and other languages where "kh" (for the flags in ) might be pronounced the same as "k" (for the flag in ), replace "kh" with "ch" (which may be be pronounced either /x/ as in German "ach" or /tʃ/ as in English "chair").

In French, "kh" (for the flags in ) should be replaced with "tch" rather than "ch", to avoid having it pronounced the same as English "sh" /ʃ/ (which is used for the flags in  ).

In German, respell "sh" (for the flags in ) as "sch".

Fortunately these are not commonly used symbols.

[cmloegcmluin]

Okay, my thoughts. Sorry for the delay.

In the case of triple-p, I think it should be acceptable to collapse either the first two p's or the second two p's, i.e. I think either php or pph (fp or pf) should be allowed. It seems so far on this thread we've only looked at the first of these two options. That's unsurprising because as English speakers it is more natural for us to put fricative consonants like /f/ or /s/ before plosives like /p/. But it's not always the case. For example, in German, the word for arrow is Pfeil, where the plosive comes first.

As for the double- and triple-n, I agree that we should reserve the use of the vowel a for representing the shaft, and that spellings of ngai and ngnai (or nngai, per the above) are the way to go, while allowing for any arbitrary insertions of schwas (/əŋ gaɪ'/, /nə gaɪ'/, etc.) to make it work pronunciation-wise. My only alternative suggestion here is to consider a visual solution: that two n's could collapse to an m. We already use m for minas, but there it always pairs directly with an i or an o, like mi or mo. Here we would have mai and mnai. In English, the cluster "mn" is usually pronounced just as /n/, as in mnemonic, but in the original Greek they pronounce both the m and the n, so we could allow for that too. I'm not saying this suggestion is better than the ng approach. It's all I've got though.

Did I miss anything? I don't think there's any obvious secondary suggestion besides /ŋ/ for languages that don't have that sound. But I think it's high enough on Phoible's commonality list that we don't really have to worry too much about it.

[Dave Keenan]

In the case of triple-p, I think it should be acceptable to collapse either the first two p's or the second two p's, i.e. I think either php or pph (fp or pf) should be allowed. It seems so far on this thread we've only looked at the first of these two options. That's unsurprising because as English speakers it is more natural for us to put fricative consonants like /f/ or /s/ before plosives like /p/. But it's not always the case. For example, in German, the word for arrow is Pfeil, where the plosive comes first.

That's a good point about the German "pf". Also in "pfennig", the German penny, now slang for a Euro cent.

I assume you're suggesting we should allow the four different spellings "php", "pph", "fp" or "pf", as well as the three pronunciations /fəp/, /pəf/ and /pf/?

So far we've allowed alternative pronunciations to reduce the number of spellings, and we've allowed alternative spellings to reduce the number of pronunciations. But allowing both pf and fp proliferates both spellings and pronunciations.

Is the fact that Germans find "pfai" easier than "fpai", a good enough reason to do that?

I (as a native English speaker) find them equally difficult and in need of an intervening schwa.

This suggests that maybe we should just go with "pf" and forget "fp". But if you listen to anyone other than a German pronounce "pfennig", the "p" just gets dropped.
Compare the German and Spanish males here: https://forvo.com/word/pfennig/
In which case "pfai" would be indistinguishable from "fai"  .

Whereas fpai seems likely to always be pronounced fəpai and so remain distinct from from fai.

Do we allow the "pf" spelling and pronunciation only for Germans? We require "tch" in place of "ch" only in French. But that doesn't change the pronunciation. It preserves it.

As for the double- and triple-n, I agree that we should reserve the use of the vowel a for representing the shaft, and that spellings of ngai and ngnai (or nngai, per the above) are the way to go, while allowing for any arbitrary insertions of schwas (/əŋ gaɪ'/, /nə gaɪ'/, etc.) to make it work pronunciation-wise.

OK. We're agreed on that.

My only alternative suggestion here is to consider a visual solution: that two n's could collapse to an m. We already use m for minas, but there it always pairs directly with an i or an o, like mi or mo. Here we would have mai and mnai. In English, the cluster "mn" is usually pronounced just as /n/, as in mnemonic, but in the original Greek they pronounce both the m and the n, so we could allow for that too. I'm not saying this suggestion is better than the ng approach. It's all I've got though.

That was a good thought. But I think the danger of a silent "m" in "mn", like the danger of a silent "p" in "pf", and the lack of any serious problem with "ngn", means that we should not use "m" here.

Did I miss anything?

Not that I'm aware of. Thanks for that.

[cmloegcmluin]

I assume you're suggesting we should allow the four different spellings "php", "pph", "fp" or "pf", as well as the three pronunciations /fəp/, /pəf/ and /pf/?

Yes, I was suggesting that.

So far we've allowed alternative pronunciations to reduce the number of spellings, and we've allowed alternative spellings to reduce the number of pronunciations. But allowing both pf and fp proliferates both spellings and pronunciations.

Is the fact that Germans find "pfai" easier than "fpai", a good enough reason to do that?

Interesting point. Probably not.

....if you listen to anyone other than a German pronounce "pfennig", the "p" just gets dropped.
Compare the German and Spanish males here: https://forvo.com/word/pfennig/
In which case "pfai" would be indistinguishable from "fai"  .

Whereas fpai seems likely to always be pronounced fəpai and so remain distinct from from fai.

Also a good point. So that's a risk we shouldn't take. So we shouldn't use pf/pph in general.

Do we allow the "pf" spelling and pronunciation only for Germans? We require "tch" in place of "ch" only in French. But that doesn't change the pronunciation. It preserves it.

Right. I don't know German well enough to say whether or not /fp/ as an initial consonant cluster is productive for German speakers. Even if not, it's not for English speakers, so Germans could use an intervening schwa to make it work, as we do. So let's not use pf/pph at all.

...I think the danger of a silent "m" in "mn", like the danger of a silent "p" in "pf", and the lack of any serious problem with /ngn/, means that we should not use "m" here.

Agreed with that too, so never mind about the nn → m idea.