Black Box Testing in Linguistics—Nachele Thanhthu and Nyklus Affanita SpecGram Vol CLVIII, No 3 Contents Großwortbuch—Book Announcement from Psammeticus Press

The Divine Future of Linguistics, Part II

by John Miaou
with the assistance of the editors of SpecGram

Let it be known by all, and let them hear who have ears, and let them see who have eyes, that the linguists hereby recognised as either Saints or Guardians will from now on, till the end of all utterances, be regarded as Divine Protectors of our Holy Field of Language. Any one of them may be summoned for inspiration in times of darkness and silence. Should a word be too hard to pronounce, or a sentence too difficult to parse, you may kneel in solemn prayer and humbly ask for moral encouragement and guidance from the following revered linguists.

[Note: This is only part two of the list. Part one, along with introductory and explanatory text, appeared in the last issue of Speculative Grammarian. —Eds.]

LETTERS, SYMBOLS & SUCH
Guardian of All Odd Letters & Symbols Claudius (10BC-AD54), for introducing us to the letters , , and
Guardian of All Roman Click SymbolsLewis Grout (1815-1905), for his part in popularising the letters q, c, and x to denote click sounds in Zulu
Guardian of All Obsolete Click Symbols Thomas Herbert (1606-1682), for being the first to write down clicks, using the string “ist”
Guardian of All Meaningless Script Reforms George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), for his Shavian Alphabet
Guardian of American Spelling Noah Webster (1758-1843), for his contributions to American English lexicography and spelling, changing many English c’s to s, and -our to -or
Guardian of All Silly Characters John Wilkins (1614-1672), for his Real Character
Guardian of All Punctuation Victor Borge (1909-2000), for his ingenious readings of all unreadable signs
Patron Saint of a Isaac Pitman (1813-1897), for his part in devising the English Phonotypic Alphabet
Patron Saint of æ King Ælfred (849-899), for his part in preserving the Anglo-Saxon language and culture
Patron Saint of Æ Abbot Ælfric (955-1010), for having written the first grammar of Anglo-Saxon (early English)
Patron Saint of the Jumping α Noam Chomsky (1928- ), for having spawned more formalisations than there are linguists
Patron Saint of α and β David Diringer (1900-1975), for his contributions to the study of the alphabet
Patron Saints of ə The Masoretes of Tiberias (7th-11th centuries), collectively, for giving us the schwa symbol
Patron Saint of ff William Jones (1746-1794), for his contributions to Indo-European studies and for being Welsh
Patron Saint of ɥ Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), for introducing us to the letter ɥ for [ʌn], in his Reformed English Alphabet
Patron Saint of i John Hart (16th century), for his early work on English orthography and pronunciation
Patron Saint of J Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), for his influential English dictionary, the entries of which appear in the OED marked as ‘J’
Patron Saint of ʞ P.W. Schmidt (1845-1921), for using the letter ʞ as a click symbol in the Anthropos Alphabet
Patron Saint of ɯ William Thornton (1759-1828), for wanting to use the letter ɯ instead of w
Patron Saint of ng Alexander J. Ellis (1814-1890), for having preferred ng over ŋ in his Digraphic Alphabet
Patron Saint of p Lu Xun (1881-1936), for his part in promoting the use of Pinyin
Patron Saint of Eduard Sievers (1850-1932), for his studies of Anglo-Saxon meter
Patron Saint of q Félix du Bois Reymond (1782-1865), for suggesting that the letter q should be used for [t]
Patron Saint of ʇ Charles Butler (1560-1647), for introducing the letter ʇ to denote [θ]
Patron Saint of ts Yuen Ren Chao (1892-1982), for his part in devising Gwoyeu Romatzyh, one of the precursors of Pinyin
Patron Saint of tz Lin Yutang (1895-1976), for his part in devising Gwoyeu Romatzyh, one of the precursors of Pinyin
Patron Saint of x Qu Qiubai (1899-1935), for his part in devising Latinxua, one of the precursors of Pinyin
Patron Saint of the Laryngeal ‘ Otto Dempwolff (1871-1938), for using the letter/symbol ‘ to denote something that was either a vowel, a consonant, something in between, or nothing at all
Patron Saint of the Retroflex ² Ernst Brücke (1819-1892), for using a superscript 2 to denote retroflex sounds, hence = [ʈ]
Patron Saint of the Nasal * Hans Christian Knudsen (1818-1863), for choosing to represent nasality with an asterisk
Patron Saint of Peter Kolbe (1675-1726), for having used as a generic click symbol
Patron Saint of François le Vaillant (1753-1824), for having used as a click symbol for [ǂ]
Patron Saint of John Barrow (1764-1848), for having used as a click symbol for [!]
Guardian of All Egyptian Hieroglyphs Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832), for being the first in modern times to decipher the Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Guardian of the Hieroglyphic Index Alan H. Gardiner (1879-1963), for his efforts in standardising the use and printing of Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Patron Saint of 𐀀𐀖𐀛𐀰 (aminiso) Michael Ventris (1922-1956), for deciphering Linear B
Patron Saint of 𐀝 (nu) John Chadwick (1920-1998), for his part in deciphering Linear B
Guardian of All Morphophonemic Characters John DeFrancis (1911-2009), for his role in debunking myths about Chinese writing
Guardian of the 540 Radicals Xǔ Shèn (58-147), for being the first to organise Chinese Characters according to form
Guardian of the Fǎnqiès (反切) Sun Yan (3rd century), for allegedly being the first to use fǎnqiè (phonetic cues) to indicate the pronunciation of Chinese Characters
Guardian of Chinese Soundalikes (音訓) Liú Xī (3rd century), for allegedly having compiled the Shìmíng (釋名), an early Chinese dictionary based on puns (yínxùn)
Guardian of All Rhyming Eyes (韻目) Lu Fayan (581-618), for having compiled the Qièyùn (切韻), an early Chinese rhyming dictionary
Guardian of All Edible Chinese Characters James D. McCawley (1938-1999), for his gastronomic explanations of Chinese Characters
Patron Saint of the Erya (爾雅) Duke of Zhou (11th century BC), for allegedly having compiled Erya, the first known Chinese dictionary
First Patron Saint of Kangxi Zidian (康熙字典) Zhang Yushu (1642-1711), for his part in compiling the great Kangxi dictionary
Second Patron Saint of Kangxi Zidian (康熙字典) Chen Tingjing (1639-1712), for his part in compiling the great Kangxi dictionary
Patron Saint of the Hùdiǎr (蝴) George A. Kennedy (1901-1960), for his contributions to the Case of the Chinese Butterfly
Guardian of Han’gul (한글) Sejong the Great of Korea (1397-1450), for inventing the Han’gul script
Guardian of All Things Cherokee Sequoyah (1767-1843), for creating the Cherokee syllabary
Guardian of All West African Scripts Mɔmɔlu Duwalu Bukɛlɛ (1800s-1850), for having invented the Vai script, or ꕉꕧꕮꕯ (Ajamana)
Patron Saint of the Bamum Script Chief Nʒoya of Fumban (19/20th centuries), for inventing the Bamum syllabary
Patron Saint of Bassa Vah Thomas Flow Lewis (20th century), for inventing Nnikasefa, or the Bassa Alphabet
Patron Saint of Kikaku Kisimi Kamara (1890-1962), for having invented the Mende syllabary
First Patron Saint of Obɛri Ɔkaimɛ Michael Ukpɔn (20th century), for his part in inventing the Obɛri Ɔkaimɛ alphabet
Second Patron Saint of Obɛri Ɔkaimɛ Akpan Udɔfia (20th century), for his part in inventing the Obɛri Ɔkaimɛ alphabet
Patron Saint of the Loma Script Widɔ Zoɓo (20th century), for inventing the Loma syllabary
Patron Saint of the Kpelle Script Chief Gbili of Sanoyea (20th century), for inventing the Kpelle syllabary
Patron Saint of the N’ko Script (ߏߞߒ) Soulemayne Kante (1922-1987), for having invented the N’ko Alphabet
Patron Saint of the Bete Script Frédéric Bruly-Bouabré (20th century), for inventing the Bete syllabary
Guardian of All Modern Shorthand Systems John Willis (1572-1625), for creating the first modern shorthand system, or Stenography


DIACRITICS
Guardian of DiacriticsA.A.E. Schleiermacher (1787-1858), for the abundant use of diacritics in his Harmonic Alphabet
Guardian of Too Many Diacritics Karl Lepsius (1810-1884), for the over-abundance of diacritics in his Standard Alphabet
Patron Saint of the Dot Below ( ọ ) Samuel Ajayi Crowther (1809-1891), for insisting on the use of subdotted vowels
Patron Saint of the Double Dot ( ö ṳ ) Thomas Smith (1513-1577), for having used the double dot to indicate vowel length
Patron Saint of the Diacritic Click Johann Heinrich Schmelen (1777-1848), for trying to use diacritics to denote clicks


TEXT FORMATTING
Guardian of Too Much Italics Fr. Max Müller (1823-1900), for mixing italic and regular fonts in his Missionary Alphabet

Black Box Testing in Linguistics—Nachele Thanhthu and Nyklus Affanita
Großwortbuch—Book Announcement from Psammeticus Press
SpecGram Vol CLVIII, No 3 Contents