Marcel c'è nünc El Duceu

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

La Società per l'Ilesnaziun del Glheþ Naziunal

By the power inherent in my role as Minster of Culture of the Kingdom of Talossa, I decree:

- that as soon as the Still Into This Amendment takes effect SIGN is the only national body responsible for protecting, defending, developing and setting standards for ár glheþ naziunál, el glheþ Talossán.
- that (subject to confirmation by the poll attached to this message) @Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial will be Provisional Convenor of SIGN and will have unilateral authority to set up standards for el glheþ, and to create membership and decision-making rules for SIGN, subject only to counter-signature by the Minister of Culture.

Anyone got a problem with this?

[Ian Plätschisch]

*Dons nerd glasses*

Technically, the CUG still exists as the governing authority until the Still Into This amendment actually goes into effect, which hasn't happened yet.

[Iac Marscheir]

Yeah, but y'know the Boy Scouts motto... It's, like, don't drop the soap or something. But, somehow, I know it applies to this kind of situation.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

If the CÚG were ever to bestir itself to object, that might have some relevance.

[Magniloqueu Épiqeu Ac’hlerglünä da Lhiun]

I do have a problem with "unilateral" and "subject only to countersignature by the Ministry of Justice".

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

If you people had got it together to make something happen in the 2 years (!!!) I've been trying to herd you like recalcitrant cats, then this measure would not be necessary.

You don't get to pass the buck, disappear, not do the work, and play "wish someone else would..." anymore, because it's me with whom the buck stops. Extreme measures are now necessary. I am giving Marcel the power because doing this the consensus way got nowhere.

Nevertheless, once SIGN is formally established, democracy will be restored within the language community. If you have a better way to break the deadlock of the last 2 years, now is the time to recommend it.

Many people complain about inactivity in Talossa, call it a "nation-threatening crisis", and then complain about any serious measures meant to change that.

[Magniloqueu Épiqeu Ac’hlerglünä da Lhiun]

I understand, but I do not necessarily appreciate, that tone of voice, I'm sorry.

I am not sure what "deadlock of the past two years" you speak of. We had proposed to do background work – research and corpus production, if you will – to come up with material to compare and see where consensus and commonalities could be found, and where we could find crass divergences, which would eventually have to be streamlined into one recommended "Unified Standard".

Extant materials are not plentiful, but they CAN be found. I would love for people to maybe help me in my project of compiling a corpus. I might upload an Excel sheet that everybody can work on.

Generally speaking: this is not the time to make language policy. This is the time to invest in research, codification and corpus-building.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

Lüc noticed the new Witt supports multiple languages and suggested we localise it into Talossan. I love the idea, but which spelling do we use? If more than one person works on a localisation, we'd either have different conflicting spellings next to each other or we'd have to agree on which system to use consistently.

In the meantime other things in the kingdom need translations too, and again, which spelling do we use?

At the very very least, we could agree on some kind of makeshift solution until the big "Unified Standard" is finalised. Like, we could just directly compare how each of us spells stuff (one of the reasons why I made the PDF in my signature, I advise that you guys have something like that as well) and find a common denominator that way. Please?

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

Thanks, Marcial. I think your PDF contains a good compromise for a "Provisional Standard" which is "good enough for Government work", as the saying goes.

But it is very crucial that we don't confuse the short term for the long term. We need a CÚG replacement that will do proper language research of the kind Epic suggests. We also need a Standard Talossan right now. The two are not in conflict. In fact, I hope that by establishing a standard that some speakers might not like, you guys will be motivated to organise SIGN properly, do the research, and create a better standard.

I look forward to Epic, Marcel, Iac and others (with my contribution, of course) setting up the rules by which SIGN will operate. Making rules of authority and of decision-making that will allow us to create Arestadâs or whatever in the way that CÚG used to; and carrying out the research that Epic talks about that make sure we make good ones.

In the meantime, I say that Marcel's proposal is good enough for right now.

[Magniloqueu Épiqeu Ac’hlerglünä da Lhiun]

Marcel, why:

• do you have /k/ for q, when all materials actually show that "q" is a distinct phoneme [c~kʲ],
• do these words show a glide: "cioveci" (which should be [t͡ʃoˈvet͡ʃ]), "(t)irh" (which should be [(t)i(ː)ʃ]),
• do you write -r [ʃ] for the infinitive, but the future suddenly has a -h- inserted before the suffixes, when pronunciation of the /r/ as [ʃ] does not change?

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

do you write -r [ʃ] for the infinitive, but the future suddenly has a -h- inserted before the suffixes, when pronunciation of the /r/ as [ʃ] does not change?

That is the classical pre-2006 spelling rule. From La Scúrzniâ Gramáticâ Del Glhetg Talossán, Secund Ediziun

21.11 The simple future tense is formed from the infinitive by dropping the -ar ending of the infinitive and adding the
following endings to the stem of the verb:
"I" form -arhéu "We" form -arhent
"Thou" form -arhás "You" form -arhetz
"He/she/it" form -arha "They" form -arhent
21.12 The ending -arh- is pronounced [aS] throughout the future tense conjugation. An example of a regular future tense
conjugation follows:
Lirar [liraS] -- to read
eu lirarhéu [liraSeu] -- I shall read, I am going to read
tú lirarhás [liraSas] -- Thou shalt/art going to read
o lirarha [liraSë] -- He will read, he is going to read
noi lirarhent [liraSënt] -- We shall read, are going to read
voi lirarhetz [liraSec] -- You will read, are going to read
os lirarhent [liraSënt] -- They will read, are going to read
21.13 The -arh- endings were originally spelt -ar- (liraréu, etc.) but it was difficult to remember that these "r's" were to
be pronounced <S>. The addition of the helpful letter "h" was mandated by the Arestadâ of 19 August 1993.

[Magniloqueu Épiqeu Ac’hlerglünä da Lhiun]

Indeed, I have read that work, but that was years ago. My point stands: *why* adopt it?

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

With respect, the only answer to that at this stage is a) that's the Talossan language that I and every other pre-2006 Talossan learned; and (b) "why not".

Nitpicking the terms of a provisional, short-term standard will lead to there being no short term standard and we're stuck in the same limbo as the last 2 years. If you want a different rule in the long-term standard, then by all means, propose as much in the long, thorough process that you yourself have recommended, and let the best proposals win.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

Marcel, why:

• do you have /k/ for q, when all materials actually show that "q" is a distinct phoneme [c~kʲ],

I don't. I have /kj/ for <q>, as suggested by the ScurzGram/Treisour (which both say its [kj]) and talossan.com ("q is pronounced as the beginning of the English words "cue" and "cute"."). There are some words where <q> is irregularly pronounced as /k/ though, and I got those directly from the ScurzGram and the 1997 Treisour.

• do these words show a glide: "cioveci" (which should be [t͡ʃoˈvet͡ʃ]), "(t)irh" (which should be [(t)i(ː)ʃ]),

This is intentional. "cioveci" might be up for debate (ScurzGram explicitly says [CovejC] and I remember reading that on kingdomoftalossa.net as well, but talossan.com suggests [tʃoˈvetʃ]), but literally all Glheþ materials say (t)ir is to be pronounced [(t)i.əʃ] (ScurzGram has "irë [iëS]" and "tirë [tiëS]", talossan.com states that all verb infinitives, including the ones in -irh, rhyme with "posh", or "mush" if unstressed, which suggests [(t)i.əʃ] as well)

• do you write -r [ʃ] for the infinitive, but the future suddenly has a -h- inserted before the suffixes, when pronunciation of the /r/ as [ʃ] does not change?

Because reverting the infinitive to -r was agreed upon by both sides of the aisle and the -rh- spelling was something that both sides already had anyway. The way I personlly make sense of it is that the H is a remnant of an older future auxiliary (cf. Spanish hablaré, from earlier *hablar he) though I'll admit there are some verbs where this doesn't work (säperéu with a medial [r], for instance).

[Magniloqueu Épiqeu Ac’hlerglünä da Lhiun]

I don't. I have /kj/ for <q>, as suggested by the ScurzGram/Treisour (which both say its [kj]) and talossan.com ("q is pronounced as the beginning of the English words "cue" and "cute"."). There are some words where <q> is irregularly pronounced as /k/ though, and I got those directly from the ScurzGram and the 1997 Treisour.

I do think it is safe to assume /c/ for ‹q›, or at least a palatalised /kʲ/, and that the annotation as "kj" was only a crutch, because "c" was used for /ts/ and other IPA symbols were not available (e.g."ëS" for [əʃ].
A few years back, I had the discussion of whether "qátor" wasn't supposed to be /cator/, because it is derived from the Insular (p-)Celtic word for the numeral, which has a palatal velar stop. Cresti, if I remember correctly, seemed to agree.

This is intentional. "cioveci" might be up for debate (ScurzGram explicitly says [CovejC] and I remember reading that on kingdomoftalossa.net as well, but talossan.com suggests [tʃoˈvetʃ]), but literally all Glheþ materials say (t)ir is to be pronounced [(t)i.əʃ] (ScurzGram has "irë [iëS]" and "tirë [tiëS]", talossan.com states that all verb infinitives, including the ones in -irh, rhyme with "posh", or "mush" if unstressed, which suggests [(t)i.əʃ] as well)

Interesting. I am not sure however to interpret the part with "posh/mush", because that does not rhyme for me even with the shwa. ScGr2 says: "When the ending is stressed, it is pronounced [aS]. When unstressed, it is pronounced [ëS]. [...] Two irregular verbs have aberrant endings, but still end in -rë. These aberrant verbs are irë [iëS] [...]"
Personally, I interpret this as Madison not understanding how i-stem verbs work. I will shrug at that for the moment, but I would suggest either a spelling reform to "íar(h)" and "tíar(h)", or actually using a spelling pronunciation.

Because reverting the infinitive to -r was agreed upon by both sides of the aisle and the -rh- spelling was something that both sides already had anyway. The way I personlly make sense of it is that the H is a remnant of an older future auxiliary (cf. Spanish hablaré, from earlier *hablar he) though I'll admit there are some verbs where this doesn't work (säperéu with a medial [r], for instance).

I mean, I do not really care. Both seem valid and logical, but the "-rh" is somewhat unique, and worth keeping as an infinitive suffix, too.

By the way, one correction I do have, I checked again, is that "acestilor" should have a [ʃ] for the "s", because ScGr2 lists it as "aCeSCëlër".

As to the /l/ → [ð], I think there may be a case for the /l/ becoming a voiced interdental fricative intervocalically, at least optionally, because ScGr2 says:

Other peculiar phonetic features include the fronting of word-initial [l] to [D] (as in English "this") between vowels: the phrases la divertà ("the fun") and la livertà ("the liberty") are pronounced alike: [la Diverta]. This innovation has even crept into a few word-medial situations, e.g. fodiclâ [foDiklë], "follicle".