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There are 16 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Conlang flag design; comments and proposals
From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: Spanish ll in different dialects
From: Trebor Jung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: Conlang flag design; comments and proposals
From: taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: Questions and Impressions of Basque
From: Trebor Jung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: Going away
From: Trebor Jung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Going away
From: Amanda Babcock Furrow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: Rhean Flag (was: Conlang flag design)
From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: Conlang flag design; comments and proposals
From: Jeffrey Henning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: Frankenlangs
From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: Questions and Impressions of Basque
From: Robert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: Conlang flag design; comments and proposals
From: Leland Paul <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: Conlang Flag: Voting
From: "Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: Conlang Flag: Voting
From: "Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: Any supporters for these conlangs?
From: Beau Didler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: Chinese Romanization (was: USAGE: Help with Chinese phrase)
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: Chinese Romanization (was: USAGE: Help with Chinese phrase)
From: Tam�s Racsk� <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 20:14:04 -0000
From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Conlang flag design; comments and proposals
I'm only slightly sorry to be coming up with yet
another tower of Babel modification... but this
one I feel is justified in that it resolves a
problem and adds an additional layer of symbolism.
Check it out:
http://www.cinga.ch/art/conflag/solartower_final.png
What's different?
No, I don't mean the cleaner, more visible lines
(<G>), but the lack of a cuppola at the top.
Somebody mentioned that the tower of Babel was
never finished, unlike our previous designs...
not only does this proposal set this right, but
it also stands for the way a conlang grows, layer
by layer, *never finished*.
-- Christian Thalmann
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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 16:21:22 -0400
From: Trebor Jung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Spanish ll in different dialects
Philip wrote: "A friend of mine, a Japanese who had spent a year or two on
Mexico and picked up a little Spanish, gave me the phrase [dZo mE dZamo
<name>], which confused me since I could imagine [dZ] for |ll| but had never
heard of any pronunciation for |y| but [j]. Yet she insisted that that was
the pronunciation she had learned there."
That occurs in Chilean Spanish too--my ex's dad says her name, Yasmin, with
[dZ] and not [j].
Any other dialects have <y> as /dZ/?
Trebor
"Oysters are a fine thing, so are strawberries: but mashed together?"
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Message: 3
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 23:27:58 +0200
From: taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Conlang flag design; comments and proposals
* Christian Thalmann said on 2004-09-08 22:14:04 +0200
> I'm only slightly sorry to be coming up with yet
> another tower of Babel modification... but this
> one I feel is justified in that it resolves a
> problem and adds an additional layer of symbolism.
>
> Check it out:
>
> http://www.cinga.ch/art/conflag/solartower_final.png
Best so far but... still the purple :) *brrr*
t.
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Message: 4
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 17:52:01 -0400
From: Trebor Jung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Questions and Impressions of Basque
Chris �rta: "The only words with f I've seen are borrowings, mostly from
Spanish. I don't think it has any fs in native words... correct me if I'm
wrong."
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/larryt/basque.words.html
"Afari" is one.
Trebor
...who is now trying to catch up on Conlang posts after a nice vacation in
Florida, except for the hurricane which delayed my family from coming home
for two days. In grade nine now :D (missed the first day of school tho :( ).
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Message: 5
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 19:54:30 -0400
From: Trebor Jung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Going away
David Peterson �rta: "Florida?! Goodness; best of luck!"
Thanks; LOL. I feel bad for Floridians who by Monday or so will have
weathered three hurricanes in less than a month!!
Roger �rta: "Indeed, especially as it seems to involve time-travel :-))))
Odd that your msg. only arrived today, 9/8, and it appears you have already
returned....???"
That is insanely odd! Even more puzzling is what the archives say--
"Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 21:02:53 -0400".
O Lord of the Instrumentality of Conlang, is there any explanation for
this??
Trebor
"Oysters are a fine thing, so are strawberries: but mashed together?"
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Message: 6
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 20:04:24 -0400
From: Amanda Babcock Furrow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Going away
On Wed, Sep 08, 2004 at 07:54:30PM -0400, Trebor Jung wrote:
> Roger �rta: "Indeed, especially as it seems to involve time-travel :-))))
> Odd that your msg. only arrived today, 9/8, and it appears you have already
> returned....???"
>
> That is insanely odd! Even more puzzling is what the archives say--
>
> "Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 21:02:53 -0400".
>
> O Lord of the Instrumentality of Conlang, is there any explanation for
> this??
We need not invoke his dread name for this one. Examination of the
headers clearly shows that your local machine resent it today, for
some reason. Moreover, a copy was also resent to the relay list, which
couldn't happen if it were a conlang listserv glitch.
Amanda
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Message: 7
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 21:01:30 -0400
From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Rhean Flag (was: Conlang flag design)
Steg Belsky wrote:
>Cool flag! What do the various parts of it symbolize?
The big yellow thing in the middle is the Sun crest, the primary symbol
of official Rhean-ness. It's been around since the days of the old Rhean
pantheon, when "Rhe" the Sun was the chief deity. Most of Rhea is
(nominally) monotheistic now, but God ("Yad") is strongly associated with
the Sun in symbology.
The four colours in the background represent four major geographic
regions. To the north is a desert, represented by red. There's a mountain
range and a lot of forest in the west, symbolised in green on the left of
the flag. On the south coast is an ocean (I'm still not sure which one), the
blue on the bottom. The east is flat and prairie-like, and the black
triangle was originally meant to represent soil and, by extension,
agriculture. But since the flag was officially adopted about a century and a
half ago, a new and more grim explanation for that black quarter has
appeared: Rhea has been in something of a cold-war stalemate with the Ishtol
Republic to the east for about sixty years, ever since a brief battle over
the Shelez province (it also has to do with the side that the Republic took
in the last anti-monarchist revolution). Some think of the black on the flag
as a reminder that the country is under the "shadow" of possible attack from
the east, or as a symbol of the deserted DMZ.
>While we're at it, here's the Rokbeigalmki flag:
>
>http://boroparkpyro.free.fr/stuff/rokbflag.jpg
Nice! Kind of has the look of an Olympic emblem. Kind of. I think it's the
colours.
>The five colors and shapes represent various things, including the Five
>Life Elements:
[snip]
Damn. That's a lot of symbolism... everything means at least two things!
Well done.
Compare with the Ishtol flag - http://suzsoiz.free.fr/irflag.jpg - which has
exactly zero layers of symbolism. I'll come up with some excuses later.
M
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Message: 8
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 21:17:38 -0400
From: Jeffrey Henning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Conlang flag design; comments and proposals
On Wed, 8 Sep 2004 20:14:04 -0000, Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>http://www.cinga.ch/art/conflag/solartower_final.png
>What's different?
>
>No, I don't mean the cleaner, more visible lines
>(<G>), but the lack of a cuppola at the top.
>Somebody mentioned that the tower of Babel was
>never finished, unlike our previous designs...
>not only does this proposal set this right, but
>it also stands for the way a conlang grows, layer
>by layer, *never finished*.
Excellent revision and explanation. Another symbol- this image grew layer by layer,
initiated by Jan and incorporating suggestions from Leeland, Adrian, myself, Christian
and others. I'm a big believer in iterative design and think this end result
testifies to the effectiveness of the methodology.
- Jeffrey
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Message: 9
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 18:30:45 -0700
From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Frankenlangs
Paul Roser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>The other consideration is whether air is being drawn in by the initiator
>>or being expelled by it (that is, whether the sound is _ingessive_ or
>>_egressive_), thus:
>> EGRESSIVE INGRESSIVE
>>PULMONIC Consonants of most (inhaled sigh)
>> IE languages
>>GLOTTALIC ejectives implosives
>>VELARIC (spitting) clicks
>>
>>(I guess a really freakish Frankenlang could include sighs & spitting)
>> :)
>I can't resist pointing out that Damin, the now-extinct ritual language
>of the Lardil people (Mornington Island, off the north coast of
>Australia), had consonants with all possible initiations but one -
>most of the consonants were pulmonic egressive, but they also had a velar
>ejective, a pulmonic ingressive lateral fricative, a velaric egressive
>labial stop (/p'/, which only occurred before /N/ and /J/), and several
>nasal velaric ingressives - all they were missing was an implosive.
>Oh, and they also had a labial trill and a uvular affricate.
A) THAT IS NUTS.
B) Australian langs tend to be maximally wierd. What with Dyirbal and its no-voice
distinction, and various other strange anomalies found in Austlangs. Is there any
reason for this?
---------------------------------
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New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!
[This message contained attachments]
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Message: 10
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 01:18:03 +0000
From: Robert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Questions and Impressions of Basque
Hey,
Trebor wrote:
"In grade nine now :D (missed the first day of school tho :( )."
</lurker>
Young one! Heh, definitely stay in school.
<lurker>
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Message: 11
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 18:51:00 -0700
From: Leland Paul <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Conlang flag design; comments and proposals
>No, I don't mean the cleaner, more visible lines
>(<G>), but the lack of a cuppola at the top.
>Somebody mentioned that the tower of Babel was
>never finished, unlike our previous designs...
>not only does this proposal set this right, but
>it also stands for the way a conlang grows, layer
>by layer, *never finished*.
Good, good, good! That point was mentioned in another thread, and I'm
glad it's been incorperated. The colors aren't to my tastes, but, in
the spirit of iterative design, I'm sure that we'll have several
revisions created in no time at all... In fact, here are my three:
First:
http://lee.kusmer.com/unfinished_violet.png
Then a "light" version (with a very yellow sun):
http://lee.kusmer.com/unfinished_violet_light.png
Then a "dark" version (slightly darker sun):
http://lee.kusmer.com/unfinished_violet_dark.png
-Lee
On Wed, 8 Sep 2004 21:17:38 -0400, Jeffrey Henning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Sep 2004 20:14:04 -0000, Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >http://www.cinga.ch/art/conflag/solartower_final.png
>
> >What's different?
> >
> >No, I don't mean the cleaner, more visible lines
> >(<G>), but the lack of a cuppola at the top.
> >Somebody mentioned that the tower of Babel was
> >never finished, unlike our previous designs...
> >not only does this proposal set this right, but
> >it also stands for the way a conlang grows, layer
> >by layer, *never finished*.
>
> Excellent revision and explanation. Another symbol- this image grew layer by layer,
> initiated by Jan and incorporating suggestions from Leeland, Adrian, myself,
> Christian and others. I'm a big believer in iterative design and think this end
> result testifies to the effectiveness of the methodology.
>
> - Jeffrey
>
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Message: 12
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 11:33:39 +0930
From: "Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Conlang Flag: Voting
Roger Mills wrote:
> The 4 images in .png were sent to you approx. 16 hours ago. Is there still a
> problem? My apologies for sending a rather large email (300+ KB), but I
> tried zipping them-- which came to 295KB-- so what the H.
They were?
I can't imagine that my spam filter would have deleted the message. It
deletes messages if the From line contains 'Microsoft' or 'MS' or
'Inet' or if the Subject line contains 'viagra' or 'meds' or 'security
pack' or a number of other phrases of a similar nature, but nothing
like that could have applied in this case. So I don't understand why I
didn't recieve it. I'm sure I would have noticed.
My primary address (replace 'dragon' with 'apm') has no spam filter
at all.
Adrian.
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Message: 13
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 12:22:55 +0930
From: "Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Conlang Flag: Voting
NOTICE: I am removing flagvote.htm from the website until further
notice. The purpose of uploading it at this stage was to get opinions
on the layout. That has been achieved. The next version will be
uploaded when I'm ready for people to help test the code that checks
whether your vote is valid or not.
Adrian.
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Message: 14
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 01:39:30 -0400
From: Beau Didler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Any supporters for these conlangs?
That was meant, in case you're wondering, as support. I'm excited to see
yours. I'm working on my own...so it'll be nice to see what good you can
come up with.
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Message: 15
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 07:26:34 +0100
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Chinese Romanization (was: USAGE: Help with Chinese phrase)
I really do not think this is getting us anywhere.
My understanding (which I admit may be faulty, but I my evidence is
limited) is that:
1. (Hanyu) Pinyin was approved by the Communist National Assembly of the
People's republic of China in 1958;
2. Pinyin was based roughly on Beifang Latinxua (Beila) with elements of
the Gwoyeu Romatzyh (GR) systems;
3. Beila was devised in the 1920s by Chinese left-wing scholars and that
some Russian sinologs, among which was Dragunov, contributed to this;
4. GR was also devised during the 1920 by Chinese scholars & linguists,
among which was Yuen Ren Chao, and was adopted by the Nationalist
government in 1928;
5. both Beila and GR, like earlier Chinese schemes dating from the 1890s,
relied mainly on the tradition of Western transcriptions which started
with Matteo Ricci in 1605.
It seems to me that our differences center on (5). I see Belia and GR (and
hence Pinyin) as relying mainly on the whole western tradition; you, if I
have understood correctly, put a greater emphasis on German tradition than
on other western traditions.
Nothing in our discussions has made me change my opinion that it's the
whole western tradition. I may well be mistaken, but although these recent
discussions have led to my finding out more on the matter, I haven't found
convincing enough evidence to make me change my mind.
I'll just fairly briefly answer one or two points below:
On Wednesday, September 8, 2004, at 05:16 , Tam�s Racsk� wrote:
> On 8 Sep 2004 Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[sni[]
> However, if we would conclude that Volap�k gave |z|, my original
> statement -- "heavily _influenced_ by German" -- would be still
> true. Indirect influence is also influence.
I haven't denied _indirect_ influence. I thought you were talking about
direct influence. If I've misunderstood you, then I apologize.
[snip]
>> whatever the actual position of Mao at the time, was strictly
>> communist and not exactly pro-western. That's why I am skeptical
>> about any direct influence from any one western source.
>
> Creating a Latin-based transcription is a fairly western thing.
Yes, that comes in my point (5) above. I think we are both agreed on that.
> They could have cancelled Latinxua and designed a pro-communist
> Cyrillic one to avoid pro-western manners. But I do not know that
> there would be an "official" Chinese Cyrillic transcription.
> Chinese are very practical, if they design a Latin-based system,
> they use western sources.
Absolutely - I am agreed on all these points.
[snip]
>> My point was that I do not see |c| = [ts] as particularly German. I
>> would more readily describe it as Slav usage
>
> The real Slav usage is Cyrillic, indeed.
That's debatable - but let's not go down that path. But |c| = [ts] is only
true of German before front vowels. It was not AFAIK used this way in
German transcriptions of Chinese. By the mid 1950s the Chinese who look at
the whole western traditions of orthography. I would have thought that
among those devising Pinyin were scholars with some knowledge of western
traditions. I feel that without actual evidence provided by those
responsible, we are just guessing what weighed most in their minds when
making these decisions.
> Before WWII, nearly
> almost nations under the Soviet domination were forced to use
> Cyrillic orthography instead of their previous Latin traditions;
I don't recall the Poles, Czechs or Slovaks being so forced.
>
> ............. AFAIK Latinxua was designed in 1930-
> 1940,
My information is that it was devised during the 1920s in opposition to GR
and was first published in Qu Qiubai in 1929.
[snip - avoiding questions of what were or were not Zamenhof's influences]
>
>
>>> if there would be significant Russian Slavonic contribution.
>>
>> But there isn't AFAIK.
>
> Maybe my memory deceives me but I remember you mentioned Dragunov
> in connection with design of Latinxua.
I did - but I have no idea what he personally may have contributed.
[snip]
>> Indeed, the u-umlaut was used in the "English" Wade-Giles system!
>
> It is a good point but this proves rather a German influence on
> Wade-Giles system.
I have agreed from the start that u-umlaut was first used in German. But
by the 1950s it was no longer confined to German, that's all.
[snip]
> them in order to get a better one. The only vivid Latin-based
> system I know that used voiced-unvoiced contrast was the German in
> those days.
Didn't the Yale system, used by the Americans during WWII, use the same
system? I don't suppose for one moment the Chinese in 1950 would have
looked upon the Yale system with great favor. But I'm fairly certain the
Yale system was not following any German system; it was a system drawn up
to help anglophones learn Chinese fairly quickly; it use a system that
made sense from an *English point of view*
May I remind you of what I quoted from the 1960 edition of "Teach Yourself
Chinese" (which used Wade-Giles):
Ch. J as in jeep.
Ch'. Ch as in cheap.
....
K. G hard as in gay, gum, etc.
K'. K as in kerb, and many initial hard c's like can, card.
....
P. B as in bow, band, bin, etc.
P'. P as in pin, pond, pool, pan, etc.
...."
etc.
When I read that I thought "Why the heck not write |j|, |g|, |b| and so?"
So when about a year later when I picked up a second hand copy of "A
Chinese Reader and Guide to Conversation" by W. Simon & C.H. Lu (published
1943) which used GR, I thought "How sensible!" I didn't think "How like
German!"
The point is that for anyone who knows modern spoken English, it simply
makes sense to use that convention. I know Yuen Ren Chao knew English. How
many others involved in GR did, I wonder.
I suspect many considerations, including the German system, led to the
adoption of this convention for, as you say....
> unaspirate contrast, because this was more elegant than apostrophe.
Yes it's undeniably more elegant and, indeed, if you had confined your
remarks simply to this feature, we would probably have basically agreed
some time ago, but....
> And if they adopted this feature, why they should not consider
> German (Ricci-German) solutions in other design problems?
I'm sure they considered the whole western tradition of transcription,
including the German and others. I just do not see such obviously specific
German influence elsewhere.
I think, in fact, we are reasonably close on many points; our main
difference seems to be over how much direct influence there was from the
German system.
I really think we perhaps ought to give this a rest as we're probably
starting to bore other members.
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
"They are evidently confusing science with technology."
UMBERTO ECO September, 2004
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Message: 16
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 08:57:02 +0200
From: Tam�s Racsk� <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Chinese Romanization (was: USAGE: Help with Chinese phrase)
On 8 Sep 2004 Tamas Racsko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Polish has /h/ but it is a rare phoneme in borrowings.
I had some qualm about Polish /h/, therefore, I studied
additional sources on Polish phonology.
There is no /h/ in standard Polish, |h| is pronounced just as
|ch|, i.e. [x], or [G] if it is subject of voice assimilation, cf.
<http://main.amu.edu.pl/~kilarski/phon.pdf> (Paragraphs 2 and 8)
A site at <http://elex.amu.edu.pl/ifa/pigulka/5.2.htm> on English
phonetics describes /h/ as a difficult sound for Poles, usually
substituted with /x/ by them even when speaking English.
(Paragraphs 5.2.4)
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