LINGUIST List 9.711

Thu May 14 1998

Qs: Alphabets,Japanese Frequency,Obstruents,Milroy

Editor for this issue: Julie Wilson <julielinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Nicholas Ostler, Re: "7-bit languages" (A-Z)
2. Miho Fujiwara, Japanese word frequency list
3. Dr. Wini Davies, J. Milroy
4. frida morelli, Obstruent clusters

This is just a point of curiosity, but it would be interesting to get an answer.

At 7:01 pm 12/5/98, Trond Trosterud wrote (among much else more solid stuff):
>... 7-bit-languages (a-z)... I know only #two# a-z
>lgs: English and Indonesian...

Trond was referring to languages whose customary orthography uses nothing more
than the 26 letters of the "Roman" alphabet (including j, v and w), without
accents or diacritics. They are surprisingly few.

I could add to English and Indonesian a few more:
Cornish, Swahili, Maori, Warlpiri, Tok Pisin and Latin itself.

(This shows that "7-bit languages" may well use less than the 26, and may
also (unwisely, on Trond's view) not reflect all their phonemic
distinctions: ironically enough, Roman letters are suboptimal for Latin
which has phonemic vowel-length.)

There seem to be a lot more in sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific islands, and
Australia.

I am tempted to allow in Nahuatl, although it conventionally uses Spanish
punctuation, with upside down exclamation and question marks. Hawaiian is
7-bit, but would fail to qualify as A-Z in the strict sense, since it uses
the standard apostrophe as its distinctive glottal stop.

Basque and Quechua are almost there, but then use tilde over n in Spanish
style. Dutch also comes close, but appears to have an obligatory diaeresis
over e in some words e.g. Australi.

I'd be interested in knowing of any others, and would publish a summary
after a decent interval.

The fair rarity of such languages (and the fact that they exclude all the
major European languages, as well as most others with populations over a
million) is a little-noticed measure of how tyrannous a standard 7-bit
ascii really was (is?). But it's a pleasant irony that it puts English on
a par with a clutch of the little guys.

Of course, if this is a chestnut to script experts, and there's a simple
single source with all the answers, I'd be even happier with a reference to
that.



- --------------------------------------------------------------
 Nicholas Ostler
Managing Director President
Linguacubun Ltd Foundation for Endangered Languages
 http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Philosophy/CTLL/FEL/

 Batheaston Villa, 172 Bailbrook Lane
 Bath BA1 7AA England
 +44-1225-85-2865 fax +44-1225-85-9258
 nostlerchibcha.demon.co.uk

I would like to know if anybody knows of a computerized Japanese word 
frequency list. I really appreciate if you can give me some
information regarding the list. Thank you very much for your help in
advance. 

Miho Fujiwara
fujiwarmgusun.georgetown.edu

I have a question re James Milroy's work and I was hoping that someone could
help me.

A German referee of an article of mine has suggested that I read what Milroy
has to say re the social indexical nature of indicators and markers. The
referee says that Milroy sees this topic as forming the basis of
sociolinguistics (the original comment was in German: die soziale
Indizierung von Indikatoren/Markern stellt die Grundlagen der
Soziolinguistik). The referee provides no reference so I don't know where to
find this discussion by Milroy. Can anyone help? I've looked through the
index of Milroy's Ling Variation and Change and found nothing. 
============================================================================
========

Winifred V. Davies,
Adran Ieithoedd Ewropeaidd / Dept of European Langs,
P.C. Aberystwyth / U.W. Aberystwyth,
Penglais,
Aberystwyth, 
Ceredigion SY23 3DY,
Cymru / Wales.

Ffn / Phone: +44.1970.622557
Ffacs / Fax: +44.1970.622553

I am currently investigating certain patterns of occurrence of obstruent
clusters in onset position. I am interested in finding out whether there
are languages that follow one of the following patterns:

A: Allow only onset sequences of a fricative and a stop. Any fricative in
 the language can precede the stop. In other words I am looking for a
 language that, unlike English that only allows clusters of the type
 's+STOP, would allow also f+STOP or x+STOP. 
 

B: Allow onset sequences of a fricative and a stop, or of a stop and a
 fricative or of two stops. The fricative in the fricative-stop sequence
 can only be a coronal. The language's inventory contains 
 fricatives at other places of articulation besides coronal.


Any information about such patterns is highly appreciated. 

I will post a summary to the list.

Frida Morelli

 		**************************************

		 	 Frida Morelli
			Linguistics Department
			University of Maryland
 College Park, MD 20742

			 fmorelliwam.umd.edu
			 (301) 314-4039
 
 ***************************************