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Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!librik
From: librik@netcom.com (David Librik)
Subject: Re: Bajoran language
Message-ID: <librikD02q63.Hyx@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <3be0se$o71@mother.usf.edu>
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 09:25:15 GMT
Lines: 32

millert@grad.csee.usf.edu (Timothy Miller) writes:

>Pre-Preliminary Bajoran Lexicon
>Version 0.01
>Written by Timothy Miller
>Email: tmiller@suntan.eng.usf.edu
>UsMail:
>  Timothy Miller
>  7519 Winging Way Drive
>  Tampa, FL  33615-1519

...

>Norm.   Plur.   Neg.   Accu.   Dat.   Gen.

*sigh*.  If you're going to invent a new language for aliens, why
give it Indo-European (surely the most boring of all language families :->)
properties?  The nice thing about Klingon is that Okrand based it on
Costanoan (a Penutian language formerly spoken in the San Francisco Bay
Area).  Surely you know enough Typology to introduce some more interesting
features; or you could base it on Eskimoan or Iroquoian or Tupi-Guarani or one
of the scores of nifty New Guinean language families.  _Interesting_ is what
makes language fans (like the Klingon fans) perk up their ears.  How about
some ejectives, voiceless vowels, prenasalized stops, or clicks?

- David (never did learn Laadan) Librik
librik@cs.Berkeley.edu

p.s. considering how much the Ferengi are like dwarves, how about giving
their language a consonant-root system like Dwarvish or Hamito-Semitic
(Arabic, Hebrew)?

