There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: subject and object covered by a single case?
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
1b. Re: subject and object covered by a single case?
From: Allan Bomhard
1c. Re: subject and object covered by a single case?
From: Dirk Elzinga
2.1. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: Leonardo Castro
2.2. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: George Corley
2.3. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: H. S. Teoh
2.4. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: J. 'Mach' Wust
2.5. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
From: George Corley
3a. Re: Little-endian Numeral System?
From: Leonardo Castro
4a. /nθ/ = [nd], etc., examples?
From: Matthew Boutilier
4b. Re: /nθ/ = [nd], etc., examples?
From: Galen Buttitta
5a. Re: OT: Language in the 2009 Constitution of Bolivia.
From: Leonardo Castro
5b. Re: OT: Language in the 2009 Constitution of Bolivia.
From: George Corley
5c. Re: OT: Language in the 2009 Constitution of Bolivia.
From: Leonardo Castro
5d. Re: OT: Language in the 2009 Constitution of Bolivia.
From: Sam Stutter
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: subject and object covered by a single case?
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" joerg_rhieme...@web.de
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2013 6:39 am ((PDT))
Hallo conlangers!
On Monday 19 August 2013 07:15:34 kechpaja wrote:
> On Aug 18, 2013, at 19:16, qiihoskeh <qiihos...@gmail.com> wrote:
> [...]
> > This brings up another question: what do you call that case? Nominative,
> > absolutive, or something else?
>
> Usually "direct", IIRC. I think Romanian has something like that, so it is
> ANADEW.
In Romanian, it is usually called "direct". The other case is
the "oblique".
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (15)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: subject and object covered by a single case?
Posted by: "Allan Bomhard" arbomh...@yahoo.com
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2013 9:13 am ((PDT))
Johanna Nichols, Robert Dixon, Marianne Mithun, and many others describe
different types of clause alignment systems, whether accusative, ergative,
active-stative, etc. In a neutral type, A (subject of transitive) = O (direct
object) = S (subject of intransitive). In an accusative type, S = A; O is
distinct. In an ergative type, S = O; A is distinct. In a three-way type, A,
O, and S are all distinct. In a stative-active (also called "split-S system")
type, S1 = A, S2 = O. Here, the language has two kinds of intransitive verbs,
one taking ordinary subject marking, and the other taking a subject whose
marking is the same as that of a direct object of a transitive. In a
hierarchical type, access to inflectional slots for subject and/or object is
based on person, number, and/or animacy rather than (or no less than) on
syntactic relations.
While there is agreement in case naming in accusative-type and ergative-type
systems, there is no agreement in the literature on what to name S1 ~ S2 in
split-S type systems, and it is sometimes confusing for non-specialists to
figure out what is being described when reading different authors.
One of the better handbooks on these matters is Robert Dixon's 1994 book
Ergativity(Cambridge University Press), though it can be a bit technical.
________________________________
From: Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhieme...@web.de>
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 9:39 AM
Subject: Re: subject and object covered by a single case?
Hallo conlangers!
On Monday 19 August 2013 07:15:34 kechpaja wrote:
> On Aug 18, 2013, at 19:16, qiihoskeh <qiihos...@gmail.com> wrote:
> [...]
> > This brings up another question: what do you call that case? Nominative,
> > absolutive, or something else?
>
> Usually "direct", IIRC. I think Romanian has something like that, so it is
> ANADEW.
In Romanian, it is usually called "direct". The other case is
the "oblique".
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (15)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: subject and object covered by a single case?
Posted by: "Dirk Elzinga" dirk.elzi...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2013 9:50 am ((PDT))
On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 1:01 AM, Logan Kearsley <chronosur...@gmail.com>wrote:
> On 18 August 2013 23:30, Matthew Boutilier <bvticvlar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > thanks, everybody, for responding to my question. i haven't quite decided
> > yet what my conlang solution will be.
> >
> > but the issue of case naming plagues me as well. not knowing anything
> about
> > Romanian, i'm looking into that presently.
> >
> > "direct" is what it is? i guess that makes sense: direct subject + direct
> > object?
> >
> > i could've sworn (Classical) Nahuatl functioned like this. my knowledge
> of
> > this language is quite minimal, but there's the noun ending -tli
> > (alternating with -li and -tl) which i'm pretty sure i've seen called the
> > "absolutive." and, seriously, i think i've seen nouns with this ending
> used
> > as both subjects and objects. and, most importantly, i don't think
> there's
> > any other case ending that it alternates with (although it's omitted when
> > you have certain prefixes; *cal-li* 'house-ABS' but *no-cal* 'my house').
> > can any Nahuatl-knower please speak up?
>
> I doubt I know Nahuatl any better than you do, but I believe you're
> talking about the absolutive *state*, which is not quite the same
> thing as a case, and contrasts with the possessed (or construct, as
> it's called in, e.g., Hebrew) state. The absolutive suffix just
> indicates a noun that's standing by itself, neither being the object
> of a possessive pronoun nor a non-head component of a compound.
>
> It is possible to have a language with the state distinction and case
> distinctions operating simultaneously and completely orthogonally
> (although I'm not sure of natlang examples offhand).
>
Luiseño (Uto-Aztecan) is such a language. The absolutive suffixes are -sh,
-cha, -t, -ta, -l, and -la (there's obviously some interesting historical
morphology at work here--three basic abs suffixes -sh, -t, -l and "-a",
which is probably an old UA accusative). The accusative suffix is -i for
animate nouns (written as -y following a vowel); inanimate nouns don't
always make a case distinction. The absolutive and accusative endings can
co-occur: muuta, muutay 'owl, -ACC', kaá¹£illa, kaá¹£illay 'lizard, -ACC',
'awaal, 'awaali 'dog, -ACC'.
Shoshone (also Uto-Aztecan) has its own version of absolutive suffixes, any
of which co-occur with the accusative: hono-pittseh ([ËhonoβitËÊɨ̥]),
hono-pittseh-a ([ËhonoβitËÊɨ̥ha]) 'bat-ABS, -ABS-ACC'; toya-pin
([Ëtojaβi]), toya-pitta ([ËtojaβitËa]) 'mountain-ABS, -ABS.ACC'. (There is
some interesting historical morphology here as well, having to do with
stacking absolutives; -pi(n) + -ttseh on 'bat' are historically distinct
absolutive suffixes which have been reanalyzed as a single absolutive
occurring with some animals, bugs, and monsters.)
Dirk
Messages in this topic (15)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2.1. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2013 9:24 am ((PDT))
Indeed, it seems that English is the most anti-reform language, or
maybe anti-regulation language. The idea of "aportuguesamento" is very
strong in Portuguese. "Abat-jour" became "abajur", "toilette" became
"toalete" and "team" is now "time". Now, some people prefer to use
"sáite" or "sítio" instead of (web) site. But it seems that people is
more resistent to "aportuguesamento" nowadays. I think that high
illiteracy rates made aportuguesamento easier in the old days because
people more frequently were presented to the already-portuguized
words.
Besides, the shape-reading theory doesn't explain why people tend to
write more sound-based spellings in informal contexts such as web chat
(including in Mandarin, AFAIK). And wasn't in this way that
"alphabets" were first developed? Taking picto/ideo/logorams for their
sounds instead of their original meaning?
Até mais!
Leonardo
2013/8/19 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>:
> On Sat, Aug 17, 2013 at 08:34:30PM -0700, Padraic Brown wrote:
> [...]
>> I don't think I need to stress that I am anti spelling "reform" in
>> just about every shape and flavor it comes in. The benefits of just
>> buckling down and doing the hard work of learning to read the damn
>> language at the start will far outweigh any theoretical benefits in
>> "reforming" the spelling. And anyway, if such endeavors were really
>> all that beneficial, the Arabs, the Greeks, the Russians and the
>> Chinese would have "reformed" to the Latin alphabet 50 to 100 years
>> ago or so.
> [...]
>
> Nevertheless, the Russians *did* have a spelling reform within the last
> 100 years, though not to the Latin alphabet. They dropped a lot of old
> letters that were no longer pronounced or had merged with other sounds,
> as well as introduce a new letter (Ñ) to reflect a sound change that had
> differentiated what was previously a single letter. Quite a good number
> of words were respelled to reflect actual pronunciation, among which
> include alternation rules like:
>
> ÑÑÐ½Ñ -> Ñон
> ÑÑна -> Ñна
>
> reflecting a sound change wherein the ancient ultra-short /i̯/ (Ñ)
> (respectively /u̯/ (Ñ)) alternately vanished or lengthened to /e/ (resp.
> /o/). As well as the new use of Ñ to mark certain grammatical categories
> where such a sound didn't actual exist historically (a striking example
> of which is the -ÑÑ ending for the 2nd person singular verb:
> historically, there is no such combination as ÑÑ /shi̯/ in the language
> since Ñ is always "hard").
>
> Russian is a *lot* easier to read (and write! -- a large number of
> spelling rules that had no phonological basis were eliminated) thanks to
> this reform, though it certainly isn't without controversy (there are
> factions who want to bring back the Yat (Ñ£), for example). The reform
> did lead to ambiguities like мÑÑ / Ð¼Ð¸Ñ -> Ð¼Ð¸Ñ ("peace" vs. "world"),
> but
> for the most part these aren't really a problem 'cos where they would be
> ambiguous in writing, they're already ambiguous in speech, so you
> already have to disambiguate anyway.
>
> The dropping of Ñ (except in certain rare contexts) resulted in about a
> 3.5% savings in paper due its ubiquitous pre-reform appearance after
> *every* non-palatized final consonant.
>
> And speaking of reforms... Chinese had a major reform also within the
> last 100 years, resulting in the so-called "simplified Chinese" writing
> that is decidedly easier to read and especially write (saving on a huge
> number of penstrokes on a vast number of common words), though to
> someone like me who grew up with the old writing, it felt like the
> writing was losing a whole dimension of nuance originally present. I
> still remember comments from family members about how the new system
> "loses the original meaning", "looks like a caricature of *real*
> writing", etc.. But now, 30 years later, they have mostly adapted to the
> new system though occasionally suffering the humiliation of being
> corrected by schoolchildren who say "teacher, you made a mistake in that
> character!" -- when it was actually the correct pre-reform character.
> The transition isn't completely finished yet, resulting in the need for
> publishing Chinese texts in two versions, traditional and simplified, in
> order to cater to older audiences, but with the latter rapidly
> overtaking the former as said older audience gradually passes on.
>
> Resisting the reform seems about as sensible as resisting natural
> language change, in retrospect. (After all, it *is* the writing system
> catching up with, oh, hundreds, or even thousands, of years of
> phonological and grammatical changes that nobody but linguists even
> remember.) Such resistance inevitably fades into obscurity in the dusts
> of time as the rest of the world moves on. :) (And I say that as someone
> who is still emotionally attached to the traditional Chinese writing --
> in spite of being almost completely illiterate! Yet one realizes that
> after it's all said and done, it's really only nostalgia that remains,
> nostalgia which the younger generation does not have and definitely will
> *not* be passing on to *their* children. No matter how hard or "evil"
> the transition may have been, people just adapt to it as they always
> have, and the world goes on.)
>
>
> T
>
> --
> If the comments and the code disagree, it's likely that *both* are wrong. --
> Christopher
Messages in this topic (41)
________________________________________________________________________
2.2. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2013 2:23 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 11:23 AM, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com>wrote:
> Indeed, it seems that English is the most anti-reform language, or
> maybe anti-regulation language. The idea of "aportuguesamento" is very
> strong in Portuguese. "Abat-jour" became "abajur", "toilette" became
> "toalete" and "team" is now "time". Now, some people prefer to use
> "sáite" or "sítio" instead of (web) site. But it seems that people is
> more resistent to "aportuguesamento" nowadays. I think that high
> illiteracy rates made aportuguesamento easier in the old days because
> people more frequently were presented to the already-portuguized
> words.
>
Illiteracy is one idea (consider that English, in its ravenous borrowing
behavior, typically scoops up whatever standard Latin
spelling/transliteration goes with the word we're taking), but there's a
whole host of explanations you could concoct. Perhaps the spelling system
already makes enough sense that people don't see a reason to break it with
foreign spellings, or there may be relatively fewer foreign loans in
Portuguese (again, these are hypotheses, not claims I'm making -- I have no
idea if any of this is actually true).
> Besides, the shape-reading theory doesn't explain why people tend to
> write more sound-based spellings in informal contexts such as web chat
> (including in Mandarin, AFAIK). And wasn't in this way that
> "alphabets" were first developed? Taking picto/ideo/logorams for their
> sounds instead of their original meaning?
>
Basically, yes, that's how they came to be. But I would argue that much of
txtspeak in English is motivated by brevity, occasionally at the expense of
phonemicity. In many cases, we see words sort of slide backward along the
scale of logography-to-alphabet with syllabic renderings like b4 or odd
partials in l8r g8r. And of course, the rampant initialisms like ttyl,
a/s/l, brb have nothing at all to do with pronunciation.
On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 10:16 PM, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
>
> And speaking of reforms... Chinese had a major reform also within the
> last 100 years, resulting in the so-called "simplified Chinese" writing
> that is decidedly easier to read and especially write (saving on a huge
> number of penstrokes on a vast number of common words), though to
> someone like me who grew up with the old writing, it felt like the
> writing was losing a whole dimension of nuance originally present. I
> still remember comments from family members about how the new system
> "loses the original meaning", "looks like a caricature of *real*
> writing", etc.. But now, 30 years later, they have mostly adapted to the
> new system though occasionally suffering the humiliation of being
> corrected by schoolchildren who say "teacher, you made a mistake in that
> character!" -- when it was actually the correct pre-reform character.
> The transition isn't completely finished yet, resulting in the need for
> publishing Chinese texts in two versions, traditional and simplified, in
> order to cater to older audiences, but with the latter rapidly
> overtaking the former as said older audience gradually passes on.
>
Is it actually easier to read? My impression is that it's only (marginally)
easier to write, and there are still many incredibly complex characters
that everyone forgets. You still must memorize thousands of characters, and
easier handwriting is only going to become more irrelevant as computer
technology continues to become more ubiquitous.
> Resisting the reform seems about as sensible as resisting natural
> language change, in retrospect. (After all, it *is* the writing system
> catching up with, oh, hundreds, or even thousands, of years of
> phonological and grammatical changes that nobody but linguists even
> remember.) Such resistance inevitably fades into obscurity in the dusts
> of time as the rest of the world moves on. :) (And I say that as someone
> who is still emotionally attached to the traditional Chinese writing --
> in spite of being almost completely illiterate! Yet one realizes that
> after it's all said and done, it's really only nostalgia that remains,
> nostalgia which the younger generation does not have and definitely will
> *not* be passing on to *their* children. No matter how hard or "evil"
> the transition may have been, people just adapt to it as they always
> have, and the world goes on.)
Writing systems are far and away more sticky in this regard than spoken
language, though, at least as it stands with modern standardized printing.
And modern spelling reforms are generally being imposed rather than growing
from the grassroots. One of the strengths of the simplification of Chinese
was that it drew from existing cursive calligraphy styles for inspiration.
Messages in this topic (41)
________________________________________________________________________
2.3. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2013 2:49 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 04:23:16PM -0500, George Corley wrote:
[...]
> On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 10:16 PM, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
>
> >
> > And speaking of reforms... Chinese had a major reform also within
> > the last 100 years, resulting in the so-called "simplified Chinese"
> > writing that is decidedly easier to read and especially write
> > (saving on a huge number of penstrokes on a vast number of common
> > words), though to someone like me who grew up with the old writing,
> > it felt like the writing was losing a whole dimension of nuance
> > originally present. I still remember comments from family members
> > about how the new system "loses the original meaning", "looks like a
> > caricature of *real* writing", etc.. But now, 30 years later, they
> > have mostly adapted to the new system though occasionally suffering
> > the humiliation of being corrected by schoolchildren who say
> > "teacher, you made a mistake in that character!" -- when it was
> > actually the correct pre-reform character. The transition isn't
> > completely finished yet, resulting in the need for publishing
> > Chinese texts in two versions, traditional and simplified, in order
> > to cater to older audiences, but with the latter rapidly overtaking
> > the former as said older audience gradually passes on.
> >
>
> Is it actually easier to read? My impression is that it's only
> (marginally) easier to write, and there are still many incredibly
> complex characters that everyone forgets. You still must memorize
> thousands of characters, and easier handwriting is only going to
> become more irrelevant as computer technology continues to become more
> ubiquitous.
The glyphs are less complex, and therefore easier to read. Of course, it
doesn't really address the nature of the logographic writing in the
first place -- like you said, you still have to memorize thousands of
characters. Simpler glyphs also make it more readable on-screen -- on a
low-resolution screen, some of the complex characters simply can't be
drawn properly and come out just as black blocks of ink resembling the
overall shape of the actual glyph.
> > Resisting the reform seems about as sensible as resisting natural
> > language change, in retrospect. (After all, it *is* the writing
> > system catching up with, oh, hundreds, or even thousands, of years
> > of phonological and grammatical changes that nobody but linguists
> > even remember.) Such resistance inevitably fades into obscurity in
> > the dusts of time as the rest of the world moves on. :) (And I say
> > that as someone who is still emotionally attached to the traditional
> > Chinese writing -- in spite of being almost completely illiterate!
> > Yet one realizes that after it's all said and done, it's really only
> > nostalgia that remains, nostalgia which the younger generation does
> > not have and definitely will *not* be passing on to *their*
> > children. No matter how hard or "evil" the transition may have been,
> > people just adapt to it as they always have, and the world goes on.)
>
>
> Writing systems are far and away more sticky in this regard than
> spoken language, though, at least as it stands with modern
> standardized printing. And modern spelling reforms are generally
> being imposed rather than growing from the grassroots.
Well, that would be why spelling (or writing) reforms tend to happen at
a far slower rate than normal language change. :)
> One of the strengths of the simplification of Chinese was that it drew
> from existing cursive calligraphy styles for inspiration.
Which reflects already-existing trends towards simpler glyphs. It's
somewhat reminiscient of how lowercase letters developed from
handwritten uncials.
But then again, I can barely read Chinese, so I could be talking total
nonsense here. :-P Caveat emptor and all that.
T
--
I am not young enough to know everything. -- Oscar Wilde
Messages in this topic (41)
________________________________________________________________________
2.4. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "J. 'Mach' Wust" j_mach_w...@shared-files.de
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2013 3:15 pm ((PDT))
On Sun, 18 Aug 2013 20:16:03 -0700, H. S. Teoh wrote:
>On Sat, Aug 17, 2013 at 08:34:30PM -0700, Padraic Brown wrote:
>[...]
>> I don't think I need to stress that I am anti spelling "reform" in
>> just about every shape and flavor it comes in. The benefits of just
>> buckling down and doing the hard work of learning to read the damn
>> language at the start will far outweigh any theoretical benefits in
>> "reforming" the spelling. And anyway, if such endeavors were really
>> all that beneficial, the Arabs, the Greeks, the Russians and the
>> Chinese would have "reformed" to the Latin alphabet 50 to 100 years
>> ago or so.
>[...]
>
>Nevertheless, the Russians *did* have a spelling reform within the last
>100 years, though not to the Latin alphabet.
[...]
>And speaking of reforms... Chinese had a major reform also within the
>last 100 years, resulting in the so-called "simplified Chinese" writing
>that is decidedly easier to read and especially write (saving on a huge
>number of penstrokes on a vast number of common words) [...].
Another even more extreme case where an autoritarian revolution has
forced a new way of writing upon people is in the case of Turkey, where
the introduction of the Latin script pretty much cut off the previous
literary tradition.
Did maybe the Vietnamese change from Chinese-based Chữ nôm to
Latin-based quá»c ngữ involve less violence than these others? I do not
know anything about it but what Wikipedia told me.
On Mon, 19 Aug 2013 14:48:10 -0700, H. S. Teoh wrote:
>On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 04:23:16PM -0500, George Corley wrote:
[...]
>> Writing systems are far and away more sticky in this regard than
>> spoken language, though, at least as it stands with modern
>> standardized printing. And modern spelling reforms are generally
>> being imposed rather than growing from the grassroots.
>
>Well, that would be why spelling (or writing) reforms tend to happen at
>a far slower rate than normal language change. :)
Mind you that after spoken Latin had diverged more and more from
written Latin, it took more or less until the time of the of the
trobadors until the spelling was "reformed", thus giving way to a
number of Latin daughter languages. Give or take, this reform came
almost a millenium later, and this in a society that was much less
literate than today's.
--
grüess
mach
Messages in this topic (41)
________________________________________________________________________
2.5. Re: THEORY: Long and short vowels association.
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2013 6:08 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 4:48 PM, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 04:23:16PM -0500, George Corley wrote:
>
> > Is it actually easier to read? My impression is that it's only
> > (marginally) easier to write, and there are still many incredibly
> > complex characters that everyone forgets. You still must memorize
> > thousands of characters, and easier handwriting is only going to
> > become more irrelevant as computer technology continues to become more
> > ubiquitous.
>
> The glyphs are less complex, and therefore easier to read. Of course, it
> doesn't really address the nature of the logographic writing in the
> first place -- like you said, you still have to memorize thousands of
> characters. Simpler glyphs also make it more readable on-screen -- on a
> low-resolution screen, some of the complex characters simply can't be
> drawn properly and come out just as black blocks of ink resembling the
> overall shape of the actual glyph.
But only a subset of the glyphs were simplified, and some of the most
complex characters kept their traditional forms. Even with the
simplification, I know I have to blow up the font on Facebook to read
Chinese there, and it looks like Chinese websites tend to use larger fonts
than Western ones.
>
> > One of the strengths of the simplification of Chinese was that it drew
> > from existing cursive calligraphy styles for inspiration.
>
> Which reflects already-existing trends towards simpler glyphs. It's
> somewhat reminiscient of how lowercase letters developed from
> handwritten uncials.
>
> But then again, I can barely read Chinese, so I could be talking total
> nonsense here. :-P Caveat emptor and all that.
>
Of course, the highest forms of Chinese calligraphy are also the most
cursive (read: nearly illegible scribbles). The reason? It's really
freaking hard to write something quickly with a brush (I have tried this).
Not so hard to write cursive characters with a pen on thicker paper, though
-- so I'm not too sure how much of a trend toward cursivity there was.
By the way, I can read Chinese, but only a little -- mostly I can handle
Internet chat, a newspaper article will seriously tax my abilities.
On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 5:13 PM, J. 'Mach' Wust <j_mach_w...@shared-files.de
> wrote:
> On Sun, 18 Aug 2013 20:16:03 -0700, H. S. Teoh wrote:
>
> [...]
> >And speaking of reforms... Chinese had a major reform also within the
> >last 100 years, resulting in the so-called "simplified Chinese" writing
> >that is decidedly easier to read and especially write (saving on a huge
> >number of penstrokes on a vast number of common words) [...].
>
> Another even more extreme case where an autoritarian revolution has
> forced a new way of writing upon people is in the case of Turkey, where
> the introduction of the Latin script pretty much cut off the previous
> literary tradition.
>
There were people calling for character simplification before the Communist
Party, though it was the CCP that got it through.
> Did maybe the Vietnamese change from Chinese-based Chữ nôm to
> Latin-based quá»c ngữ involve less violence than these others? I do not
> know anything about it but what Wikipedia told me.
>
I wouldn't know. What about Korean Hangul? Or Japanese introduction of kana
-- I'm quite sure that one was a slow evolution.
> Mind you that after spoken Latin had diverged more and more from
> written Latin, it took more or less until the time of the of the
> trobadors until the spelling was "reformed", thus giving way to a
> number of Latin daughter languages. Give or take, this reform came
> almost a millenium later, and this in a society that was much less
> literate than today's.
That's a whole other topic -- the literate groups preserving an ancient
language rather than writing in modern vernacular. In a way, it's similar
to the tradition of writing in Classical Chinese up until the early 20th
century. Frankly, I think increasing literacy helps with this transition --
if only a few rich people are literate, it's not a huge burden for them to
be forced to learn a dead language along with their letters -- but this is
less practical in the general populace.
Messages in this topic (41)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3a. Re: Little-endian Numeral System?
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2013 11:31 am ((PDT))
Dates in the DD/MM/AAAA format may be a case of this, although I don't
know if it's correct to consider the day "less significant".
Bills in little-endian would be specially dramatic:
"You have to pay me five cents, one, twenty, three hundred and... five
million dollars."
Até mais!
Leonardo
2013/8/18 Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela...@gmail.com>:
> On 18 August 2013 13:04, Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> >
>> >AFAIK Arabic does. Or at least Classical and Modern Standard Arabic do.
>>
>> Hm, Wikipedia on Arabic grammar suggests that this is also just a case of
>> ones before tens and doesn't extending further. e.g.:
>>
>> | Formal: alfÄni wa-tis`u mi'atin wa-thnatÄ `ashratan sanatan '2,912 years'
>> thousand and-nine hundred and-two ten years (coarsely)
>>
>> | Spoken: alfayn wa-tis` mīya wa-ithna`shar sana(tan) '(after) 2,912 years'
>> Only difference in makeup here is univerbation of the "two-ten". Same
>> order.
>>
>>
> Okay. I must have remembered wrong. I learned about Arabic a long time ago,
> and numbers in Arabic are notably complicated, so I must have misremembered.
>
> On 18 August 2013 14:59, Eric Christopherson <ra...@charter.net> wrote:
>
>> On Aug 17, 2013, at 1:24 PM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <
>> tsela...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > The
>> > interesting part is that when written in numerals, Arabic numbers follow
>> > the way they are spoken: least-significant figure first. Since Arabic is
>> > written right-to-left, this means numbers are written exactly as we write
>> > them, and can be read left-to-right by us correctly :P. And
>> interestingly,
>> > at least in the Maghreb (Morocco, Tunisia, etc.), figures are actually
>> > written left-to-right, despite the rest of the text being written
>> > right-to-left!
>>
>> This confuses me. Isn't writing in the Arabic world generally done in MSA
>> -- and thus more or less consistent across dialects? Do Maghrebi people
>> write in MSA with the *exception* of numerals?
>
>
> I was only talking about numbers written in figures: 102, 2013, etc. For
> those, there is a difference between how the Maghreb (basically all of
> Northern Africa, except Egypt and Sudan) and the Middle East write them:
> the Maghreb use the same Arabic numerals as we do: 0, 1, 2, 3..., while the
> Middle East uses the Indic numerals: Ù â, Ù¡â, Ù¢â, Ù£ ... The order on
> the
> paper stays the same (and is the same as the order of numerals as written
> by us), but the order in which they are *written* seems to be different: in
> the Maghreb they leave some space and write numbers left-to-right, while in
> the Middle East (at least in Oman where I've been and seen people writing),
> they write them right-to-left. Although I've read once that some people in
> the Middle East also write numbers left-to-right, though with the Indic
> numerals.
>
> All in all a complicated situation...
> --
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4a. /nθ/ = [nd], etc., examples?
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" bvticvlar...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2013 5:17 pm ((PDT))
is there a natlang precedent for fricatives having allophones as voiced
stops (perhaps via voiced fricatives) when following a *nasal*?
basically, i want this for a conlang:
/nf/ = [mb]
/nθ/ = [nd]
/nx/ = [Åg]
this has nothing to do with the position of the stress, so although my
brain keeps returning to Verner's Law, it's totally different. and, it's
independent of any general plosivization of fricatives.
and, while we're here, would [b] really work as the allophone of [f], even
though [f] is not bilabial?
thanks,
matt
Messages in this topic (2)
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4b. Re: /nθ/ = [nd], etc., examples?
Posted by: "Galen Buttitta" satorarepotenetoperarot...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2013 11:45 pm ((PDT))
Well, not exactly an example, but I don't really see this as too implausible.
Just assume nasal assimilation to the POA of the following consonant, followed
by homorganic stop insertion (according to my Phonetic Description course this
happens in at least some forms of English), and then delete the final element
of the cluster.
SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS
On Aug 19, 2013, at 19:17, Matthew Boutilier <bvticvlar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> is there a natlang precedent for fricatives having allophones as voiced
> stops (perhaps via voiced fricatives) when following a *nasal*?
>
> basically, i want this for a conlang:
> /nf/ = [mb]
> /nθ/ = [nd]
> /nx/ = [Åg]
>
> this has nothing to do with the position of the stress, so although my
> brain keeps returning to Verner's Law, it's totally different. and, it's
> independent of any general plosivization of fricatives.
>
> and, while we're here, would [b] really work as the allophone of [f], even
> though [f] is not bilabial?
>
> thanks,
> matt
Messages in this topic (2)
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________________________________________________________________________
5a. Re: OT: Language in the 2009 Constitution of Bolivia.
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2013 7:07 pm ((PDT))
If this is true, Evo Morales not only officialized many Indian
languages, but is also requiring officers to learn them:
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=355071&CategoryId=14919
BTW, Bolivia has been requiring new access to the sea. As many point
out, the more natural way would be along the Peru-Chile border. So, I
wonder why similar solutions can't be used for all landlocked
countries. Has UN never considered considering some countries' borders
as international territory and building roads there to provide access
to the sea to landlocke countries?
Até mais!
Leonardo
2013/7/18 Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com>:
>> From: Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com>
>
>
>>>>> So rather than enact useless constitutional ammendments, I think what is
>>>>> needed is a "cultural ammendment" -- non Native peoples (European /
>>
>>>> *You* (not it) may have already noted that many Paraguayan Guarani
>>>> speakers don't
>>>> look like Native Americans at all, but even so they consider this language
>>>> as a symbol
>>>> of national identity.
>>
>>> I'm not sure what you mean. What does what someone looks like have to do
>>> with it?
>>
>> I mean that many of them are probably "white" (Hispanic as in Spain)
>> with little or no Guarani mixing.
>
> Okay. Either way, people, regardless of what they might look like, have to
> ascribe value
> to a language for it to survive, or for it to be revived.
>
> European Paraguayans may or may not care one way or the other about the
> language ---
> but if there is a strong desire to maintain or revitalise among the Natives
> who speak it,
> there is always the possibility that social awareness may be raised and that
> others who
> are nòt native speakers, may take an interest.
>
>>>> Does English play this role in India?
>>>
>>> Yes. Especially among educated Indians (and Indians who currently do or
>>> wish
>>> to engage in global affairs, whether that's call center staffing,
>>> international
>>> business or etc). Internally, I think Hindi serves the purpose of a
>>> national
>>> language as much as English does if not more.
>>
>> I have heard that some speakers of Dravidian languages prefer English
>> to Hindi because of rivalry. Anti-Hindi and anti-Sanskrit sentiments
>> apparently are very important elements of Tamil nationalism and
>> separatism.
>
> Interesting. I am not at all surprised. I guess the English colonisers,
> who've only
> been in India some 200 or so years are seen as less of a threat than the Hindi
> colonisers who've been mucking about the place for several millenia! ;))
>
> Padraic
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
5b. Re: OT: Language in the 2009 Constitution of Bolivia.
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2013 7:28 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 9:07 PM, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com>wrote:
> If this is true, Evo Morales not only officialized many Indian
> languages, but is also requiring officers to learn them:
> http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=355071&CategoryId=14919
Good. We need more leaders like this in the world.
BTW, Bolivia has been requiring new access to the sea. As many point
> out, the more natural way would be along the Peru-Chile border. So, I
> wonder why similar solutions can't be used for all landlocked
> countries. Has UN never considered considering some countries' borders
> as international territory and building roads there to provide access
> to the sea to landlocke countries?
>
Um, I don't think that they ever have or ever would. First of all, other
than a few unusual circumstances (like the Korean DMZ) a border has zero
land area -- it's nothing more than a line, it has zero width. You can't
build anything touching a boarder that's not in one or the other country
(or both). River borders might be a little looser, but I don't see any way
that land borders could work that way.
Given that, the UN would basically have to convince Peru and Chile to cede
some of their land to some nebulous entity to build a road and a port, and
what UN nation would want to set that precedent? Exactly why would Peru
and Chile want to do that, when it would be far more advantageous for them
to control Bolivia's access to the sea? I'm sure that both countries would
much prefer to make trade agreements with Bolivia for access? Now, I don't
know the politics of the region all that well, so I have no idea what
agreements exist or can exist, but that seems the most likely thing.
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
5c. Re: OT: Language in the 2009 Constitution of Bolivia.
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2013 9:46 pm ((PDT))
2013/8/19 George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com>:
>
>> BTW, Bolivia has been requiring new access to the sea. As many point
>> out, the more natural way would be along the Peru-Chile border. So, I
>> wonder why similar solutions can't be used for all landlocked
>> countries. Has UN never considered considering some countries' borders
>> as international territory and building roads there to provide access
>> to the sea to landlocked countries?
>>
>
> Um, I don't think that they ever have or ever would. First of all, other
> than a few unusual circumstances (like the Korean DMZ) a border has zero
> land area -- it's nothing more than a line, it has zero width. You can't
> build anything touching a boarder that's not in one or the other country
> (or both). River borders might be a little looser, but I don't see any way
> that land borders could work that way.
Naturally, but the territory required to build roads is ridiculously
small. If it depended on me, I would not think twice about ceding
Brazilian territory to provide Paraguay with a 1-km-wide corridor
along Brazil-Argentina and Brazil-Uruguay borders to have access to
the Ocean. But it's maybe easier for Paraguay to keep using Paraná
River in spite of it not having sovereignty over the whole path.
(Search for "-29.59848,-59.605616" on Google Maps an zoom in.)
I guess the reason why a country doesn't cede such a small corridor to
other, as in the Chile-Bolivia case, is much more about polytics than
about real disadvantage. Chile's government just don't want to show
weakness to its population that is majoritarily against giving Bolivia
access to the sea, mainly because of historical rivalry. When the
population is not strongly against something, the State easily
expropriate properties to build whatever they want (including roads).
The case of Ethiopia is more complicated because the access to a
corridor along any border of Eritrea would be probably be seen as a
higher threat of invasion, because these countries are deadly enemies.
But if this corridor is controlled by UN, maybe the involved countries
would fear each other less (although they could fear UN interference
more).
>
> Given that, the UN would basically have to convince Peru and Chile to cede
> some of their land to some nebulous entity to build a road and a port, and
> what UN nation would want to set that precedent?
Because we people of the world have agreed that this is the best way
of finishing the unjust disadvantage of landlocked countries.
> Exactly why would Peru
> and Chile want to do that, when it would be far more advantageous for them
> to control Bolivia's access to the sea?
Curiously, the best concession to Bolivia came from Peruvian president
Alan García...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/20/peru-gives-bolivia-pacific-shore
http://archive.peruthisweek.com/news/13364
...who had already traded insults with Morales
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIcky8etkqs
> I'm sure that both countries would
> much prefer to make trade agreements with Bolivia for access? Now, I don't
> know the politics of the region all that well, so I have no idea what
> agreements exist or can exist, but that seems the most likely thing.
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
5d. Re: OT: Language in the 2009 Constitution of Bolivia.
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" samjj...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Aug 20, 2013 3:37 am ((PDT))
NCNC, perhaps.
No country is going to willingly give up even the smallest bit of territory -
even if a road is only 5m across, over hundreds of km that's quite a sizeable
land package. Then when it's built, who governs it? Who enforces traffic laws,
taxes and maintains vehicles, etc?
Canals and are less problematic because they can be classed as extensions to
the sea, with each country's EEZ extending halfway across the water. Though
this has its own issues and is likely to result in the occasional diplomatic
incident - even if future governments accept that the deal is done and dusted
(unlikely), border guards, police, military and even civilians aren't going to
be happy and will inevitably start making trouble. The land used for the road
will belong to *someone* - someone who won't be too happy that their pride and
joy is being sold off to foreigners for the benefit of foreigners.
Case in point of borders being defined by whim and not common sense - the
Armenia-Azerbaijan border. It's a mess of enclaves and meanders, with single
villages constituting an island of territory - take a peek on Google Maps.
Moreover, why would Peru and Chile want Bolivia to have access to the sea? As
it is, Peruvian and Chilean ports are the only ways goods can get into Bolivia
- employing thousands of Peruvian and Chilean dockers, shipbuilders, etc and
subject to local taxation and control.
Consider the case of the city of Manchester, who thoroughly annoyed the city of
Liverpool by building a ship canal to gain a seaport. Liverpool waved goodbye
to a hefty income and saved Mancunian businessmen a bundle of cash. And that
was in the same *county*
Given the inefficiency of roads, a canal is Bolivia's safest bet but will
inevitably end up in a Suez or something like that.
On 20 Aug 2013, at 05:46, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2013/8/19 George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com>:
>>
>>> BTW, Bolivia has been requiring new access to the sea. As many point
>>> out, the more natural way would be along the Peru-Chile border. So, I
>>> wonder why similar solutions can't be used for all landlocked
>>> countries. Has UN never considered considering some countries' borders
>>> as international territory and building roads there to provide access
>>> to the sea to landlocked countries?
>>
>> Um, I don't think that they ever have or ever would. First of all, other
>> than a few unusual circumstances (like the Korean DMZ) a border has zero
>> land area -- it's nothing more than a line, it has zero width. You can't
>> build anything touching a boarder that's not in one or the other country
>> (or both). River borders might be a little looser, but I don't see any way
>> that land borders could work that way.
>
> Naturally, but the territory required to build roads is ridiculously
> small. If it depended on me, I would not think twice about ceding
> Brazilian territory to provide Paraguay with a 1-km-wide corridor
> along Brazil-Argentina and Brazil-Uruguay borders to have access to
> the Ocean. But it's maybe easier for Paraguay to keep using Paraná
> River in spite of it not having sovereignty over the whole path.
> (Search for "-29.59848,-59.605616" on Google Maps an zoom in.)
>
> I guess the reason why a country doesn't cede such a small corridor to
> other, as in the Chile-Bolivia case, is much more about polytics than
> about real disadvantage. Chile's government just don't want to show
> weakness to its population that is majoritarily against giving Bolivia
> access to the sea, mainly because of historical rivalry. When the
> population is not strongly against something, the State easily
> expropriate properties to build whatever they want (including roads).
>
> The case of Ethiopia is more complicated because the access to a
> corridor along any border of Eritrea would be probably be seen as a
> higher threat of invasion, because these countries are deadly enemies.
> But if this corridor is controlled by UN, maybe the involved countries
> would fear each other less (although they could fear UN interference
> more).
>
>>
>> Given that, the UN would basically have to convince Peru and Chile to cede
>> some of their land to some nebulous entity to build a road and a port, and
>> what UN nation would want to set that precedent?
>
> Because we people of the world have agreed that this is the best way
> of finishing the unjust disadvantage of landlocked countries.
>
>> Exactly why would Peru
>> and Chile want to do that, when it would be far more advantageous for them
>> to control Bolivia's access to the sea?
>
> Curiously, the best concession to Bolivia came from Peruvian president
> Alan García...
>
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/20/peru-gives-bolivia-pacific-shore
> http://archive.peruthisweek.com/news/13364
>
> ...who had already traded insults with Morales
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIcky8etkqs
>
>> I'm sure that both countries would
>> much prefer to make trade agreements with Bolivia for access? Now, I don't
>> know the politics of the region all that well, so I have no idea what
>> agreements exist or can exist, but that seems the most likely thing.
Messages in this topic (6)
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