-----Original Message-----
From: KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 21:21:18 +0200
Subject: Re: !wándèrîng [ÖT] 

> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Flak Magnet" <flakmagnet@tabletop-battlezone.com>
> > When you contract a word together, your use apostrophes for the
parts
> > you don't say (in "can't" the apostrophe replaces the "no" in "can
> > not").  With alien words/names, it would seem that humans would
> "spell"
> > the parts that we CAN'T pronounce with an apostrophe.
> >
> > Perhaps that's the etymology of alien words containing apostrophes,
> the
> > apostrophes represent the "contraction" of alien words/sounds that
> can't
> > be pronounced by humans or even spelled by human letters or
> characters.
> 
> No need to postulate extraterrestrial languages. Various HUMAN
> languages,
> when written in the Latin alphabet use different kinds of extra signs,
> accents, cedilles etc. to denote sounds not usually available in the
> alphabet, e.g.properly transliterated Chinese with its tones uses four
> accents, German has its Umlauts marked by two dots over the vowels.
The
> most
> unusual are probably the click sounds of the !Kung (Bushman) languages
> marked by exclamation and other marks.
> 
> Using only apostrophes is just a lack of imagination .
> 
> ;-)
> Karl Heinz

But you are still talking about sounds that humans can still make... 
how 
would you spell *Sound of rending metal punctuated by flatulatory
noises*?

Me, I render it all down to Scree'Brrapp.

And I'm pretty imaginative, thank you very much, it's just hard to send 
umlauts and whatnot through text email using my current email client and

keyboard.  (Read that as I haven't a clue how I'd go about it, in spite 
of having the ASCII codes for such characters taped to the wall of my 
office.