There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Dieing Languages
From: Alex Fink
1b. Re: Dieing Languages
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
1c. Re: Dieing Languages
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
1d. Re: Dieing Languages
From: Garth Wallace
2a. Re: translation exercises: McWhorter's 500 things language classes o
From: H. S. Teoh
2b. Re: translation exercises: McWhorter's 500 things language classes o
From: H. S. Teoh
2c. Re: translation exercises: McWhorter's 500 things language classes o
From: Douglas Koller
2d. Re: translation exercises: McWhorter's 500 things language classes o
From: George Corley
3a. Tone Morphemes and Prepositions
From: Robert Fisch
3b. Re: Tone Morphemes and Prepositions
From: Leonardo Castro
4a. Re: Is this a good place to present Ehenív?
From: H. S. Teoh
4b. Re: Is this a good place to present Ehenív?
From: Douglas Koller
5a. Re: Ot: Ihilda and the Mescratchious
From: Padraic Brown
5b. Re: Ot: Ihilda and the Mescratchious
From: Leonardo Castro
6a. Re: FW: Dieing Languages
From: Padraic Brown
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Dieing Languages
Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com
Date: Wed May 29, 2013 9:45 pm ((PDT))
On Thu, 30 May 2013 00:10:25 -0700, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
<goldyemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>I think the first question was how do fever bite and frostbite match up,
>they don't match up. The Silknish speakers feel that trying to create
>medical roots or any other Silknish word root with a Yardish suffix will
>create an unmatched word like fever bite.
Ah, you've got a good idea at the kernel of this. The Silknish speakers, I
infer, have strong ideas about the purity of their language, and will not
condone the use of Yardish suffixes with Silknish words because that would
sully the purity. What is their position on borrowings of whole words from
Yardish into Silknish? On code-switching from Silknish into Yardish?
At the same time, your use of the "fever bite vs. frostbite" example seems
questionable. English happens to make the word "frostbite" up out of "frost"
and "bite", but you should see this as accidental! There is nothing intrinsic
about the medical condition frostbite that means all languages have to express
it as "frost" plus "bite"; languages unrelated to English, like Yardish, should
probably express it differently. (Indeed, I checked Wiktionary. Among the
other natural languages there which had translations of "frostbite", most of
them were much less evocative: their words were mostly just analogous to
"freezing" or "frostage" or that kind of thing.)
Similarly but on the other hand, there is no law that says that a compound of
the words "fever" and "bite" has to be meaningless. Maybe the Yardish compound
of "fever" and "bite" does mean something: maybe it means "burn", the skin
injury? or a kind of bug whose bite gives you a fever? or ...?
Alex
Messages in this topic (24)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Dieing Languages
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" goldyemo...@gmail.com
Date: Wed May 29, 2013 11:08 pm ((PDT))
Humm, that's why I love this list, you all make me think.
Thanks.I like burn and th last one, a bug that gives a fever.
I'm thinking to borrow medical terms from Silknish. What's code switching?
Would that be borrowing from Yardish to Silknishz?
Mellissa Green
@GreenNovelist
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:conl...@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf
Of Alex Fink
Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2013 9:45 PM
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Subject: Re: Dieing Languages
On Thu, 30 May 2013 00:10:25 -0700, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
<goldyemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>I think the first question was how do fever bite and frostbite match up,
>they don't match up. The Silknish speakers feel that trying to create
>medical roots or any other Silknish word root with a Yardish suffix will
>create an unmatched word like fever bite.
Ah, you've got a good idea at the kernel of this. The Silknish speakers, I
infer, have strong ideas about the purity of their language, and will not
condone the use of Yardish suffixes with Silknish words because that would
sully the purity. What is their position on borrowings of whole words from
Yardish into Silknish? On code-switching from Silknish into Yardish?
At the same time, your use of the "fever bite vs. frostbite" example seems
questionable. English happens to make the word "frostbite" up out of "frost"
and "bite", but you should see this as accidental! There is nothing intrinsic
about the medical condition frostbite that means all languages have to express
it as "frost" plus "bite"; languages unrelated to English, like Yardish, should
probably express it differently. (Indeed, I checked Wiktionary. Among the
other natural languages there which had translations of "frostbite", most of
them were much less evocative: their words were mostly just analogous to
"freezing" or "frostage" or that kind of thing.)
Similarly but on the other hand, there is no law that says that a compound of
the words "fever" and "bite" has to be meaningless. Maybe the Yardish compound
of "fever" and "bite" does mean something: maybe it means "burn", the skin
injury? or a kind of bug whose bite gives you a fever? or ...?
Alex
Messages in this topic (24)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Dieing Languages
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" goldyemo...@gmail.com
Date: Wed May 29, 2013 11:11 pm ((PDT))
With a nedisease showing up in the novel, I can already see my character will
have to come into contact with one of the speakers. I still plan to have one of
the children end up at the healing community.
Mellissa Green
@GreenNovelist
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:conl...@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf
Of Alex Fink
Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2013 9:45 PM
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Subject: Re: Dieing Languages
On Thu, 30 May 2013 00:10:25 -0700, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
<goldyemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>I think the first question was how do fever bite and frostbite match up,
>they don't match up. The Silknish speakers feel that trying to create
>medical roots or any other Silknish word root with a Yardish suffix will
>create an unmatched word like fever bite.
Ah, you've got a good idea at the kernel of this. The Silknish speakers, I
infer, have strong ideas about the purity of their language, and will not
condone the use of Yardish suffixes with Silknish words because that would
sully the purity. What is their position on borrowings of whole words from
Yardish into Silknish? On code-switching from Silknish into Yardish?
At the same time, your use of the "fever bite vs. frostbite" example seems
questionable. English happens to make the word "frostbite" up out of "frost"
and "bite", but you should see this as accidental! There is nothing intrinsic
about the medical condition frostbite that means all languages have to express
it as "frost" plus "bite"; languages unrelated to English, like Yardish, should
probably express it differently. (Indeed, I checked Wiktionary. Among the
other natural languages there which had translations of "frostbite", most of
them were much less evocative: their words were mostly just analogous to
"freezing" or "frostage" or that kind of thing.)
Similarly but on the other hand, there is no law that says that a compound of
the words "fever" and "bite" has to be meaningless. Maybe the Yardish compound
of "fever" and "bite" does mean something: maybe it means "burn", the skin
injury? or a kind of bug whose bite gives you a fever? or ...?
Alex
Messages in this topic (24)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Dieing Languages
Posted by: "Garth Wallace" gwa...@gmail.com
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 12:06 am ((PDT))
On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 2:07 AM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
<goldyemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Humm, that's why I love this list, you all make me think.
>
> Thanks.I like burn and th last one, a bug that gives a fever.
> I'm thinking to borrow medical terms from Silknish. What's code switching?
> Would that be borrowing from Yardish to Silknishz?
Code-switching is when a bilingual speaker switches from speaking in
one language to speaking in another. Like a kid who is fluent in both
English and Spanish speaking English in class and then chatting with
their friends in Spanish.
Messages in this topic (24)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: translation exercises: McWhorter's 500 things language classes o
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Wed May 29, 2013 10:09 pm ((PDT))
On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 03:07:25PM -0400, Alex Fink wrote:
> John McWhorter has for a couple decades been collecting sentences of
> the sort one doesn't learn how to say in second-language classes.
> Vocabulary words are easy to acquire; nice and obvious (SAE)
> inflectional categories invariably get their dedicated lessons; but
> there are types of sentences which neither of these naturally cover
> but which nonetheless are common in day-to-day usage, and prone to
> idiomaticity. (There are some overlooked lexical areas in there as
> well.) He has very graciously sent me his list, and I hope I'm not
> running afoul of him by reproducing it below!
>
> How do(es) your conlang(s) handle these? I'd expect, on the grounds
> that irregularities pile up in the most used parts of language, that
> naturalistic conlangs should show a similar level of
> (quasi)idiomaticity to English in, if not these exact sentences, then
> ones much like them...
Wow! Looking over the list, I realize that TF has a much longer ways to
go than I'd realized. :-P
> Parts of this list perhaps also contribute answers to John Q's
> question in the "Observations on verbal periphrastic constructions"
> thread.
Yeah, I've thought about the sentences he posted, and decided that TF
isn't quite there yet ^W^W^W^W^W I mean, I haven't learned enough TF
from my informant yet to be able to correctly translate them. ;-)
But regardless, I think it'd be interesting to go through them anyway
and try to translate them, or if that's not quite possible, to think
about how it might be done. That should give lots of inspiration for
future directions with TF. :)
[...]
> [hic incipit syllabus McWhorteri]
>
> AGE
> How old are you?
This one is interesting. In my L1 and Mandarin, there's a dedicated word
for the number of years of age, so one simply asks "how many is [your
age]?". Similar situation with Malay. However, after learning Russian, I
realized that other alternatives exist: in Russian, age is in terms of
how many summers (леÑ) one has had, which is a refreshing change from
merely "years" or an opaque word for age. (Well, OK, in contemporary
Russian Ð»ÐµÑ simply means "years", but at least etymologically speaking,
it's counting how many summers one has been through.)
So to my chagrin, not only does TF not have a word for age, but lacks a
way to ask "how many?"! So I went and invented one:
tse na ti' jirabunas ta?
2SG RCP:MASC notch how_many Q
How old are you? (Lit. to you how many notches?)
Why "notch", you ask? Well, here's the newly added lexicon entry for
_ti'_ which explains it:
ti' ["ti?]
neut. n. (1) dot, notch, indentation, cut, mark made by chipping.
(2) pl. age. _ti' jirabunas ta?_ - how old (are you)?.
Etym. each spring parents would traditionally hold a celebration to
commemorate the growth of their children, among the festivities of
which includes the ritual of adding a notch to a long stick kept for
each child, thereby marking their age.
> You're getting old.
This one is interesting, as it's not merely referring to increase of
age, but to the dreadful approach of one's senior years from the wrong
direction. So it's not about *age* per se, but to the fact that one's
mental (or otherwise) faculties are deteriorating. Therefore:
tse sa ne'itai puru kumai kutu!
2SG CVY:MASC become_old more again FIN
You're becoming older and older!
The verb _ne'itai_ isn't merely referring to increase in age; it means
to decay, to wither, to become worn out, to become stale (it could
be used to refer to food turning stale, e.g.), thus, to become old and
decrepit, as befits the above English sentence.
> I'm two years older.
huu na ti' bunas puru ai.
1SG RCP:MASC notches two more FIN
I'm two years older (lit. To me are two more notches.)
> That's how that generation thought.
Hmm. TF doesn't quite have a word for "generation" in the sense it has
here; the closest it has is _umasan_ "descendents", "the next
generation" or _ma'asan_ "the forefathers", "the elders" (but the latter
can also mean "the tribal leaders"). Neither seem to be a proper
translation.
But I suppose I could paraphrase this as:
naras i'i ma'anai san diin so fipe'an fei
iti arai.
the_preceding in_manner_of think person those CVY:NEUT time that
during FIN
In the preceding manner those people at that time thought.
(I translated "that's how" as "in the preceding manner" because it seems
to be referring to a previous description in context that has been
elided from the example here.)
> "ALL"
> His face was covered with blood
kama mi'is tara'is apa saisu si'ai.
kama mi'-is tara'-is apa saisu sei ai.
all face-PART 3SG-PART on blood CVY:FEM FIN
On all of his face was blood.
> I sat on a bench for the whole trip.
kama mahitanis eke bumei huu sa ba'u apa utu'.
kama mahitan-is eke bumei huu sa ba'u apa utu'.
all journey-PART through sit 1SG CVY:MASC stool on FIN
Through the whole journey, I sat on a stool.
> He ate the whole thing.
tara' na ka'am kama birapis sa tsa.
tara' na ka'am kama birap-is sa tsa.
3SG RCP:MASC eat all food-PART CVY:MASC FIN
He ate all of the food.
> I'm not going to do it all year.
This one turned out much more tricky that it appears. It turns out that
I don't know how to negate a single NP/PP in TF! Currently I only know
how to negate the entire predicate, but it doesn't have the correct
sense ("For the whole year I will not do it").
Upon consulting with my TF informant (aka after inventing some new
grammar :-P), I learned that this is expressed thus:
huu ka kakai kaimian kama be eke beihai.
huu ka kakai kaimian kama be eke bei ahai.
1SG ORG:MASC do year all NEG through NEG FIN
I will do [it] not through the whole year.
Literally, this sentence has something of the effect of "I will do
[this] through not-all-of the year not-done". The negated finalizer
indicates that the action will not be completed.
> ALL OF A SUDDEN / BAM!
> I "up and" started crying.
In TF, there is no direct analogue to "up and", though one can certainly
use a conjunctive verb to convey a similar effect. Conjunctive verbs
make no sense outside of context, so I'm taking the liberty of inventing
a prior context:
huu nei kiapitai tara' ka, kibuaha ha atan.
huu nei kiapitai tara' ka, ki-buaha ha atan.
1SG RCP:FEM insult 3SG ORG:MASC ORG:FEM-sob start FIN
He insulted me; I started sobbing.
> Next thing I knew ...
> All of sudden ...
In TF, these two tend to be combined into one. But the latter is
expressed by an adverb that can't stand without a predicate, so I'm
taking more inventive liberties:
kibeiri iti parama ahi kara.
breath at earthquake suddenly FIN
At that moment, there was suddenly an earthquake (or, a sudden
earthquake).
Literally, "in [that very] breath, earth<suddenly>quake". (OK, OK,
please excuse the infix-mangled English; I wanted to convey the effect
of inserting _ahi_ into the set phrase _parama kara_, one of those
idiomatic verbless noun-plus-finalizer constructions.)
> ALLEGIANCE
> He is on their side?
Doesn't quite convey allegiance, but at the very least, accompaniment:
diin so ta tara' ibi?
3PL CVY:NEUT Q 3SG with
Is it them that he's with?
The postposition _ibi_ deserves some scrutiny. It refers to
accompaniment in a secondary role (e.g. I go with my wife to meet the
manager -- i.e., my wife is accompanying me but not actively involved in
the meeting). This accompaniment is with the fronted NP (in this case,
_diin so_). It contrasts with _iki_, which also refers to accompaniment
in a secondary role, but with the *non*-fronted NP. For example:
huu ka tsana bata' na fuan ibi aniin.
1SG ORG:MASC speak chief RCP:MASC wife with FIN
I spoke to the chief with [my] wife.
huu ka tsana bata' na fuan iki aniin.
1SG ORG:MASC speak chief RCP:MASC wife with FIN
I spoke to the chief with [his] wife.
Note that whether one translates _fuan_ as "my wife" or "his wife"
depends solely on whether _ibi_ or _iki_ is used. Because of this
contrast, I decided that it's a "close enough" TF equivalent to the
above English sentence -- it at least *implies* allegiance.
> ALMOST / CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
Sigh, another hole in TF: I have no word for "almost"! Oh well, time to
invent one^W^Wahem, I mean, consult with my TF informant. ;-) Let's
see...
> I nearly got run over.
kefatai so dankau paka be huu na dusan.
chariot CVY:NEUT collide but not 1SG RCP:MASC missed(FIN)
Some interesting things going on here: _paka_ is usually a conjunction
meaning "however" or "but"; here, it is combined with the negation
particle _be_ to form an adverb _paka be_ meaning "almost". So _dankau
paka be_ means "collided but not [quite]". Also interesting is that the
usual finalizer for _dankau_ is _patsa_ "to strike", but here it's
substituted with _dusan_ "missed", "passed by". The overall effect is,
"the chariot collided with me but not quite, it missed".
> I caught my train, but barely.
There are no trains in Fara (they haven't invented one yet), so I'm
liberally substituting a random chariot that's about to leave.
huu sa upitai kefatai no
huu sa upitai kefatai no
1SG CVY:MASC arrive chariot RCP:NEUT
kibeiri ifei akitais atuan dakat.
kibeiri i-fei akitai-s atuan dakat.
breath CVY-3SG.INANIM before FIN
I arrived at the chariot just before it left.
Lit. I arrived at the chariot in the breath before it left.
> I can't (manage to) do it.
huu ka kibas beman kibeiri kakaikan sei beiham.
huu ka kibas beman kibeiri kakai-kan sei bei-ham.
1SG ORG:MASC breath unable breath do-ORG.SUBORD CVY:FEM NEG-FIN
I don't have the strength to do it.
Lit. I'm unable to breathe the breath to do it.
> The soup was only so-so.
kibusu sei sarap beikiki.
kibusu sei sarap bei-kiki.
soup CVY:FEM delicious NEG-FIN
The soup was not delicious.
OK, I'm sorta cheating here, this is just simple negation in TF, but the
fact that it's the finalizer that got negated, not the adjective itself,
seems to carry the force of "it's delicious but not quite".
Note that TF negation of adjectives does not imply the opposite of the
adjective; a non-delicious soup is merely bland, whereas a bad-tasting
soup would be:
kibusu sei pehe' kirue.
soup CVY:FEM disgusting nauseating(FIN)
The soup is disgusting!
The finalizer _kirue_ is also used with the verb _bua'a'_ "to vomit",
thus graphically describing a disagreeable taste. :-P
> He got out of it pretty nicely.
The English is a bit too vague here (TF tends to be stronger in
expressing the concrete rather than the abstract)... have to think a bit
more about this one.
//
Hmm, this is taking a lot longer than I expected. Maybe I should start
skipping over untranslatable stuff for now, and come back to them later.
[...]
> APPEARANCE / IMPRESSION
> This looks like a dog, sounds like a cat, smells like a rat, tastes
> like chicken, and feels like silk.
Now this one is *very* interesting, as TF's case system proves very
useful in expressing some of these clauses:
fei ko hamra simani so aram,
3SG.INANIM ORG:NEUT appear wolf CVY:NEUT FIN
It appears as a wolf,
korutan kauhi sei inin,
ko-dutan kauhi sei inin,
ORG.CONJ-hear lynx CVY:FEM FIN
and sounds as a lynx-cat,
kofahun kitse' so uen,
ko-fahun kitse' so uen,
ORG.CONJ-smell rat CVY:NEUT FIN
and smells as a rat,
ko'urap fasa ako'is so nus,
ko-'urap fasa ako'-is so nus,
ORG.CONJ-taste(V) meat chicken-PART CVY:NEUT FIN
and tastes like the meat of chicken,
hena so sunis sura atai muu.
and CVY:NEUT smooth women's_garment like FIN
and is smooth like a woman's garment.
Notes:
- Dogs are not native to Fara; they keep guard wolves for security but
those are never treated as pets (for good reason!), so dogs to the san
faran are laughable diminutive caricatures of wolves, referred to by
the neologism _kuesimani_ (kue- is a diminutive with overtones of
funny or laughable). It was a toss-up as to whether to translate "dog"
as _kuesimani_, since the thing described by the English sentence is
certainly an odd creature indeed! But in the end, I decided to just
use _simani_, in keeping with the spirit of the original.
- Similarly, the closest feline relative to cats in Fara is the
considerably less tame lynx, of a white-furred variety.
- The verb _hamra_ is usually translated as "see", but here, it is used
with the ORG and CVY noun cases, whereas the seer always appears in
the RCP case. So "appear" is a better translation in this case (hah!).
- Similarly, the verb _dutan_ is usually translated as "hear", but
again, in the absence of a hearer in the CVY case, the best
translation is "sounds as" or "sounds like".
- Translating "tastes like chicken" literally doesn't make sense
according to my TF informant (he says to me, "tatari bei'aniin" -- "we
don't say it like that"). What is usually meant in English is that it
tastes like chicken *meat*; saying _urap ako' so nus_ would mean it
tastes like chicken feathers, since that's what you'd taste if you
lick a live chicken!
- The case system unfortunately doesn't help when it comes to "feel":
there is no verb for "feel" that isn't volitive or purely emotional,
and periphrases involving touch seem too artificial, so I decided to
use an adjectival clause instead, with the postposition _atai_ "like,
similar to". (Of course, as Alex pointed out, adjectives may really be
stative verbs in TF, but in this case the stative verb takes a CVY
case "subject", so it can't be used as a predicative NP unlike the
previous clauses, hence the resort to a postpositional clause with
_atai_.)
[...]
> MORE / MUCH AND COMPARISON
[...]
> I want more (of them).
In TF, when one wishes to ask for more (food, drinks, whatever was given
that you want more of), one says:
puru ke!
more ADV
More, more!
[...]
> It's raining, you know. / After all, it's raining.
[...]
This is colloquial TF slang:
jat peira ta'an.
you_know rain FIN
It's raining, you know.
_jat_ is a slang contraction of _juerat_ "to look", and can mean,
depending on context, "look!", "lo!", or "as you know", "you know", "you
see".
The use of _jat_ is frowned on in official / technical contexts, and
only used between very intimate friends among adults, but the kids throw
it around like it's no thang. Everything is _jat_ this, _jat_ that, and
its meanings are many and varied, e.g.:
1) jat tara' sa himas tutu!
- 3SG CVY:MASC tall FIN
Man, is he tall!
2) tapa be tara' nei, jat tara' sei kiapat koko.
walk NEG 3SG RCP:FEM you_know 3SG CVY:FEM crazy FIN
Don't go to her; she's crazy, you know!
3) kefatai so upitai jat kibeiri iti dakat.
chariot CVY:NEUT arrive - breath when FIN
The chariot's arriving right-at-this-moment-look-here-it-is!
4) sii i'i fei no kakai? jat i'i!
how - 3SG.INANIM RCP:NEUT do look how
How [do you] make that? That's how!
5) akitai huu kei jat anui!
leave 1SG ORG:FEM - FIN
Get *away* from me already!
Note: none of the above sentences are considered "grammatical" by TF
grammarians -- so claims my informant -- this is playground child-talk,
uppity teenagers' uncouth babbling, the unhappy couple's endless
bickering. (1) is forgivable but it gets progressively worse the
further down you go: (5) has _jat_ in total defiance of normal TF
syntax. You'd be laughed out of court if you talk like that in front of
the judge. But just wait a few more generations, and _jat_ might start
appearing in official documents, mark you my words! ;-)
//
Alright, this is taking a LOT more time/effort than I predicted, so
maybe I'll stop here for now. The TF lexicon has already grown by quite
a big handful of entries, so this exercise is already proving its value!
More will come later, maybe. :) I hope you have enough TF to last you
for a good while. ;-)
On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 01:30:36PM -0700, David Peterson wrote:
> Perhaps this can be added to FrathWiki? Or even better: Perhaps they
> can be added as translations to http://cals.conlang.org!
[...]
Yes, please! That's an excellent idea!
T
--
The only difference between male factor and malefactor is just a little
emptiness inside.
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: translation exercises: McWhorter's 500 things language classes o
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Wed May 29, 2013 11:46 pm ((PDT))
On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 10:07:55PM -0700, H. S. Teoh wrote:
[...]
> tse na ti' jirabunas ta?
> 2SG RCP:MASC notch how_many Q
> How old are you? (Lit. to you how many notches?)
[...]
I forgot to point out the etymology of _jirabunas_: it is a contraction
of _jiras bunas di'as_ "one two three". It's like asking "you have one,
two, or three notches?" (with an implied "etc." after "three" --
induction, y'know). Well technically, it's _jiras ta bunas ta di'as ta_
(the construction _X ta Y ta_ meaning "X or Y"), which simplified to
_jiras bunas di'as_ > _jirabunari'as_ > _jirabunas_, through a process
of successive simplification via contraction and elision.
TF numerals are agglutinative, you see; "eight", for example, is
_di'apikas_, from _di'as_ (3) + _pikas_ (5). However, these
agglutinations are only valid between numerals of a group belonging to a
different power of 5: 1-4 are the first group, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 are the
second group, 25, 50, 75, 100, 125 are the third group, etc., up to 5
groups (with 3125 being the largest root, thus a maximum nameable
numeral of 3905). The agglutination _jirabunari'as_ is therefore an
invalid numeral, so the contraction _jirabunas_ does not conflict with
any numeral, and can safely stand in for the interrogative numeral. :)
(Kids on the street have been heard simplifying this even further to
_jiabunas_ or _jabunas_ (or *shudder* _jabun_), but this is frowned on
by the older folk and isn't part of the official TF dictionary published
by the town grammarians.)
T
--
Stop staring at me like that! You'll offend... no, you'll hurt your eyes!
Messages in this topic (10)
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2c. Re: translation exercises: McWhorter's 500 things language classes o
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" douglaskol...@hotmail.com
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 12:12 am ((PDT))
> Date: Wed, 29 May 2013 22:07:55 -0700
> From: hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
> Subject: Re: translation exercises: McWhorter's 500 things language classes
> overlook
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> > AGE
> > How old are you?
> This one is interesting. In my L1 and Mandarin, there's a dedicated word
> for the number of years of age, so one simply asks "how many is [your
> age]?"
> So to my chagrin, not only does TF not have a word for age, but lacks a
> way to ask "how many?"! So I went and invented one:
> tse na ti' jirabunas ta?
> 2SG RCP:MASC notch how_many Q
> How old are you? (Lit. to you how many notches?)
> Why "notch", you ask? Well, here's the newly added lexicon entry for
> _ti'_ which explains it:
> ti' ["ti?]
> neut. n. (1) dot, notch, indentation, cut, mark made by chipping.
> (2) pl. age. _ti' jirabunas ta?_ - how old (are you)?.
Reminiscent of "ÂI" (dian3, di2, dim2), though asking "§A¨k´XÂI?" obviously
won't get you an age.
> Etym. each spring parents would traditionally hold a celebration to
> commemorate the growth of their children, among the festivities of
> which includes the ritual of adding a notch to a long stick kept for
> each child, thereby marking their age.
At least in Norman Rockwellesque America, many kitchen pantry doors are so
notched (by knife or pen or penknife) to mark children's growth in height,
presumably on a quasi-annual basis.
Kou
Messages in this topic (10)
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2d. Re: translation exercises: McWhorter's 500 things language classes o
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 12:23 am ((PDT))
I have to say, a couple of those categories are befuddling. Do language
classes typically not cover age? I learned very explicitly how to state my
age when I learned Spanish (Tengo X años. "I have X years.") and several
ways of expressing and asking age in Mandarin (including reminders about
how some Chinese people count age differently from Westerners, and the
expression for saying "I was born in X" ææ¯Xï¼å¹´ï¼çç). I wasn't
taught this
explicitly in Tagalog, however, so maybe it doesn't always happen.
On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 2:12 AM, Douglas Koller
<douglaskol...@hotmail.com>wrote:
> > Date: Wed, 29 May 2013 22:07:55 -0700
> > From: hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
> > Subject: Re: translation exercises: McWhorter's 500 things language
> classes overlook
> > To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
>
> > > AGE
> > > How old are you?
>
> > This one is interesting. In my L1 and Mandarin, there's a dedicated word
> > for the number of years of age, so one simply asks "how many is [your
> > age]?"
>
> > So to my chagrin, not only does TF not have a word for age, but lacks a
> > way to ask "how many?"! So I went and invented one:
>
> > tse na ti' jirabunas ta?
> > 2SG RCP:MASC notch how_many Q
> > How old are you? (Lit. to you how many notches?)
>
> > Why "notch", you ask? Well, here's the newly added lexicon entry for
> > _ti'_ which explains it:
>
> > ti' ["ti?]
> > neut. n. (1) dot, notch, indentation, cut, mark made by chipping.
> > (2) pl. age. _ti' jirabunas ta?_ - how old (are you)?.
>
> Reminiscent of "é»" (dian3, di2, dim2), though asking "ä½ ç·å¹¾é»?"
> obviously
> won't get you an age.
>
> > Etym. each spring parents would traditionally hold a celebration to
> > commemorate the growth of their children, among the festivities of
> > which includes the ritual of adding a notch to a long stick kept
> for
> > each child, thereby marking their age.
>
> At least in Norman Rockwellesque America, many kitchen pantry doors are so
> notched (by knife or pen or penknife) to mark children's growth in height,
> presumably on a quasi-annual basis.
>
> Kou
>
>
Messages in this topic (10)
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3a. Tone Morphemes and Prepositions
Posted by: "Robert Fisch" robert.fi...@rocketmail.com
Date: Wed May 29, 2013 10:50 pm ((PDT))
I've been making a tonal language where there are six contour tone morphemes.
The three that end on falling tones mark verb forms/adjectives and the three
that end on rising ones mark noun forms. I am having problems with coming up
with prepositions and other words that are neither verbs/adjectives nor nouns.
I was thinking they could have consonants as syllable nuclei instead of the
tonal vowels, but that makes the words hard to say, and there are only a
limited number of words I can come up with in this way. Do you have any
suggestions?
Messages in this topic (2)
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3b. Re: Tone Morphemes and Prepositions
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 5:11 am ((PDT))
Don't you have a neutral tone?
Até mais!
Leonardo
2013/5/30 Robert Fisch <robert.fi...@rocketmail.com>:
> I've been making a tonal language where there are six contour tone
> morphemes. The three that end on falling tones mark verb forms/adjectives and
> the three that end on rising ones mark noun forms. I am having problems with
> coming up with prepositions and other words that are neither verbs/adjectives
> nor nouns. I was thinking they could have consonants as syllable nuclei
> instead of the tonal vowels, but that makes the words hard to say, and there
> are only a limited number of words I can come up with in this way. Do you
> have any suggestions?
Messages in this topic (2)
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4a. Re: Is this a good place to present Ehenív?
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Wed May 29, 2013 11:22 pm ((PDT))
On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 10:13:33PM -0400, Alex Fink wrote:
> On Wed, 29 May 2013 23:46:07 +0100, Mechthild Czapp <rejista...@me.com> wrote:
>
> >> After so many accolades, I hate to be critical. FSM knows I'm not
> >> very good at creating a language, and I don't want to discourage
> >> you.
>
> Nor do I, certainly!
>
> >> But your language seems to be a relex of English with Yoda-speak
> >> word order.
> >>
> >> ata = am
> >> af = are
> >> aš = is
I did notice some English relexing as well, esp. in the 1-to-1 mapping
of a good number of English words/constructs into Ehenív. Such direct
mappings are unlikely if one considers the typical ways in which
natlangs differ from each other.
Nevertheless, though, I think overall the language is quite well made. A
bit rough around some corners, perhaps, but adds enough creative
features to rise above a typical first-try conlang. For one thing, I
applaud Nina for getting it to the point of daily usability! (And the
videos posted on her website are amazing, BTW.) Ebisédian, my first
attempt at a conlang, failed miserably in this respect. Even Tatari
Faran still has a ways to go before it's usable as a daily lang.
> Mhmm, I noticed some of that too. For example:
>
> On Wed, 29 May 2013 08:16:57 -0700, Nina-Kristine Johnson
> <ninakristi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >ex. *Ísk malųpe, **sæ, sa adila aktalt*. (A kitten, me, my mother
> >gave or My mother gave me a kitten).
> >
> >*Aktalt* is literally *gived*.
>
> Well, _aktalt_ is _aktal_, the stem of "give", plus _-t_, the past
> tense marker, right? That's... exactly the normal way you'd expect to
> form the word for "gave" with the materials Ehenív has. Makes perfect
> sense on its own! As far as I can tell, the formation only seems to
> deserve remark if you're trying to see Ehenív and English as
> morpheme-for-morpheme equivalent, in a way that ordinarily two
> different languages would never be.
One could chalk it down to coincidence that the Ehenív past tense marker
is -t, and in English it's -(e)d. Externally, it may have been borrowed
from English, but internally speaking, I think it *could* get away with
claiming otherwise.
But yeah, seeing too many such coincidences kinda breaks mimesis a bit.
OTOH, ya never know... if Nina were to apply some regular sound changes
to the language and shift the meanings of some words to simulate
diachronic language change, we might end up with a much more realistic
conlang. (I'm actually tempted to try this with Tatari Faran, but
haven't had the courage to, yet. I think I'm a bit too emotionally
involved with its current state, sigh.)
> Similarly, I'm impressed that Ehenív includes contractions; having a
> choice between reduced and unreduced alternants is the type of
> grammatical phenomenon which people often overlook. Yet the ones
> you've chosen to include seem to be word-for-word analogues of English
> contractions. It could well be that some pairs of words which would
> "naturally" contract in Eheniv have no translation that is an English
> contraction, or vice versa.
Yeah, I think this is an area that could use some additional work.
Regardless, the fact that there are contractions is rather impressive
for what appears to be a first-attempt conlang.
[...]
> Another fact to note about English contractions is that it is
> principally the second word that gets reduced: "am are is will had"
> lose everything but their last consonant, while "not" keeps its
> initial consonant too. The first word basically stays intact, though
> sometimes there is vowel colouring. In Ehenív, the burden of
> contracting is borne much more equally: pronouns contract before
> auxiliary verbs, but "will" and "had" contract after pronouns, and
> those and others contract before "not". It makes me wonder whether
> one or more of these contraction processes might in fact be much more
> general, and not need a second 'little' word to lean on: perhaps
> pronouns, e.g., might be able to contract before any verb?
That would certainly be an interesting direction of development to
explore, I agree!
[...]
> >> (and is the word for "queen" really "latifa"???)
> >
> >Nothing wrong with inside jokes. Rejistanian uses tons of them.
> >Kamakawi does as well (pika!). And I don't know any constructed
> >language which does not.
>
> Hm. Various words in my own conlangs, especially words that've been
> inherited in some form from juvenilia-langs, have silly external
> etymologies, and I guess that makes 'em inside jokes if "jokes" are
> allowed to be not amusing. But then e.g. Sabasasaj doesn't even have
> words like that, as far as I can remember.
[...]
Speaking of inside jokes, Tatari Faran has quite a lot of them.
The interrogative noun _sii_, for example, is pronounced exactly like
the English "see?", but means "what" -- and this is no coincidence! It
was inspired by an attempt to weird out my roommate at the time by
deliberately making English-sounding words mean something totally
different. Especially since the corresponding neuter NP is _sii so_
["si: sO], a caricature of "see-saw".
Another TF inside joke is _karen_ (pronounced [ka"4En]), meaning "shoe",
with apologies to women named Karen who may own a lot of shoes. :-P
A very obscure inside joke is the 2PL pronoun _huna_: it was a retcon
from the phrase _san huna_ "you(pl) people", which was originally
inspired by the word "kahuna". (Don't ask me what the connection is,
though. I just thought it was funny for "kahuna", suitably distorted, to
mean "y'all".)
Many TF words are inspired by Malay (the most familiar Austronesian lang
to me, and hence a good source of inspiration since I wanted TF to have
a vaguely Austronesian feel), but with the meanings often twisted into
unrecognizable forms. For example _suka_ in Malay means "to like", but
in TF it means "to follow" (after all, if you like someone you'd follow
them, right? Not that I condone stalking, though!). And _bumei_ in TF
means to sit, and _bumi_ in Malay means earth or ground: the original
meaning of _bumei_ is to sit on the ground, but I disguised it by
allowing it to refer to sitting in general. Then _petsa_ "to explode"
from Malay _pecah_ [p@"tSah] "to break into pieces". Near-direct
borrowings include _sarap_ "delicious" (Malay _sedap_ -- in TF, medial
/d/ is expressed as /r/ [4]) and _mimbi_ "dreams" (Malay _mimpi_). A
funny distortion of Malay is _misai_, which in Malay means "moustache",
but in TF means "deer". I just find the idea of a deer with a moustache
totally hilarious.
Some TF words are deliberate homophones of other languages I know, with
meanings similarly distorted. E.g. _bihuun_ [bi"hu:n] "powdered pepper",
a distortion of /bi1 hun4/ in my L1, which literally means rice powder,
but which refers to a kind of thin rice noodle dish, which I usually
liked to eat with copious amounts of pepper. And _sahai_ "to slay, to
kill", a portamenteau of Mandarin /sha1/ "to slay" and /shang1 hai4/ "to
cause harm".
So yeah. Lots of puns and obscure inside jokes going on in Tatari Faran
(the above are merely the tip of the iceberg). Most are suitably
disguised so that TF can, at least in theory, stand up to scrutiny as a
naturalistic conlang. :)
T
--
Perhaps the most widespread illusion is that if we were in power we
would behave very differently from those who now hold it---when, in
truth, in order to get power we would have to become very much like
them. -- Unknown
Messages in this topic (16)
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4b. Re: Is this a good place to present Ehenív?
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" douglaskol...@hotmail.com
Date: Wed May 29, 2013 11:48 pm ((PDT))
> Date: Wed, 29 May 2013 23:17:19 -0700
> From: hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
> Subject: Re: Is this a good place to present Ehenív?
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> > On Wed, 29 May 2013 08:16:57 -0700, Nina-Kristine Johnson
> > <ninakristi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >ex. *Ísk malùpe, **sæ, sa adila aktalt*. (My mother gave me a kitten).
> > >*Aktalt* is literally *gived*.
> > Well, _aktalt_ is _aktal_, the stem of "give", plus _-t_, the past
> > tense marker, right?
> One could chalk it down to coincidence that the Ehenív past tense marker
> is -t, and in English it's -(e)d. Externally, it may have been borrowed
> from English, but internally speaking, I think it *could* get away with
> claiming otherwise.
_-t_ is the past tense marker for Hungarian (csinál -> csinált). Japanese has
tabe-te (having eaten)/tabe-ta (ate). There *must* be others. Perhaps when the
aliens were building the pyramids and mining gold, they sprinkled past tense
"t" liberally around the planet. At any rate, if Hungarian and Japanese are
coincidental to English, then why not Ehenív?
> Another TF inside joke is _karen_ (pronounced [ka"4En]), meaning "shoe",
> with apologies to women named Karen who may own a lot of shoes. :-P
My step-mother, Karen, rivalling Imelda Marcos, forgives you.
Kou
Messages in this topic (16)
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5a. Re: Ot: Ihilda and the Mescratchious
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 4:38 am ((PDT))
--- On Tue, 5/28/13, Herman Miller <hmil...@prismnet.com> wrote:
> > Before you read any further - what does the following title of a
> > fantasy novella evoke for you: Ihilda and the Mescratchious
>
> Ihilda is clearly a female name (reminiscent of Hildegard).
Only in an overtly Italo-Hispano-Romance influenced millieu (i.e.,
English): Rosa, Linda, Barbara.
My first impression was Germanic, where names in -a often are masculine
(Wulfila, Swinthila, etc).
Second impression is Kurdish: wi hilda = she lifted.
> The Mescratchious is likely some kind of monstrous beast
> (the frumious Bandersnatch comes to mind). Maybe something
> that's a bit mischievous, and scratches a lot. I don't think
> you can avoid the itchy feel of that word "scratch" in there.
Indeed not!
Padraic
Messages in this topic (15)
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5b. Re: Ot: Ihilda and the Mescratchious
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 4:49 am ((PDT))
2013/5/28 Daniel Bowman <danny.c.bow...@gmail.com>:
> Hi All:
>
> Before you read any further - what does the following title of a fantasy
> novella evoke for you:
>
> Ihilda and the Mescratchious
It's some story similar to Alice in Wonderland.
>
> You may wonder why I am asking this (and how is it related to conlanging).
> It's rather exciting for me, actually. I have a reasonably polished draft of
> a novella aimed for the young adult market. I have incorporated a few
> Angosey words into it; unfortunately Angosey doesn't get to be any more than
> a naming language in this case because I don't have a Lord of the Rings sized
> manuscript to develop it for my readers.
>
> I just sat down to do a rigorous line-by-line edit when it occurred to me
> that my title "Ihilda and the Mescratchious" might give a different
> impression than I would like, or be completely confusing. Obviously this
> will not fly. No agent or publishing company will pick up my manuscript if
> they can't understand the title. So what I'd like to know is a) does the
> title confuse you, or do you want to know more and b) what exactly does this
> title evoke for you?
>
> I look forward to discussing how I wove Angosey into the story if there's
> interest on the list.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Danny
Messages in this topic (15)
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6a. Re: FW: Dieing Languages
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 4:40 am ((PDT))
--- On Thu, 5/30/13, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <goldyemo...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> That's interesting.
> Is it age-specific, like do the younger ones allowed to talk
> at dinner etc?
Generally speaking, yes, there's no issue with talking at dinner. They
learn quick enough where it's inappropriate to talk -- like when their
elders are talking, or when a monk is teaching, or when a Teor is speaking
or late at night when everyone's trying to sleep.
Padraic
Messages in this topic (2)
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