Spelling

[verhaden]

I've only recently been bitten by the EPT bug, and had a few questions concerning some spelling shifts I've noticed across a few books/websites.

E.g., The 1975 edition reads "Hlýss," but I've read "Hlüss" on the Tékumel website.

Or it reads "Béy Sý" in the 1975 edition and then on some eBay auction pictures for The Tsolyáni Language (dated 1978) it reads "Béy Sü" with an acute over the umlaut.

Just wondering if there was any additional information available concerning Barker's refinements/shifts of the language over time.

[grodog]

Calling Victor Raymond: badger2305

Allan.

[verhaden]

E.g., N'lýss becoming N'lüss.

Appendix A in the Empire of the Petal Throne (1975) rulebook:

y In the west of Tsolyánu (the dividing line being the Missúma River), this is the German [ u ] of "fur." A high front rounded vowel. In the east this vowel is pronounced like the (1) of Turkish: a high central unrounded vowel. Some Western American dialects have a vowel similar to this, although it is usually unstressed. A stressed contrast (in "cowboy English") is: "just" as in "He's a just man," contrasted with "gist" as in "That's the gist of it," contrasted with "just" as in "He's just comin'" -- the last of these is often spelled "jist" in novels. This pronunciation is the one preferred in the Imperial court and in the capital. For convenience' sake the symbol "y" is used for this letter -- there should never be any confusion with consonantal "y" as in "yes." Note that this "y" vowel is never the vowel of "my." One can thus pronounce the name of the Imperial capital as "Béy Sí" (with the vowel of the second word as in Turkish) or as "Béy Sú" (with the vowel of the second word as in German "fur"). If one cannot manage either of these, the second word should be pronounced like Spanish "si" -- never like "sigh."

And pulling from Swords & Glory:

"The Tsolyáni phoneme ü (written y in some earlier works on Tekumel) is pronounced like the "umlaut ü" of German über or the u of French tu in western Tsolyánu. In the eastern regions this vowel is a high central unrounded vowel: the "i without a dot" of Turksih. See Sec. 1.1210."

I see it as a refinement, but reading this I now wonder why he even bothered with ý to begin with.

[greentongue]

It may have been the only way it could be printed at the time without having to manually add the marks.

[verhaden]

Maybe. But it looks like they added all of the accents manually anyway, in the TSR printing. I don’t know how it’s done with metal type, but they don’t look like Optima accent marks. And they’re not consistently applied across all of the Tsolyáni words to hat need them. I know Chirine said they were manully added in the Gamescience Swords & Glory books.

[verhaden]

Later in Swords & Glory...

* This vowel was transcribed as y in many of the author's previous works on Tékumel: e.g., Béy Sý, Hry'ý. Although this was a useful spelling and typing convention, it gave rise to confusion. Some readers pronounced this y like that of my; others made it the y of truly. Upon reading the description, still others pronounced y like the u of Zulu. It seemed better to indicate the real quality of this vowel by writing as ü throughout. The reader must still decide whether to adopt the eastern or western pronunciation, however.

[greentongue]

This is the sort of thing that has relegated the game to a novelty.
Focusing on the minute details, causes the setting becomes too difficult for most people to enjoy.
It is interesting details however.
=