There's Nothing New Under the Sun

Two weeks ago, I got started preparing to actually make a conlang.  Given my disposition, I naturally wanted to make a language that would encourage theologically sophisticated, Biblically sound thought. What is the distinctive foundation of Christian thinking?  Obviously, it the Trinity.  There are other monotheistic religions and there are other "multiform" religions, but only Christianity espouses the equal ultimacy of "the One and the Many".  Only we say that God is One and God is Three.

How would that fact manifest itself in language?  I wasn't sure at first.  Some trite examples came first: three "levels" for consonants, as in Korean.  For those who don't know

• ㅂ means b/p (unaspirated)
• ㅃ means bb (tensed)
• ㅍ means p' (strong and aspirated)

Now that I've been exposed to ejective consonants (thanks to Na'vi), I imagined three levels that would be clear to me:

• ㅂ could come to mean /b/ (voiced)
• ㅃ could mean /p/ (unvoiced, aspirated)
• ㅍ could mean /p'/ (ejective)

Interestingly, there are 9 triples like this that English speakers can readily distinguish:

1. /b/, /p/, and /p'/
2. /ʒ/, /ʃ/, and /ʃ'/ (zh, sh, and sh')
3. /ʤ/, /ʧ/, and /ʧ'/ (j, ch, and ch')
4. /d/, /t/, and /t'/
5. /g/, /k/, and /k'/
6. /v/, /f/, and /f'/
7. /ð/, /θ/, and /θ'/ (they, thin, BATH! - as an angry, two syllable word)
8. /z/, /s/, and /s'/
9. /ʣ/, /ʦ/, and /ʦ/

There are three clicks that I can distinguish by hearing alone:

1. ʘ - like a kissing sound but without the lip pursing
2. ! - your tongue sucks to the roof of your mouth and then slaps down
3. | - like the tsk of calling a horse.  I can't tell the difference with ‖.

The vowels can easily be divided up into 9, 3 high, 3 mid and 3 low: beet, bit, boot, bate, soot, boat, bet, bat, bot.  There are also three nasal consonants (and thanks to Na'vi, I can say 'ng' at the start of a word now!) I can hear:

1. /m/
2. /n/
3. /ŋ/

Also thanks to Na'vi, here are three liquid consonants

1. /l/
2. /r/
3. /ɾ/

I had trouble thinking of three glides (just /j/ and /w/) but then again, the lack of one could be the third!

There are three tenses: past, present, future.  There are three persons: first, second and third.  Hebrew has three numbers: singular, dual, plural ... or maybe I should go with the Kantian: singularity, plurality, universality.  Greek has three voices: active, middle, passive.  Aspect could have perfective, imperfective or none-specified.  Korean has three level of deixis (just like English used to have): here, there and yonder.

Obviously, I was seeing three's because I wanted to.  I will write tomorrow about how I set this vision aside for something harder and less idealistic.