http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Zombie_Speech_Translators#How_Urban_Dead_processes_Zombie_speech
How Urban Dead processes Zombie speech
(this information was kindly provided by Kevan)
in order of execution:
all occurrences of characters "eiou" (case-insensitive) are replaced with "r".
all characters other than "zhrgbmna .!?-" (case-insensitive) are stripped.
multiple spaces are replaced with a single.
lower-case "r" at the end of words replaced with "rh".
an "a" or "A" by itself will be replaced with "hra".
the starts of sentences are capitalised (the "start of a sentence" is any occurrence of ".!?", followed by a space, followed by a letter.)
spaces preceding any of ".!?" are stripped.
the first character is capitalised.
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D: Swapping R for vowels implies their vocal chords are constricted and are never fully open. So air flow is always constricted. This also implies everything is voiced.
Imprecise muscle control makes an intentional R aspirated.
This aspiration precedes A.
Capitalizing the first letter suggests imprecise muscle control, with the initial sound more forceful than intended.
Many characters are simply stripped. This looks like a severe form of elision for weaker consonants. Kinda.
For more information, here is the best article online on coarticulation. I'll be revisiting it with new insights for Decimese.
http://www.personal.rdg.ac.uk/~llsroach/phon2/asscoareli-into.htm
D: you are a brain-hungry zombie in search of warm living meat. But how to commicate with the other ones like you?
There is something wrong with your tongue, and your brain feels muddled too.
The answer - zombese! <:
Phonology
[edit]Phonemes
Much like English, Zamgrh consists of a phonetic alphabet in which a letter or combination of letters may take several tones. Previously it was theorized that there were only 21 distinct phonemes available. In written language these can be denoted by the following characters: z, a, m, g, r, h, n, b, and ! serving as letters in the English sense, with -, ., ,, ?, and ! serving as punctuation. By combining the basic sounds the modern zombie is able to communicate additional sounds.
The use by zombies of the ! as a glottal stop or "i" sound does require the careful attention of humans to make sure that they're interpreting kiZombie correctly. Some zombies have been found to inhale when making the !, making it sound more like an "I" in English would sound
Orthography
kiZombie has no standard capitalization or punctuation. Capital letters indicate a rising tone which often signals a change in meaning, and the 'punctuation' marks actually indicate various grunts, which also carry specific meanings.
All utterances are preceded by a short silence, which is orthographically represented by a space. So 'I am a zombie' is spoken not *"ah z zam" but rather " ah z zam"
D: here is little taste of their vocabulary.
A!
A!rbagz (noun) (also Aarbagz)
Airbags
A!rmrh (also Aarmrh)
(noun) breath (Life-air)
(verb) to breathe
Numbers
To help zombies in speech, some linguists have proposed a punctuation based number system.
kiZombie would thus have a base 5 numbering system:
Be sure to check out the zombie food pyramid! <:
D: looks a lot like binary.
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After a digit reaches 9, an increment resets it to 0 but also causes an increment of the next digit to the left. In binary, counting is the same except that only the two symbols 0 and 1 are used. Thus after a digit reaches 1 in binary, an increment resets it to 0 but also causes an increment of the next digit to the left:
0000,
0001, (rightmost digit starts over, and next digit is incremented)
0010, 0011, (rightmost two digits start over, and next digit is incremented)
0100, 0101, 0110, 0111, (rightmost three digits start over, and the next digit is incremented)
1000, 1001, ...
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I hope I have expanded your intellectual horizons with this entry on zombese.
Brains... goooooddd! <:
And if you have not, read "World War Z" and the "Zombie Survival Guide"!
D.
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Tomorrow's entry will be on my impression of sign language. I knew enough before to get by on coffee dates with an attractive deaf woman.
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