There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
From: Tony Harris
1.2. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
From: H. S. Teoh
1.3. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
From: C. Brickner
1.4. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
From: Padraic Brown
1.5. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
1.6. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
From: Eric Christopherson
1.7. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
From: Daniel Bowman
1.8. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
From: Cosman246
1.9. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
From: Douglas Koller
1.10. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
From: Herman Miller
1.11. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
From: Zach Wellstood
2a. Re: I am sure
From: C. Brickner
2b. Re: I am sure
From: MorphemeAddict
3a. Re: Choosing a word for "German"
From: Padraic Brown
4.1. Re: Colloquial French resources
From: Aidan Grey
Messages
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1.1. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
Posted by: "Tony Harris" t...@alurhsa.org
Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 12:32 pm ((PDT))
On 2013-09-09 15:23, R A Brown wrote:
> On 09/09/2013 19:53, Tony Harris wrote:
>> I used to do that, as people who have been on this list
>> since the mid 1990s may remember. Once upon a time,
>> Alurhsa was called Aluric, and the people who spoke it
>> were Alurians who lived on Aluria.
>>
>> However, as my time on the Internet grew, I found that
>> Aluric was the name of some notable Viking or Saxon in
>> history, Aluria was a woman's name, and in use in other
>> contexts such as Aluria Software (whose owner/president
>> was very nice, actually, and we exchanged a few emails
>> about whether there was some way to collaborate given
>> the connection), and above all, Alurians turned out to be
>> virtually co-opted by Paramount when they named
>> Guinan's race as El-Aurians in Star Trek: Generations.
>
> Yes, but Jan van Steenbergen stuck to his name "Hattic" for
> the fictional IE language of the legendary "Hats" of the
> erstwhile USSR, though he subsequently discovered that there
> was already a non-IE language called "Hattic" spoken in Asia
> minor in the 3rd & 3nd millennia BC.
> http://steen.free.fr/khadurian/hattic_grammar.html
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattic_language
>
> IIRC Jan considered that the vast time difference and the
> quite different locations would mean no one but an idiot
> would think they were the same or even connected ;)
Very true! On the other hand, of course, the ancient Asian speakers of
non-IE Hattic are probably unlikely to have a bevy of lawyers prowling
for the slightest hint of copyright infringement. The same, I suspect,
cannot be said for Paramount.
>> But I had enough contacts from people who didn't do that
>> much research and figured my Alurians were Star Trek's
>> El-Aurians.
>
> People should do more research ;)
>
No disagreements there!
>> Worried that Paramount might get in a twist because of
>> the closeness (never mind I'd been calling my people
>> Alurians since the mid 1970s, I hadn't published
>> anything and wasn't a major movie studio...), I decided
>> the safest bet overall might be to go with the native
>> name,
>
> I think Aluric showed up enough on this list to show that
> Paramount would not have had any grounds for such nonsense.
>
True, it definitely did. On the other hand, I was unsure enough, and
then there's the fact that they have that bevy of lawyers, while I would
have been hardpressed to afford one. Alas, from what I've seen fairness
and logic aren't always what decide such cases.
>> Alurhsa, for the language and the people, and Alurhna for
>> the planet.
>
> OK - but now I want to pronounce the _rh_ like the Welsh
> _rh_ ;)
>
You wouldn't be the first! ;-)
As another aside on this, I did also find that there is a language in
Africa, in the Bantu group I believe, called Alur. I suspect it's
almost impossible to not come close to some other language name
sometimes, so it does end up being a matter of deciding whether you've
come too close to one where some high-powered individual or corporation
is going to have a fit. Plus, of course, how much name uniqueness and
recognition you want, since being too close to something else can cause
you to lose that as well.
Of course if it's largely a private hobby language, a lot of that is
probably a moot point! ;-)
Messages in this topic (31)
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1.2. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 12:38 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Sep 09, 2013 at 03:08:56PM -0400, Daniel Bowman wrote:
> 2013/9/9 Sam Stutter <samjj...@gmail.com>
>
> > I've been reading it as /an'goʊ.zi/ all along!
>
>
> Wow! That's one I never thought of!
My pronunciation is similar: [EN'goUsi].
T
--
Do not reason with the unreasonable; you lose by definition.
Messages in this topic (31)
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1.3. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
Posted by: "C. Brickner" tepeyach...@embarqmail.com
Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 1:32 pm ((PDT))
----- Original Message -----
Moments after sending the message this morning, I realized that almost
every English speaker would read "Angosey" with an ŋ rather than ng!
I even forgot that *I* used to say ŋg before I modified the phonology.
_____________________________
I would have the same problem with Senjecas. <ng> is always /ng/, never /ŋ/ or
/ŋg/.
Charlie
Messages in this topic (31)
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1.4. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 1:58 pm ((PDT))
>> Moments after sending the message this morning, I realized that almost
>> every English speaker would read "Angosey" with an ŋ rather than ng!
>> I even forgot that *I* used to say ŋg before I modified the phonology.
>
> I would have the same problem with Senjecas. <ng> is always /ng/, never
> /ŋ/ or /ŋg/.
?? How does that fit with [sEn 'dZE kas]? :)
> Charlie
>> So the consequences are: people read /æn/go/seɪ rather
>> than ɑn/ko/seɪ, oh well, close enough...!
>
> Depends where you put the stress. Until this post, I had
> been saying ['æŋgəsi]
>
> You can't win with anglophones ;)
Indeed not!
['æŋ go si]
> I recall many years ago I used to refer to my unnamed
> briefscript simply as 'briefscript' in quotes. Some one
> coined the abbreviation BrSc and that stuck around for quite
> a while. I always read as "briefscript", but it became
As did I. I just figured you used "BrSc" as an abbreviation.
> apparent that other conlangers were giving all sorts of
> strange pronunciations for it :)
>
> That's why, when Bax came along ,I anglicized as _Piashi_.
> There were probably some variant pronunciations of _Piashi_,
Ya! [bæks]!
> but as with Angosey, they were hopefully not too far out.
Padraic
> Ray
Messages in this topic (31)
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1.5. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" joerg_rhieme...@web.de
Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 2:08 pm ((PDT))
Hallo conlangers!
On Monday 09 September 2013 20:26:09 R A Brown wrote:
> On 09/09/2013 13:27, Daniel Bowman wrote:
> [spin]
>
> > So the consequences are: people read /æn/go/seɪ rather
> > than ɑn/ko/seɪ, oh well, close enough...!
>
> Depends where you put the stress. Until this post, I had
> been saying ['æŋgəsi]
>
> You can't win with anglophones ;)
I am not a native speaker of English, and used to pronounce it
as [aŋ'gosei].
> I recall many years ago I used to refer to my unnamed
> briefscript simply as 'briefscript' in quotes. Some one
> coined the abbreviation BrSc and that stuck around for quite
> a while. I always read as "briefscript", but it became
> apparent that other conlangers were giving all sorts of
> strange pronunciations for it :)
Yes. Mine was [br̩sk].
> That's why, when Bax came along ,I anglicized as _Piashi_.
> There were probably some variant pronunciations of _Piashi_,
> but as with Angosey, they were hopefully not too far out.
Before you came up with _Piashi_, I pronounced _bax_ as [bax].
--
... 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 (31)
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1.6. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
Posted by: "Eric Christopherson" ra...@charter.net
Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 2:20 pm ((PDT))
On Sep 8, 2013, at 9:24 PM, Zach Wellstood <zwellst...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> (if this has been discussed elsewhere, please link me. I haven't seen it.)
>
> I haven't ever had an anglicized autoglottonym for my conlang, łaá siri,
> but recently I've been considering coining one. Not only is it unwieldy to
> type that <ł>, but saying it to those who don't understand sounds of other
> languages is too: /ɬɑꜛɑ siri/.
>
> I don't think that an English translation would sound right ("Language of
> the Sky People"?). Too long-winded and RPG-sounding for my purposes.
>
> So I think the best way is to decide on a name like Siric (which wouldn't
> make sense in the conlang, really, but is an option) or maybe Lhaa
> (pronounced like /laa/). Maybe just retaining it as Lhaa Siri but, to be
> honest, it's aesthetically unappealing to me (kind of a butchery with my
> knowledge of the language).
It's worth considering whether the language has actual fictional contact with
English speakers, and if so, how they go about learning the name. If the
English-speaking contactees are mostly illiterate and not linguists, they'll
surely go for something that sounds similar enough but using English sounds.
On the other hand, if some linguists (or fairly linguistically sophisticated
missionaries or the like) devise a Roman-script writing system for the siri and
then non-linguists among them start seeing the name of the language written
that way, they might adapt a different pronunciation, but still using only
English sounds.
E.g. if English speakers get the name just from the sound of the native name,
they might come up with /ləˈʔɑsəɻi/ or something like that, but it's IMO very
likely they will pick a different sound for the /ɬ/. I'm not sure which sounds
would be more likely than others, but you might have /s/, /ʃ/, /sl/, /ʃl/,
/fl/, or /kl/.
But if most people learn the name from reading it, and the spelling they're
reading has <l> or <ll> or <lh> or <ł> or something like that, they'll probably
just substitute /l/.
(The language called Tlingit in English comes from a native name with initial
/ɬ/, but in English is pronounced with initial /kl/. I'm not sure how its
spelling came to have _T_ -- perhaps because many languages of northwest North
America have lateral affricates, and somehow those are more salient to English
speakers than lateral fricatives?)
A third possibility would be that the fictional linguists simply make up a name
like Siric, just as you might do in the real world.
>
> But how have others done this? It seems quite complicated to me.
>
> Best,
> Zach
>
>
> raa'lalí 'aa! - [sirisaá! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conlang>]
Messages in this topic (31)
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1.7. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
Posted by: "Daniel Bowman" danny.c.bow...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 2:38 pm ((PDT))
I am quite impressed with the diversity of "Angosey," and it's clear I
should make that Youtube video of Angosey pronunciation sooner rather than
later! I've been thinking about it for some time.
> You can't win with anglophones ;)
>
> I am not a native speaker of English, and used to pronounce it
> as [aŋ'gosei].
>
>
So far you are the closest (and that matches how I used to pronounce it).
So if you can't win with anglophones, start with the non-native speakers!
It is initially quite shocking to me to see how different people interpret
the same jumble of letters in different ways.
As for Senjecas, I would say:
sen/dʒe/kæs
łaá siri:
la siri
while wondering what that funny thing on the "l" is.
> > I recall many years ago I used to refer to my unnamed
> > briefscript simply as 'briefscript' in quotes. Some one
> > coined the abbreviation BrSc and that stuck around for quite
> > a while. I always read as "briefscript", but it became
> > apparent that other conlangers were giving all sorts of
> > strange pronunciations for it :)
>
> Yes. Mine was [br̩sk].
>
> > That's why, when Bax came along ,I anglicized as _Piashi_.
> > There were probably some variant pronunciations of _Piashi_,
> > but as with Angosey, they were hopefully not too far out.
>
> Before you came up with _Piashi_, I pronounced _bax_ as [bax].
>
> --
> ... 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 (31)
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1.8. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
Posted by: "Cosman246" yashtuls...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 3:17 pm ((PDT))
/aŋgɒsi/ is how I'd say it before looking at this.
-Yash Tulsyan
On Mon, Sep 9, 2013 at 2:38 PM, Daniel Bowman <danny.c.bow...@gmail.com>wrote:
> I am quite impressed with the diversity of "Angosey," and it's clear I
> should make that Youtube video of Angosey pronunciation sooner rather than
> later! I've been thinking about it for some time.
>
>
>
> > You can't win with anglophones ;)
> >
> > I am not a native speaker of English, and used to pronounce it
> > as [aŋ'gosei].
> >
> >
> So far you are the closest (and that matches how I used to pronounce it).
> So if you can't win with anglophones, start with the non-native speakers!
>
> It is initially quite shocking to me to see how different people interpret
> the same jumble of letters in different ways.
>
> As for Senjecas, I would say:
>
> sen/dʒe/kæs
>
>
> łaá siri:
>
> la siri
>
> while wondering what that funny thing on the "l" is.
>
>
>
>
> > > I recall many years ago I used to refer to my unnamed
> > > briefscript simply as 'briefscript' in quotes. Some one
> > > coined the abbreviation BrSc and that stuck around for quite
> > > a while. I always read as "briefscript", but it became
> > > apparent that other conlangers were giving all sorts of
> > > strange pronunciations for it :)
> >
> > Yes. Mine was [br̩sk].
> >
> > > That's why, when Bax came along ,I anglicized as _Piashi_.
> > > There were probably some variant pronunciations of _Piashi_,
> > > but as with Angosey, they were hopefully not too far out.
> >
> > Before you came up with _Piashi_, I pronounced _bax_ as [bax].
> >
> > --
> > ... 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 (31)
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1.9. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" douglaskol...@hotmail.com
Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 5:11 pm ((PDT))
> Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2013 21:21:39 +0200
> From: joerg_rhieme...@web.de
> Subject: Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> Hallo conlangers!
> On Monday 09 September 2013 04:24:41 Zach Wellstood wrote:
> > I don't think that an English translation would sound right ("Language of
> > the Sky People"?). Too long-winded and RPG-sounding for my purposes.
> Yes, it sounds like something from a fantasy RPG.
Why I avoid the translation route. The Loyal Speech? Too Tolkieny. The Language
of Fealty? Meh. Too somber, too stern, too lopsided. The Language of the Social
Contract? How honey-flowing is that? :)
And even some real world examples sound RPG-ish if you treat them this way: The
Language of the Middle Kingdom? The Language of the Land of the Rising Sun?
> And there are many other
> Germano-Romance conlangs in various conworlds. A project that
> has an anglicized name is _Quetch_ [kwɛtʃ], which is "natively"
> (it is an engelang and doesn't have fictional native speakers)
> [kʷətç].
It's been mentioned here before (Padraic, I'm thinking?), but given its visual,
and aural if read à l'allemande, proximity to the Yiddish-slash-English word
"kvetch" (apparently from "quetschen", "squeeze" -- I might've guessed
"quatschen", "natter"), it's hard not imagine this the lang of a bunch of
bitchy yentas:
"My son, he never calls, oy."
"A person could do worse. You should see the schickse my son brought home last
weekend."
As an engelang, that could be refined to an artform more than it already is. ;)
Daughter langs: Geschreck and Geschrei?
Kou
Messages in this topic (31)
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1.10. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
Posted by: "Herman Miller" hmil...@prismnet.com
Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 7:35 pm ((PDT))
On 9/8/2013 10:24 PM, Zach Wellstood wrote:
> But how have others done this? It seems quite complicated to me.
Tirelat is just an Anglicized version of "tirëłat" [ˈtiɾəɬat]. Since
there's nothing like a lateral fricative in English, I'm stuck with a
plain /l/ or something like "thl", and "Tirethlat" doesn't look like the
first syllable should have the stress. Stress is one of the big problems
even with natlang names in English. (How would you pronounce Tagalog or
Malayalam if you didn't know what syllable the stress is on?)
Both "Tirelat" and "Jarda" went through a number of Anglicized forms
(such as "Tirelhat", "Gjarrda") before settling on the simpler version.
(The native name of "Jarda", in the current romanization, is "Ģarda".)
Lindiga's native name is ṣi-Liṇṭiŋa [ʂiˈʎiɳɖiŋa]. English doesn't have
retroflex sounds, and the /ṭ/ is voiced in that context, so "nd" is as
close as English can get to /ṇṭ/. I could have chosen "Lindinga" but I
thought that would be read as /lɪnˈdɪŋɡə/.
Messages in this topic (31)
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1.11. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym
Posted by: "Zach Wellstood" zwellst...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 7:51 pm ((PDT))
Hi all,
Thanks for the interesting responses! There're a lot, so I'll wade through:
==
On Sun, Sep 8, 2013 at 10:56 PM, Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com> wrote:
I thìnk what you're looking for now is simply an Anglicisation, or an
English-
friendly version of the native name, not so much a Anglified autoglottonym.
==
I neglected to mention that there really is no conculture to go along with
the conlang and it's strictly for personal use. So that said, it would
really be an Anglification/Anglicization of the name of the language rather
than something more concultural. It's just for convenience when presenting
it in a written format to English users (as RA pointed out).
==
On Sun, Sep 8, 2013 at 10:35 PM, DM <decadent.muf...@gmail.com> wrote:
Generally, I use my knowledge of English sounds to construct an
approximation of what I believe a native english speaker would write down
were they to hear the language's 'autoglottonym', as you call it, spoken
aloud.
==
and
==
I
have always read the name as /la siri/ without any fancy sounds, for
whatever
it may be worth to you!
==
Interestingly (I never thought of this for some reason), I expect if an
English speaker saw the name written, they'd probably pronounce it as /la
siri/, as Padraic did. However, when I've said the name aloud to people,
they've almost *all* mimicked me to make sure they heard it right. And
given the /ɬ/ phoneme, I've found that they tend to pronounce it /sla
siri/. (Not only is this interesting, it's strangely coincidental because
I've read a few times that the sequence /sl/ has proven in some languages
to eventually change to /ɬ/ and also /sl/ is the sequence in my
proto-language which yielded /ɬ/.)
In fact, I may go that route and ask around to see what my friends hear
when I say it aloud. After I've gotten a list, maybe I can decide on an
English name for the conlang.
==
On Mon, Sep 9, 2013 at 5:19 PM, Eric Christopherson <ra...@charter.net>
wrote:
E.g. if English speakers get the name just from the sound of the native
name, they might come up with /ləˈʔɑsəɻi/ or something like that, but it's
IMO very likely they will pick a different sound for the /ɬ/. I'm not sure
which sounds would be more likely than others, but you might have /s/, /ʃ/,
/sl/, /ʃl/, /fl/, or /kl/.
==
These are all definitely possible! Because an English speaker's perception
of sounds would be more biased towards English, I think it would be likely
that the sounds you suggested were chosen. Tlingit's bizarre because I used
to pronounce it as it's spelled until I heard it pronounced with a /kl/ and
I was thrown for a loop. You know, it just occurred to me that /θ/ might
also be a viable option to approximate the lateral fricative.
I admittedly have been reading Angosey as [æŋ'goʊsi].
Thanks all, I'm enjoying reading the responses!
Zach
On Mon, Sep 9, 2013 at 6:55 AM, yuri <yur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9 September 2013 14:24, Zach Wellstood wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > (if this has been discussed elsewhere, please link me. I haven't seen
> it.)
> >
> > I haven't ever had an anglicized autoglottonym for my conlang, łaá siri,
> > but recently I've been considering coining one. Not only is it unwieldy
> to
> > type that <ł>, but saying it to those who don't understand sounds of
> other
> > languages is too: /ɬɑꜛɑ siri/.
> [...]
> > But how have others done this? It seems quite complicated to me.
>
> I deliberately don't. English doesn't have the [X] in KlaXa and if
> some monolinguistic Anglophone can't say it -- boohoo for them :-P
>
> Since KlaXa is an auxlang intended for a secret society so we can talk
> about you right under your nose without you knowing what we're saying
> (usually just making fun of how you look or your Mama) it contains a
> handful of phonemes that sound exotic to Anglophones. Pejoratives and
> expletives contain guttural sounds designed to be grating in the ears
> of an Anglophone eavesdropper.
>
> Yuri (in a belligerent mood today).
>
--
raa'lalí 'aa! - [sirisaá! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conlang>]
Messages in this topic (31)
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2a. Re: I am sure
Posted by: "C. Brickner" tepeyach...@embarqmail.com
Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 1:53 pm ((PDT))
Having received many suggestions, on and off list, I’ve made a decision.
Predicate adjectives followed by a complementary clause will, in Senjecas, be
followed by a supine with the subject in the motive (accusative) case.
One person suggested making two sentences. Thus, “I am happy (that) you are
here” becomes “You are here. Therefore I am happy”. That rephrasing works
with “happy”, but it doesn’t seem to work with other adjectives. “I am sure
(that) he is here” doesn’t translate to “He is here. Therefore I am sure.”
One could say, “He is here. Of that I am sure”, but I am looking for one
grammatical structure that will cover all bases.
mus. tum iðu vųu. suvagus esa:
I, you here be, happy am.
mus. num ɱęru. nesa:
I, he be-right, certain-am.
Charlie
----- Original Message -----
Alright. I suppose the question is, then, whether Senjecas considers the
complement of "be sure that" to be indirect discourse (this would not be
unreasonable), and whether the construction can be generalised to non-verbal
sentences.
Alex
Messages in this topic (20)
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2b. Re: I am sure
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" lytl...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 1:57 pm ((PDT))
Another way to think of it is "Some event is the basis or cause of me
having such-and-such a feeling."
stevo
On Sun, Sep 1, 2013 at 2:34 AM, C. Brickner <tepeyach...@embarqmail.com>wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> > Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 22:08:26 -0400
> > From: tepeyach...@embarqmail.com
> > Subject: Re: I am sure
> > To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
>
> > I'm sure that you will have encountered some complement-taking verbs
> before this. How does Senjecan, render, e.g. "I think that he's going"?
>
> > Even if adjectives can't take sentential complements in Senjecan,
> perhaps "be sure [that]" is translated by a verb. (Something like one of
> the older uses of English "confide".)
>
> > Alex
> > _________________________________
> >
> > Is this not an example of indirect discourse? I think that he’s going.
> I said that he’s going.
> > Senjecas uses the supine (-u) with a motive (accusative) subject: “mus
> num átu meína”.
>
> How does Senjecas handle: "I'm happy that he's going."?
>
> Kou
> ____________________________________
>
> I don't know. :-( I only started thinking about this the other day when I
> realized that "I am sure that..." is just the tip of the iceberg: "I am
> happy that..." "I am sorry that..." I had not given this construction any
> thought until a few days ago.
>
> Charlie
>
Messages in this topic (20)
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3a. Re: Choosing a word for "German"
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 2:05 pm ((PDT))
>>> Well, yes ... Obviously the German of the 1st
>>> millennium BC was somewhat different ;)
>>
>> Only somewhat!
>
> Typical British understatement ;)
I had expected nothing less!
>> There is something to be lauded in this: short, sweet and
>> to the point!
>
> Typical of Labbé's language. I find it quite attractive in
> an odd way. It is AFAIK the earliest attempt (1663) at an
> a_posteriori auxlang, eked out with a_priori elements - a
> tradition which, of course, we find continued much later in
> Volapük (1879/80) and not completely abandoned in Esperanto
> (1887). But I'm probably straying into Auxlandia territory
> here, so I'd better stop.
I don't think so... there's really nothing wrong with mentioning or
discussing how auxlangs work, as conlangs, and even the history of
their construction. You are not promoting an auxlang or even the
Movement as a whole, so absolutely no harm done. It does always
amaze me how many different ways we (conlangers as well as
auxlangers) can choose to get done the work of language. Whether
it's a short and to the point beeline from A to B, or taking long
rambles through the proverbial wild wood, passing just about every
other letter, rune, glyph or symbol along the way, smelling the
roses and half a dozen different kinds of daisies and maybe, at some
illdefined point in time, actually coming to the point! ;))
Padraic
> Ray
Messages in this topic (25)
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4.1. Re: Colloquial French resources
Posted by: "Aidan Grey" taalenma...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 6:09 pm ((PDT))
Ha! I am killing number distinctions. After all - homme and hommes are
homophones. In addition, it's common in many polysynthetic langs, where
number is only visible on the verb.
Killing gender in articles / determiners isn't difficult, since most of
those vowels are unstressed.
On Mon, Sep 9, 2013 at 8:12 AM, Basilius <vecher...@yandex.ru> wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Sep 2013 08:40:23 +0200, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:
>
> >On 4 September 2013 04:47, Aidan Grey wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> > I would agree with Christophe though that the most common solution is
> to
> >> > simply replace "le" or "la" with "ça".
> >> >
> >> >
> >> I am thinking to have la and sa as 3rd sg., but different cases, one
> nom,
> >> one acc/dat., or some combination thereof.
> >>
> >
> >Could happen. I'm not sure about the distribution of _ça_ with an
> expressed
> >noun phrase, i.e. whether it's more common in subject or object position.
> >My gut instinct says object position, but I could be wrong. Also, I'm not
> >aware of _ça_ used in object position to refer to persons (if it happens,
> >it's probably very markedly pejorative, even more than _ça_ as subject
> with
> >a person as referent).
> >
> >If you lose the gender distinctions otherwise, you might keep them in
> >verbal agreement markings only, and actually introduce a
> >masculine/feminine/neuter distinction there à la English he/she/it. It
> >would probably (for the subject agreement prefixes anyway) sound like
> >i/e/sa.
>
> For agreement marking on verbs, this would seem the most natural option to
> me, too.
>
> However, were I designing a genderless Future French myself, I'd be mostly
> bothered by elimination of gender agreement within NP's; and especially by
> getting rid of purely lexical gender, i. e. gender in inanimates; and in
> doing so, I'd probably get stuck at killing the gender distinctions in
> articles and other determiners (_le_ vs. _la_; _du_ vs. _de la_; _au_ vs.
> _à la_; _mon_ vs. _ma_; _ce_ vs. _cette_, etc.).
>
> In fact, it seems to me that killing them without simultaneously killing
> the *number* distinctions would look rather forced and artificial.
>
> It could be different if what one is designing is actually a creole.
>
Messages in this topic (50)
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