There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
From: Andrej ©uc
1b. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
From: Gary Shannon
1c. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
From: H. S. Teoh
1d. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
From: Leonardo Castro
1e. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
From: Leonardo Castro
1f. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
From: H. S. Teoh
1g. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
From: Sam Stutter
1h. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
From: Sam Stutter
1i. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
From: Padraic Brown
2a. Re: Seeking Feedback On The Ancestral Case System
From: H. S. Teoh
2b. Re: Seeking Feedback On The Ancestral Case System
From: Brent Scarcliff
3a. Re: Observations on verbal periphrastic constructions
From: John Q
3b. Re: Observations on verbal periphrastic constructions
From: Ian Spolarich
4a. Re: Dieing Languages
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
5.1. Re: Introduction
From: Brent Scarcliff
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
Posted by: "Andrej ©uc" ashu...@gmail.com
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 9:19 am ((PDT))
Hey! Not a very active member but I thought I'd share some of my thoughts
on the subject here. :)
I do find Italian to be one of the nicest languages, I've spoken it since I
was a kid and I live 10 minutes drive from Italy. The only Romance language
I really dislike is Portuguese (all its variants). Since I study English, I
obviously love British English (RP especially, but I like other British
variants as well). As far as other Germanic languages go, I think Swedish,
Icelandic and Faroese sound really nice, Norwegian is ok, too, and I
dislike the rest, especially German (even though it's a very useful
language). And despite being a native Slavic speaker, I really dislike
Slavic languages (except for my native language, Slovene ... I know, I'm
biased but I can't help it). I don't like the dark L most of the Slavic
languages have, and Russian seriously puts me off with all its
palatalisations and vowels. Outside of the IE languages, I do like Finnish,
and for some reason I've grown to really like Hungarian. And, of course,
Mandarin Chinese is great as well (although I can't stand Cantonese and
most other Chinese languages/dialects). And Japanese ... I really like the
Japanese spoken in anime but when it comes to actual spoken Japanese, it
just doesn't sound nice anymore.
That's pretty much it, I think. :)
2013/5/28 David McCann <da...@polymathy.plus.com>
> On Tue, 28 May 2013 08:11:41 -0300
> Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > What makes a language be considered beautiful?
> >
> > Why is Italian (and sometimes French) considered the most beautiful
> > language by so many people?
> >
>
> Normally I'd argue for an objective aesthetics, but when it comes to
> the sound of language I think it's going to be subjective.
>
> I love Italian (opera?) and Brazilian Portuguese (Gal Costa, Astrud
> Gilberto!) but hate French (years of fruitless study at school?).
> Americans often say Bostonians "sound British", but to me it's one of
> the worst of their accents, while Californians and Floridians sound
> least "foreign".
>
--
The future is predetermined by the character of those who shape it.
Prihodnost vnaprej doloèajo karakterji tistih, ki jo oblikujejo.
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 9:50 am ((PDT))
I can't say why for sure, but I think that Swahili is one of the most
beautiful sounding languages, right along with the Polynesian
languages. Italian is nice, but French sounds to my ears like a gaggle
of geese with sinus trouble. I rank it among the ugliest sounding
languages.
--gary
On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 4:11 AM, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What makes a language be considered beautiful?
>
> Why is Italian (and sometimes French) considered the most beautiful
> language by so many people?
>
> Até mais!
>
> Leonardo
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 9:51 am ((PDT))
On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 08:11:41AM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
> What makes a language be considered beautiful?
>
> Why is Italian (and sometimes French) considered the most beautiful
> language by so many people?
[...]
Judging from all the other responses to this thread, I'd say that's a
highly subjective matter, and probably a matter of perception and
upbringing.
Contrary to most responses here (and seemingly responses of people in
general), I don't find French or Italian beautiful at all. Actually,
none of the Romance languages appeal to me. On the contrary, I find
Russian one of the most beautiful languages out there (though I'm sure
many would disagree! :-P). Classical Greek is quite a beautiful
language, but modern Greek (esp. in its spoken form) just doesn't do it
for me.
And despite being a native speaker of Mandarin and Hokkien, I find
neither of them very appealing at all. I find Mandarin rather
pretentious, and Hokkien positively vulgar. Malay (Bahasa Melayu /
Bahasa Malaysia) was unfortunately spoiled for me due to the associated
social stigma in my upbringing, in spite of it being actually a very
interesting language from a linguistic POV.
Most of these perceptions are cultural, really, and have nothing to do
with the linguistic qualities of said languages. And on that note, I
disagree that vowels are beautiful and fricatives are ugly. I don't like
most vowels (esp. [e] and its ilk :-P), but maybe excepting [y] (the
rounded high front vowel -- a beautiful sound), but fricatives and
consonant clusters make me all warm and snuggly inside. And contrary to
what most people perceive, labial consonants are the most soft and
pleasant to my ears, and velars the ugliest. Bilabial fricatives are the
coolest things ever, and plain ole velar stops are a bore.
My perceptions are likely very contrary to popular opinion, but I'm
totally fine with that. :)
T
--
What doesn't kill me makes me stranger.
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 3:36 pm ((PDT))
Now thinking of it, I note that there's not a 100% correlation, to me,
between languages' beauty and attractiveness.
Before a present collaboration with a French university, I used to be
much more interested in German than in French, althought I always felt
that French is more beautiful. Actually, I don't really find German a
beautiful language, althought I do like it. Similarly, a friend of
mine loved Heavy Metal but said that it wasn't "beautiful" at all (he
preferred other positive adjectives to describe it).
Languages that I find both beautiful and interesting are Italian,
Japanese and Swahili, and I think that this is related to well-defined
vowels, syllable-rhythm, intonation and gemination (this last for
Italian and Japanese).
OTOH, I guess that I don't know how to appreciate tonal languages,
maybe because I feel that the tones are in the wrong places (for
instance, I feel that the Chinese interrogtive particle "ma" should
have a rising tone). Maybe that's why I like Mandarin and Yoruba but I
don't find them particularly beautiful (although all languages can
sound beautiful depending on the speaker's voice).
Até mais!
Leonardo
2013/5/28 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>:
> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 08:11:41AM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
>> What makes a language be considered beautiful?
>>
>> Why is Italian (and sometimes French) considered the most beautiful
>> language by so many people?
> [...]
>
> Judging from all the other responses to this thread, I'd say that's a
> highly subjective matter, and probably a matter of perception and
> upbringing.
>
> Contrary to most responses here (and seemingly responses of people in
> general), I don't find French or Italian beautiful at all. Actually,
> none of the Romance languages appeal to me. On the contrary, I find
> Russian one of the most beautiful languages out there (though I'm sure
> many would disagree! :-P). Classical Greek is quite a beautiful
> language, but modern Greek (esp. in its spoken form) just doesn't do it
> for me.
>
> And despite being a native speaker of Mandarin and Hokkien, I find
> neither of them very appealing at all. I find Mandarin rather
> pretentious, and Hokkien positively vulgar. Malay (Bahasa Melayu /
> Bahasa Malaysia) was unfortunately spoiled for me due to the associated
> social stigma in my upbringing, in spite of it being actually a very
> interesting language from a linguistic POV.
>
> Most of these perceptions are cultural, really, and have nothing to do
> with the linguistic qualities of said languages. And on that note, I
> disagree that vowels are beautiful and fricatives are ugly. I don't like
> most vowels (esp. [e] and its ilk :-P), but maybe excepting [y] (the
> rounded high front vowel -- a beautiful sound), but fricatives and
> consonant clusters make me all warm and snuggly inside. And contrary to
> what most people perceive, labial consonants are the most soft and
> pleasant to my ears, and velars the ugliest. Bilabial fricatives are the
> coolest things ever, and plain ole velar stops are a bore.
>
> My perceptions are likely very contrary to popular opinion, but I'm
> totally fine with that. :)
>
>
> T
>
> --
> What doesn't kill me makes me stranger.
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1e. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 4:03 pm ((PDT))
2013/5/28 Sam Stutter <samjj...@gmail.com>:
> I wouldn't even say stereotypical London accent - I think the majority of
> Americans think of two British accents "posh British" (almost Received
> Pronunciation) and "cockney", plus maybe "Scottish" if they get their
> geography right.
>
> With Britain being associated with the established and urbane through the
> C19th, RP had good reason to be though of as conferring respectability and
> intelligence. The association would have died if it had not been for the
> continued influence of British pop-culture and the UK "brand" that we
> literally "sell" abroad :)
Maybe it was the absence of such an influence that caused the fact
that Brazilian people usually have no admiration for the accent of
Portugal. Actually, Brazilians usually mimic it only for jokes
nowadays, but they say that the accent of Rio de Janeiro was heavily
influenced by the accent of Portugal in the old days (as the king of
Portugal escaped from Napoleon to Rio de Janeiro).
>
> From my intense studies of rubbish TV I would say that italian accents are
> more associated with seduction than actual romance - you know - the slightly
> slimy italian man who slides up and steals the protagonist's girl but doesn't
> actually respect her.
>
> As for French, I would say "sexy" rather than romantic but then again I can't
> actually think of an accent I would say is "romantic". Maybe it's just me.
> Hell, let's say my accent is romantic. Maybe we can market Manchester as the
> city of luuuuurve. Sorry, as the city of /lÊf/
>
> Sam Stutter
> samjj...@gmail.com
> "No e na'l cu barri"
>
> On 28 May 2013, at 13:43, Nina-Kristine Johnson <ninakristi...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hiya!
>>
>> My guess is that some people associate France/Italy with *Romance*. In the
>> US: there is a stereotype of Italians and French being *Lovers*.
>>
>> Of course, this hypothesis is probably very wrong.
>>
>> The other is that if you listen to someone speak the language: it seems to *
>> flow* (at least to the uneducated ears of Americans). A *Romantic Language*
>> .
>>
>> In a sense: its sort of like how Americans think the *British *accent is
>> sexy.* M*ostly, they think of only the stereotypical* London* accent..I
>> know from spending a bit of time in Cornwall that there are a multitude of
>> accents; nevermind my stepdad is from Sheffield and sports a Yorkshire
>> accent. I won't go into details of my linguistic/anthropological
>> discoveries.
>>
>> Did I go off the topic on that one? :(
>>
>> Cheers!,
>> Kristine
>>
>>
>> On 28 May 2013 04:11, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> What makes a language be considered beautiful?
>>>
>>> Why is Italian (and sometimes French) considered the most beautiful
>>> language by so many people?
>>>
>>> Até mais!
>>>
>>> Leonardo
>>>
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1f. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 4:06 pm ((PDT))
On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 07:36:01PM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
[...]
> OTOH, I guess that I don't know how to appreciate tonal languages,
> maybe because I feel that the tones are in the wrong places (for
> instance, I feel that the Chinese interrogtive particle "ma" should
> have a rising tone).
[...]
Hmm. I think you still haven't "gotten" the idea of tones yet. Not your
fault, of course -- I observe that it is very difficult for native
speakers of European languages, where pitch contour is very much a part
of prosody and for conveying mood, to be truly free of that L1 bias to
interpret pitch/tone in that way. In English, for example, rising pitch
is often associated with interrogative mood. In Russian, it appears to
be *falling* pitch (or rising followed by falling pitch), whereas in
English, falling pitch is often associated with the imperative mood. In
any case, in IE languages pitch appears to be largely used for conveying
mood and prosody.
In Mandarin, however, this channel (pitch) isn't used for conveying mood
at all. Instead, it is part of the segmental structure of the language
(hence tones). Mood is conveyed by other, unrelated means, such as
(non-phonemic) change of vowel length, change in stress / rhythm, or
addition of interrogative particles (whose tone has *nothing* to do with
mood; in my L1 Hokkien, for example, some interrogative particles have
low pitch, others have rising pitch, etc.: they are all over the map),
or rearrangement of the sentence (e.g. use of a different phrasing from
the usual as an overt indication of change in mood). Pitch doesn't play
*any* role in conveying mood at all; it's basically dedicated to
carrying segmental information instead. Trying to interpret pitch as
mood in Mandarin will only lead to confusion. :-P
T
--
Elegant or ugly code as well as fine or rude sentences have something in
common: they don't depend on the language. -- Luca De Vitis
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1g. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" samjj...@gmail.com
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 4:24 pm ((PDT))
I also used to think of German as being terrifying, what with all those
undecipherable and slightly sinister looking/sounding words. All being said by
scary people like nazis, death metal bands and Angela Merkel (not that I think
they're comparable - they're all scary for different reasons).
Then I watched "German Top Gear" (D Motor), heard "99 LuftBallons" by Nena and
saw Henning Wehn and German became sexy and funny. I reckon how we perceive
languages has got more to do with association with national character, with
phonetic and visual aesthetics being the result of attempting to unconsciously
reconcile this.
Sam Stutter
samjj...@gmail.com
"No e na'l cu barri"
On 28 May 2013, at 23:36, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Now thinking of it, I note that there's not a 100% correlation, to me,
> between languages' beauty and attractiveness.
>
> Before a present collaboration with a French university, I used to be
> much more interested in German than in French, althought I always felt
> that French is more beautiful. Actually, I don't really find German a
> beautiful language, althought I do like it. Similarly, a friend of
> mine loved Heavy Metal but said that it wasn't "beautiful" at all (he
> preferred other positive adjectives to describe it).
>
> Languages that I find both beautiful and interesting are Italian,
> Japanese and Swahili, and I think that this is related to well-defined
> vowels, syllable-rhythm, intonation and gemination (this last for
> Italian and Japanese).
>
> OTOH, I guess that I don't know how to appreciate tonal languages,
> maybe because I feel that the tones are in the wrong places (for
> instance, I feel that the Chinese interrogtive particle "ma" should
> have a rising tone). Maybe that's why I like Mandarin and Yoruba but I
> don't find them particularly beautiful (although all languages can
> sound beautiful depending on the speaker's voice).
>
> Até mais!
>
> Leonardo
>
>
> 2013/5/28 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>:
>> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 08:11:41AM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
>>> What makes a language be considered beautiful?
>>>
>>> Why is Italian (and sometimes French) considered the most beautiful
>>> language by so many people?
>> [...]
>>
>> Judging from all the other responses to this thread, I'd say that's a
>> highly subjective matter, and probably a matter of perception and
>> upbringing.
>>
>> Contrary to most responses here (and seemingly responses of people in
>> general), I don't find French or Italian beautiful at all. Actually,
>> none of the Romance languages appeal to me. On the contrary, I find
>> Russian one of the most beautiful languages out there (though I'm sure
>> many would disagree! :-P). Classical Greek is quite a beautiful
>> language, but modern Greek (esp. in its spoken form) just doesn't do it
>> for me.
>>
>> And despite being a native speaker of Mandarin and Hokkien, I find
>> neither of them very appealing at all. I find Mandarin rather
>> pretentious, and Hokkien positively vulgar. Malay (Bahasa Melayu /
>> Bahasa Malaysia) was unfortunately spoiled for me due to the associated
>> social stigma in my upbringing, in spite of it being actually a very
>> interesting language from a linguistic POV.
>>
>> Most of these perceptions are cultural, really, and have nothing to do
>> with the linguistic qualities of said languages. And on that note, I
>> disagree that vowels are beautiful and fricatives are ugly. I don't like
>> most vowels (esp. [e] and its ilk :-P), but maybe excepting [y] (the
>> rounded high front vowel -- a beautiful sound), but fricatives and
>> consonant clusters make me all warm and snuggly inside. And contrary to
>> what most people perceive, labial consonants are the most soft and
>> pleasant to my ears, and velars the ugliest. Bilabial fricatives are the
>> coolest things ever, and plain ole velar stops are a bore.
>>
>> My perceptions are likely very contrary to popular opinion, but I'm
>> totally fine with that. :)
>>
>>
>> T
>>
>> --
>> What doesn't kill me makes me stranger.
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1h. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" samjj...@gmail.com
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 4:28 pm ((PDT))
Just an addendum to this: Stephen Fry once said any language which used the
word "handy" for "mobile phone" sounded more camp than violent. He proved this
by saying "wo ist mein Handy?" while patting down each of his pockets.
Sam Stutter
samjj...@gmail.com
"No e na'l cu barri"
On 29 May 2013, at 00:24, Sam Stutter <samjj...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I also used to think of German as being terrifying, what with all those
> undecipherable and slightly sinister looking/sounding words. All being said
> by scary people like nazis, death metal bands and Angela Merkel (not that I
> think they're comparable - they're all scary for different reasons).
>
> Then I watched "German Top Gear" (D Motor), heard "99 LuftBallons" by Nena
> and saw Henning Wehn and German became sexy and funny. I reckon how we
> perceive languages has got more to do with association with national
> character, with phonetic and visual aesthetics being the result of attempting
> to unconsciously reconcile this.
>
> Sam Stutter
> samjj...@gmail.com
> "No e na'l cu barri"
>
>
>
>
> On 28 May 2013, at 23:36, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Now thinking of it, I note that there's not a 100% correlation, to me,
>> between languages' beauty and attractiveness.
>>
>> Before a present collaboration with a French university, I used to be
>> much more interested in German than in French, althought I always felt
>> that French is more beautiful. Actually, I don't really find German a
>> beautiful language, althought I do like it. Similarly, a friend of
>> mine loved Heavy Metal but said that it wasn't "beautiful" at all (he
>> preferred other positive adjectives to describe it).
>>
>> Languages that I find both beautiful and interesting are Italian,
>> Japanese and Swahili, and I think that this is related to well-defined
>> vowels, syllable-rhythm, intonation and gemination (this last for
>> Italian and Japanese).
>>
>> OTOH, I guess that I don't know how to appreciate tonal languages,
>> maybe because I feel that the tones are in the wrong places (for
>> instance, I feel that the Chinese interrogtive particle "ma" should
>> have a rising tone). Maybe that's why I like Mandarin and Yoruba but I
>> don't find them particularly beautiful (although all languages can
>> sound beautiful depending on the speaker's voice).
>>
>> Até mais!
>>
>> Leonardo
>>
>>
>> 2013/5/28 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>:
>>> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 08:11:41AM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
>>>> What makes a language be considered beautiful?
>>>>
>>>> Why is Italian (and sometimes French) considered the most beautiful
>>>> language by so many people?
>>> [...]
>>>
>>> Judging from all the other responses to this thread, I'd say that's a
>>> highly subjective matter, and probably a matter of perception and
>>> upbringing.
>>>
>>> Contrary to most responses here (and seemingly responses of people in
>>> general), I don't find French or Italian beautiful at all. Actually,
>>> none of the Romance languages appeal to me. On the contrary, I find
>>> Russian one of the most beautiful languages out there (though I'm sure
>>> many would disagree! :-P). Classical Greek is quite a beautiful
>>> language, but modern Greek (esp. in its spoken form) just doesn't do it
>>> for me.
>>>
>>> And despite being a native speaker of Mandarin and Hokkien, I find
>>> neither of them very appealing at all. I find Mandarin rather
>>> pretentious, and Hokkien positively vulgar. Malay (Bahasa Melayu /
>>> Bahasa Malaysia) was unfortunately spoiled for me due to the associated
>>> social stigma in my upbringing, in spite of it being actually a very
>>> interesting language from a linguistic POV.
>>>
>>> Most of these perceptions are cultural, really, and have nothing to do
>>> with the linguistic qualities of said languages. And on that note, I
>>> disagree that vowels are beautiful and fricatives are ugly. I don't like
>>> most vowels (esp. [e] and its ilk :-P), but maybe excepting [y] (the
>>> rounded high front vowel -- a beautiful sound), but fricatives and
>>> consonant clusters make me all warm and snuggly inside. And contrary to
>>> what most people perceive, labial consonants are the most soft and
>>> pleasant to my ears, and velars the ugliest. Bilabial fricatives are the
>>> coolest things ever, and plain ole velar stops are a bore.
>>>
>>> My perceptions are likely very contrary to popular opinion, but I'm
>>> totally fine with that. :)
>>>
>>>
>>> T
>>>
>>> --
>>> What doesn't kill me makes me stranger.
>
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1i. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 4:44 pm ((PDT))
--- On Tue, 5/28/13, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
> Contrary to most responses here (and seemingly responses of people in
> general), I don't find French or Italian beautiful at all. ... I don't
> like most vowels (esp. [e] and its ilk :-P), but maybe excepting [y] (the
> rounded high front vowel -- a beautiful sound), but fricatives and
> consonant clusters make me all warm and snuggly inside.Â
Ah! A potential fan of Anian, with more consonant clusters per square
pou than any six neighbouring tongues, nary an [e] in earshot (a number
of [É] and [É] and some [y]:
469. ftopum-i-hhtoccrc-topt-âtpoñ ozun-îma mpîw opâ-hhcso :
quap nofptun-um mî-hhcso quap :
opâ-tlopetc opâ-hhcso mpîw oettr-s-um mî-hhtoccrq.
Go ye through the world of Man;
touch ye it not;
the world gives you grief.
If you were a student of philosophy in Auntimoany or Preturia, you would
have to learn to get your tongue round this Sanskrit of the Eastlands.
> My perceptions are likely very contrary to popular opinion, but I'm
> totally fine with that. :)
Padraic
> T
>
> --
> What doesn't kill me makes me stranger.
Or awaits a more opportune moment.
Messages in this topic (17)
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________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Seeking Feedback On The Ancestral Case System
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 11:24 am ((PDT))
On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 01:16:25PM -0700, Brent Scarcliff wrote:
[...]
> For lack of a better word, Ancestral assigned its five proclitic
> âcaseâ markers sequentially, as follows:
>
> âi=
> Distal Cause (Indirect Subject/Agent, Causer, Ablative)
>
> âe=
> Proximal Cause (Direct Subject/Agent, Causee, Instrumental)
>
> âa=
> Verb
>
> âo=
> Proximal Effect (Direct Object/Patient, Accusative, Perlative)
>
> âu=
> Distal Effect (Indirect Object/Patient, Benefactive, Allative)
>
[...]
> From poking around conlang.org, I see this system bears some
> resemblance to those of Okuna and Tatari Faran in its source and goal
> orientation.
[...]
Interesting that you mention TF. Your system does bear some
resemblances, to be sure. I like your idea of distal vs. proximal
cause/effect, with which one can almost perfectly rationalize the TF
system in traditional natlang terms! TF, however, does treat things
somewhat differently, as I'll elaborate below.
One way to understand the TF case system as to consider the physical
metaphor of motion: in any motion, you have a starting point and an
ending point, and you have something to moves from the start to the end.
One could imagine this in various ways: a ball rolling from the top to
the bottom, a cat running from point A to point B, a gift that's passed
from giver to recipient, etc.. Generalizing, then, we may draw these
analogies:
- Speaking is the process of words passing from the speaker to the
audience;
- Picking something up is the process of transferring said thing from
the floor/table/etc. to the person picking it up;
- Walking is the process of moving from an origin to a destination;
- Looking is the process of the looker casting a glance in the direction
of the thing looked at;
- Seeing is the act of an appearance of the thing seen being passed to
the visual senses of the seer (and thus seeing and looking are sharply
contrasted in terms of their case assignments);
- Smelling (sniffing) is the act of directing one's nose at the object
being sniffed;
- Smelling (perceiving scent) is the act of smell passing from a source
object to one's nose (and thus TF draws a sharp distinction between
the two kinds of smelling, which are conflated in English);
- Becoming is the act of an object passing from its source state to its
destination state;
These relationships can thus be conveniently expressed with three cases:
case1 for the source/starting point, case2 for the thing being
transmitted, and case3 for the destination/ending point.
Going yet further, one then considers verbs in which one or more of the
metaphorical source/thing-in-motion/destination items are missing. So
then one has:
- Searching is the act of the seeker going forth towards the thing
searched for (nothing is being transferred, though one may arguably
say it is the attention of the seeker being directed at the thing
sought for); thus you have seeker: case1, object being sought: case3.
- Finding is the act of the thing found being conveyed to the seeker
(there is no real origin of the thing found, except perhaps the place
where it is found -- one may consider the analogy of the typical
situation where upon finding what you're looking for, you pick it up
immediately, thus it is transferred from where it was to yourself);
thus you have finder: case3; thing found: case2.
- Arguing is the process by which eventually some agreement is reached
(hopefully!), thus all parties involved may be considered to be in the
process of moving (i.e. takes case2). The cause of the argument may be
assigned case1, by extrapolation.
So to the TF speaker's mind, agentiveness, transitivity, or cause/effect
are really secondary considerations; the primary deciding factor is this
metaphor of something starting from point A and transitioning to point
B.
I haven't decided yet whether such a system could have sprung up
spontaneously in a primordial ancestor of TF, but at some point, once
such a concept has developed, it would be easily perpetuated and
generalized across the whole language by the compelling and convenient
abstraction of everything into the metaphor of something moving from
point A to point B. Having a physical analogy certainly makes it easier
to explain to a child learning the language, for example, and thus the
system perpetuates itself, maybe replacing via analogy whatever may have
been there before.
T
--
Chance favours the prepared mind. -- Louis Pasteur
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Seeking Feedback On The Ancestral Case System
Posted by: "Brent Scarcliff" scarcl...@outlook.com
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 4:39 pm ((PDT))
Thank you for taking the time to explain the world view behind the TF case
system in more detail. I watched Mark Pearson's LCC1 video the other day, and I
was struck by his remark that, although the Okuna case system may not be
"naturalistic" (in the sense of attested in a recorded language), it does seem
quite natural. I think the same could be said of TF and, I hope, Ancestral. My
brief comments below:
> Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 11:23:06 -0700
> From: hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
> Subject: Re: Seeking Feedback On The Ancestral Case System
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
>
> On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 01:16:25PM -0700, Brent Scarcliff wrote:
> [...]
> > For lack of a better word, Ancestral assigned its five proclitic
> > case markers sequentially, as follows:
> >
> > i=
> > Distal Cause (Indirect Subject/Agent, Causer, Ablative)
> >
> > e=
> > Proximal Cause (Direct Subject/Agent, Causee, Instrumental)
> >
> > a=
> > Verb
> >
> > o=
> > Proximal Effect (Direct Object/Patient, Accusative, Perlative)
> >
> > u=
> > Distal Effect (Indirect Object/Patient, Benefactive, Allative)
> >
> [...]
> > From poking around conlang.org, I see this system bears some
> > resemblance to those of Okuna and Tatari Faran in its source and goal
> > orientation.
> [...]
>
> Interesting that you mention TF. Your system does bear some
> resemblances, to be sure. I like your idea of distal vs. proximal
> cause/effect, with which one can almost perfectly rationalize the TF
> system in traditional natlang terms! TF, however, does treat things
> somewhat differently, as I'll elaborate below.
>
> One way to understand the TF case system as to consider the physical
> metaphor of motion: in any motion, you have a starting point and an
> ending point, and you have something to moves from the start to the end.
> One could imagine this in various ways: a ball rolling from the top to
> the bottom, a cat running from point A to point B, a gift that's passed
> from giver to recipient, etc.. Generalizing, then, we may draw these
> analogies:
>
> - Speaking is the process of words passing from the speaker to the
> audience;
>
> - Picking something up is the process of transferring said thing from
> the floor/table/etc. to the person picking it up;
>
> - Walking is the process of moving from an origin to a destination;
>
> - Looking is the process of the looker casting a glance in the direction
> of the thing looked at;
>
> - Seeing is the act of an appearance of the thing seen being passed to
> the visual senses of the seer (and thus seeing and looking are sharply
> contrasted in terms of their case assignments);
>
> - Smelling (sniffing) is the act of directing one's nose at the object
> being sniffed;
>
> - Smelling (perceiving scent) is the act of smell passing from a source
> object to one's nose (and thus TF draws a sharp distinction between
> the two kinds of smelling, which are conflated in English);
This make perfect sense to me, since Ancestral would have expressed each of the
above events in a similar way (drawing the same sort of distinction between
seeing and looking, hearing and listening, scent-marking and smelling, etc.
that many languages do). It all depends where you start, doesn't it?
> - Becoming is the act of an object passing from its source state to its
> destination state;
>
> These relationships can thus be conveniently expressed with three cases:
> case1 for the source/starting point, case2 for the thing being
> transmitted, and case3 for the destination/ending point.
In Ancestral, this concept of a "transmitted item" could be expressed with
"case" 2 (the direct subject), 3 (the verb), or 4 (the direct object),
depending upon the semantics.
> Going yet further, one then considers verbs in which one or more of the
> metaphorical source/thing-in-motion/destination items are missing. So
> then one has:
>
> - Searching is the act of the seeker going forth towards the thing
> searched for (nothing is being transferred, though one may arguably
> say it is the attention of the seeker being directed at the thing
> sought for); thus you have seeker: case1, object being sought: case3.
>
> - Finding is the act of the thing found being conveyed to the seeker
> (there is no real origin of the thing found, except perhaps the place
> where it is found -- one may consider the analogy of the typical
> situation where upon finding what you're looking for, you pick it up
> immediately, thus it is transferred from where it was to yourself);
> thus you have finder: case3; thing found: case2.
>
> - Arguing is the process by which eventually some agreement is reached
> (hopefully!), thus all parties involved may be considered to be in the
> process of moving (i.e. takes case2). The cause of the argument may be
> assigned case1, by extrapolation.
>
> So to the TF speaker's mind, agentiveness, transitivity, or cause/effect
> are really secondary considerations; the primary deciding factor is this
> metaphor of something starting from point A and transitioning to point
> B.
TF and Ancestral share the above emphasis on the physical or metaphorical
journey taking place. I hadn't considered a search event, but I suppose it
would be something like:
"(The loss of my knife caused) me to search the beach for my knife.""I searched
the beach for my knife."
> I haven't decided yet whether such a system could have sprung up
> spontaneously in a primordial ancestor of TF, but at some point, once
> such a concept has developed, it would be easily perpetuated and
> generalized across the whole language by the compelling and convenient
> abstraction of everything into the metaphor of something moving from
> point A to point B. Having a physical analogy certainly makes it easier
> to explain to a child learning the language, for example, and thus the
> system perpetuates itself, maybe replacing via analogy whatever may have
> been there before.
I find that explanation perfectly reasonable, although here perhaps you're
preaching to the converted! The Ancestral system grew out of its "ablaut system
gone wild," where each word was obligatorily inflected or declined with one of
five "aspects" which marked the "state" of that referent on the journey from
beginning to end. The five states of *-VH- "a flower, to flower", for example,
were *avhi "a bud", *avhe "a blooming flower", *avha "a flower at its peak",
*avho "a fading flower", *avhu "a seed pod". In suspect the proclitic case
markers themselves grew out of the five forms of the verb "to be, to exist, to
live".
> T
>
> --
> Chance favours the prepared mind. -- Louis Pasteur
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3a. Re: Observations on verbal periphrastic constructions
Posted by: "John Q" jquijad...@gmail.com
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 1:07 pm ((PDT))
Wm Annis <wm.an...@gmail.com> wrote:
>A similar sort of periphrases for asking reasons is "what BE SUBJ
>doing GERUND" as in "what is Bob doing walking the dog?" On second
>thought, this is less an actual question than an expression to note
>something unexpected, with a strong suggestion that the event is not
>merely unexpected but that there's some good reason for it *not* to
>happen.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Ah, yes! Great example!
--John Q.
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
3b. Re: Observations on verbal periphrastic constructions
Posted by: "Ian Spolarich" mouton9...@gmail.com
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 2:07 pm ((PDT))
Such a "litmus test" would be very useful for developing a conlang past the
immediate simple morphology/phonology phase. So often such complex
constructions are confronted during translation and the conlanger is forced
with the decision of how to incorporate the semantic nuance expressed by
the construction in his own conlang. I, for one, am almost always unaware
as to the other means of expressing such constructions in other natlangs,
so a litmus test that would include a small list of methods of handling the
constructions would be even more helpful.
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4a. Re: Dieing Languages
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" goldyemo...@gmail.com
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 3:17 pm ((PDT))
What's the different idea? That's there is a small line of speakers?
This family is the last decendant of a line of Silknish speakers.
When going out amongst others, the Silknish speak Yardish, though they stumble
a bit over the different pronunciations of words.
Silknish and Yardish do have sound and spelling differences, maybe Silknish
difficult to read for Yardish speakers and vise versa.
For example, the word noidle can be spelled noydle or noidle in Yardish, but in
Silknish is only spelled one way: `n/o*id#%l$e.
This also makes translation difficult as Silknish would have words that would
be spelled in shorter form in Yardish, longer and vise versa.
Linguistic mistakes during language translation could confuse the reader if the
word was intended to be Yardish, but written in Silknish script or vise versa.
This is why the revival is discouraged, as Silknish doesn't cross-over into
Yardish, and vise versa.
In other words, a word in Silknish doesn't mean the same thing in Yardish.
There is some Silknish literature, but it's so rare, that Silknish tombs are
expensive, and one would have to get them from a book trader as Libraries don't
keep them.
One can also find a Silknish book collector, but the collectors can't go into
business as there aren't many Yardish speakers who want to learn Silknish.
Silknish doesnât have any missing grammatical forms.
Let me know if this works or not. Is there still a way to borrow from Silknish,
or did I make Silknish unborrowable?
Mellissa Green
@GreenNovelist
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:conl...@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf
Of Anthony Miles
Sent: Friday, May 24, 2013 11:05 AM
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Subject: Re: Dieing Languages
Are any of your conlangs dieing or making a come back?
Silknish was a dead language, that's making a come back.
There's a family who is the last line of Silknish speakers, and they're
trying to make Silknish rise again.
There are ten members in the family, four servants, three parents, and
triplets.
R: Now that's a different idea! What language do they speak to other people? Is
this line the only line of Silknish people, or are there Silknish who oppose
the revival? Many language revival movements face resistance from other members
of the community (for that matter, why are they trying to revive it?). Are
there sounds in Silknish that are difficult for non-Silknish speakers? In some
language revivals, the elders oppose it. In some, the indigenous peoples resent
the knowledge of their language that a foreigner has. In some, there are
sectarian fights over spelling and pronunciation. In some, there is a conflict
over whether one can use the old language in 'modern' contexts. What
literature, if any, exists in Silknish? Do all Silknish speakers come from the
same dialect group? Often in dying languages there are missing words or
grammatical forms. Does Silknish display any of these? If so, how do the
remaining ten speakers deal with it?
Kiwa, the dying Mars of the Simayamka, Siye-speakers, has three living
languages, SIye, Ulok, and Kasa, the language of the Southern highlands, and
loads of dead language, like Utu Nes (a disjunct-conjunct language once spoken
in the current capital of the Ulok-speaking Kingdom of Nesa). There are many
dying dialects here and there along the River, some of which linguists would
probably classify as separate languages. The possibility of language revival
technically exists: the Siye-speaking Guild of Scholars are such pedants that
their excoriations of faulty grammars and impure tongues make handy reference
grammars! Unfortunately, the linguistic/political environment militates against
the use of any native languages except Siye, Ulok, and (more recently, with the
introduction of south-pole-to-equator flights) Kasa.
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5.1. Re: Introduction
Posted by: "Brent Scarcliff" scarcl...@outlook.com
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 3:33 pm ((PDT))
Thanks, Alex! My responses below:
> Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 01:10:26 -0400
> From: 000...@gmail.com
> Subject: Re: Introduction
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
>
> Finally getting this out of the queue:
>
> On Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:54:44 -0700, Brent Scarcliff <scarcl...@outlook.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Thank your for your very thoughtful reply, Alex. I always enjoy your
> >comments, so I was particularly pleased to read your response. I'll do my
> >best to briefly address your points below, although at this stage not much
> >is set in stone!
> >
> >> > As for my project, it's the reconstruction of 'Ancestral'
> >> > (working title), a proto-language spoken along the Indian Rim from East
> >> > Africa
> >> > to Sumatra in the Late Pleistocene.
> >>
> >> Well, I'm finding it hard to buy that scenario.
> >
> >Of course, the easy out is that the language in question is a mythical
> >rather than a prehistoric artefact, so be prepared to suspend your
> >disbelief!
>
> How is it mythical? In particular, in what context: among its culture? among
> the daughter cultures? only out-of-world?
> Should I take that to mean it was perhaps not actually used in the form you
> describe it?
I meant mythical in its original sense: belonging to a mythos - a story. But,
yes, to the speakers of its daughter languages, Ancestral would be mythical.
And, like any reconstructed proto-language, it is understood to be a model of a
reality, not the reality itself. It's safe to say Real-Indo-European was more
complicated that Proto-Indo-European.
> >I have thought about many of the objections you raise, however, so bear with
> >me. Prior to this exchange, I've only had to convince myself, and I tend to
> >find myself very convincing!
>
> Hah!
>
> >> As far as we know, in deep early history before large political and
> >> economic structures were around, people only tended to have social
> >> interactions, of the sort regular enough to guard against divergent
> >> developments and maintain a common language, with a few hundred people of
> >> their village or tribe or whatnot. So it would already be noteworthy,
> >> symptomatic of a recent takeover or episode of expansion or something, to
> >> find the same variety of language being spoken in like twenty different
> >> villages; to have the same language spoken over an arc of over ten
> >> thousand kilometers beggars belief, for me.
> >
> >I think "as far as we know" are the operative words. I would suggest it is
> >quite a leap to project what we know about the past ten thousand years of
> >language use to the past one or two hundred thousand.
>
> Well, okay, but I'd suggest it's less of a leap to do that than to imagine
> there to have been any particular concrete difference between now and then!
Agreed. My only point is that, given the lack of actual evidence, it is at
least not implausible to think that a given language might have changed at a
slower rate than we think usual in the distant past. The living laboratories we
have are both imperfect and perhaps contradictory: Iceland, Polynesia, the
Americas, Australia, the Andamans, etc.
> >Even within the fields of archaeology and physical anthropology, where the
> >evidence is (literally) much more solid, there have been major surprises in
> >recent years (Denisovans, for example). In many respects, what's surprising
> >is not how many languages exist today, but how few.
>
> Indeed.
>
> >Clearly, there have been many periods of leveling that have left little or
> >no trace in the record.
>
> But, in accord with what you were just saying, I'd expect these periods of
> levelling to have been mostly modern, once you had peoples with the
> technology and political organization required for rapid expansion in
> territories that were already peopled. (I suppose the idea that these are
> exclusively modern is disputable in the same way. But even if I'm wrong
> about important particular examples, the overall pàce of techno-cultural
> change does seem to have been increasing.)
>
> Given you're talking about things old enough to have left few traces, are you
> talking somehow about how few families exist today?
> Well, àre there in fact few families? I firmly believe most lumpers are just
> wrong...
> Even if there are few families, this might not be anomalous; some families
> will die out with time just for reasons of the long-term behavior of
> stochastic speciation processes, even without any sort of big disruptions.
>
> >That said, I should have written "SOMEWHERE along the Indian Rim." I was
> >conflating the imagined maximum extent of the eventual dialect chain with
> >the often vexing question of the homeland, which I'm inclined to place at
> >the southern tip of India. Imagine this: a people with an overwhelming set
> >of cultural and technological advantages (including the ritual and symbolic
> >use of language and sail-powered watercraft), enjoying favorable climactic
> >conditions and facing no significant barriers to expansion. The analogies
> >aren't perfect, but think Austronesian, with Sri Lanka playing the part of
> >Taiwan or (later) Polynesian, with Sri Lanka playing the part of Tonga-Samoa.
>
> Mm, that makes more sense. Are you imagining that the territory the
> Ancestral speakers spread to cover was even peopled at all before their
> arrival? (That was true for much of the modern-day Austronesian territory, I
> thought.)
Yes, there were no competing languages to contend with and therefore no change
motivated by areal diffusion or a substrate effect. For cultural reasons, there
was also no taboo replacement. So the major mpetuses behind change would have
been the usual suspects: the creation of new vocabulary and new patterns, the
reanalysis of existing ones, and ease of pronunciation,
> >> I've seen arguments advanced that early humans should've had a much slower
> >> linguistic rate of change than we moderns do: for instance, JBR
> >> <http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/pleisto.html> ascribes this to a
> >> cultural shunning of innovation. IMO that's bang on realistic for a
> >> Pleistocene culture, overall, but I'm not sure I believe this implication
> >> of it: what we observe nowadays is that sound change in progress, to take
> >> an example, is sufficiently unconscious that it takes special efforts,
> >> like a writing system, or the work of the Vedic phonologists (or the
> >> existence of already diverged dialects!) to even nòtice it, so that one
> >> might be able to shun it. Small cultures with great emphasis on adhesion
> >> to traditional ways don't seem to escape it.
> >Your points are well-taken, but I do imagine there might be strong cultural
> >reasons (including a ritual writing system and a well-developed trade
> >network, for example) for deliberately resisting the tendency you describe.
> >Of course, that tendency wins out, or we wouldn't be talking about the
> >comparative method!
>
> As far as the examples I know of attest, cultural reasons like that càn
> preserve a form of a language, but they still can't prevent language change!
> So what happens is more or less diglossia, the emergence of a maintained
> archaising one and a changed popular one side by side.
That's a fair summary of what I have in mind: the most important cultural
institution discouraged change while the natural course of language evolution
encouraged it. The latter, of course, won out.
> >> Your line about development in isolation leading to regularity also
> >> doesn't really ring true for me. As I understand it, the correlation is
> >> actually that large, well-connected languages are more regular, because
> >> all those second-language learners smooth over the difficult bits; little
> >> secluded languages, without this pressure, are free to twist themselves
> >> into all kinds of intricacies.
> >For reasons I won't elaborate on here, a high degree of regularity is
> >important to this project, so a bigger help to me would be to deliberately
> >suspend your disbelief and argue why a natural human language might be very
> >conservative!
>
> I am interested. Why is the regularity so important?
Regularity is a bit of a hot button term; simplicity may have been a better
choice. This may open up a can of worms, but I do think an early language would
likely have had a simple structure, and simplicity, I think, implies a degree
of regularity. We think linguistic complexity is "natural" because the
languages we're working with today are, in a very real sense, the products of
hundred of thousands of years of evolution. But starfish are no less natural
than human beings!
> I'm suspendin' as hard as I can, but trying to handwave an over-regular
> conlang into a world is sadly kinda overdone. Some people say, for instance,
> "my conlang is, fiction-internally, a successful auxlang which displaced the
> original natlangs of its world", but as far as I know, no Earthly auxlang has
> ever succeeded in displacing anything nor even in becoming the primary
> language of a town or suchlike. Perhaps an auxlang might take over the world
> given long timescales, the way any language might, but such timescales
> destroy regularity. Among a species which is supposed to be a facsimile of
> humans the story would probably be similar. So thère the suspension fails
> for me, e.g.
Point taken, but I don't think I fall into that trap. But note that I did not
imply there was no change in Ancestral: the evolution of pre-Ancestral to
proto-Ancestral involved the shift from a three-vowel to a five-vowel system, a
significant elaboration of the grammatical structure, and the syncope of the
canonical VCVCV syllable to VCCV (with simplification of the resulting
clusters).
> >> > and its case system (which marks
> >> > the
> >> > initiative, causative, assistive, permissive, instructive and
> >> > instrumentive
> >> > roles in the same manner).
> >>
> >> Yes, the case system is an awesome deployment of your scale. Kudos.
> >
> >That's music to my ears. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how
> >the case system might work. The result isn't naturalistic, but to me it does
> >seem human.
>
> I haven't taken in what you said on the new thread yet, but since you've
> compared your system to Tatari Faran, you might look at
> http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=conlang;f3d5fbd4.1305D
> where I tried to put the TF case system in normal naturalist terms based on
> some examples of Teoh's. I mostly achieved a sloppy success, except for
> verbs of motion.
I'll take a look at that!
> >> As for the phonology: when I looked at your chart of IPA values, some of
> >> them surprised me. The biggest mismatch was that what I was expecting to
> >> be [K], you seem to take as ingressivity! Also things like palatal vs.
> >> retroflex, epiglottal vs. glottal.
> >> Then there's the use of superscripts, as if every consonant can be used as
> >> a secondary articulation: I have no idea what things like e.g. "[g] with a
> >> [t]-ish secondary articulation" or "[S] with a [b]-ish secondary
> >> articulation" is. This makes it hard to interpret.
> >
> >I should have noted that I haven't updated the proposed phonetic values of
> >the complex consonants for a very long time. Since this is a proto-language
> >we're talking about, the actual realization of each cluster is only relevant
> >in the context of the yet-to-be described daughter languages. What does seem
> >clear is that those clusters arose from simple syncope: VCVCV (the canonical
> >pre-Ancestral word shape, where that first vowel was a clitic or a prefix
> >and that last vowel was stressed) became VCCV and then those clusters began
> >simplifying. In other words, /agta/ is just [agta], forgetting the
> >lenis-fortis distinction for a moment. The injectives (and many other
> >oddities) you mention have been reassigned to a special but large class of
> >onomatopoeic and mimetic words, which I haven't got into yet.
> >What I'm thinking about is precisely how these clusters might have evolved
> >in different ways and how this isolating language with its straightforward
> >case system mightevolve into, for example, a polysynthetic language. Fun
> >stuff.
>
> Well, I do like playing around with sound change (and other change, though
> whole sketches of such don't pop into my head quite the way sound changes
> do). Show me a repaired table once you've got one, or better yet some text
> samples, or better yet a lexicon with indications of textual frequency, and
> HERE
Will do, when time permits.
> Alex
Messages in this topic (71)
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