Day: June 23, 2016

This is for Dimitra Triantafyllidou and for Kelvin Zifla.

It’s in Greek, so it’s not for most of you.

One of the first records of Albanian is in the travelogue of Arnold von Harff, as he went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem via the Balkans in 1496. Everywhere he went, he recorded a few words and phrases in the local language.

The phrases included “maiden, shall I sleep with you”? (Not, oddly enough, in the Albanian section.)

I was wondering how to convert the Greek section into a comic strip. Dimitra had the inspired comment: “Hah! Who know that the first pickup artist [καμάκι] of the Balkans was a German!”

The comic strip is in Greek, but I think you get the drift…

Add. Books is /bʊks/, cats is /kæts/, booths is /bʉːθs/. If the ending is unvoiced, you voice the -s: legs is /lɛɡz/, birds is /bɜːdz., molds is /mɔuldz/.

English is quite tolerant of clusters. You’ll only get a segment dropping out when the cluster gets really complicated, and even then pedants will say that is not trying hard enough. sixths, months: /sɪksθs, manθs/, informally /sɪkːs, manːs ~ mants/.

Yes, I’m transcribing Australian English. Why do you ask?