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There are 20 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Going away
From: Philippe Caquant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: Pluralis p� svenska och tyska
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. A noun class system
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: Chinese Romanization (was: USAGE: Help with Chinese phrase)
From: Tamas Racsko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Conlang meetings during Worldcon
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Spanish ll in different dialects
From: Tamas Racsko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: En n�got ogrannlaga fr�ga om svenska
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: Chinese Romanization (was: USAGE: Help with Chinese phrase)
From: "Isaac A. Penzev" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Orthographic miscellanea (was: Chinese Romanization etc)
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: Conlang meetings during Worldcon
From: Jeffrey Henning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: A noun class system
From: David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: Spanish ll in different dialects
From: Mark Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: Conlang meetings during Worldcon
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Suzette Haden Elgin online (was Re: Conlang meetings during Worldcon)
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: Conlang Flag: Voting
From: Amanda Babcock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. CHAT Rabelais (was: CHAT Latin sig?)
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. The Grammar of Hebrew
From: "Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: Conlang Flag: Voting
From: Philippe Caquant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: A noun class system
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: A noun class system
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 03:47:30 -0700
From: Philippe Caquant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Going away
--- Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> David Peterson wrote:
> > Trebor wrote:
> >
> > << Just a quick note that I'm going to Florida
> till Sept. 5.>>
> >
> > Florida?! Goodness; best of luck!
> >
> 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....???
I believe this can happen when the winds are very
strong :-D
=====
Philippe Caquant
Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intellegor illis (Ovidius).
Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo (Horatius).
Interdum stultus opportune loquitur (Henry Fielding).
Scire leges non hoc est verba earum tenere, sed vim ac potestatem (Somebody).
Melius est ut scandalum oriatur, quam ut veritas relinquatur (Somebody else).
Ceterum censeo *vi* esse oblitterandum (Me).
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 12:54:59 +0200
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Pluralis p� svenska och tyska
Quoting "Douglas Koller, Latin & French" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Andreas skrev:
>
> >Quoting "Douglas Koller, Latin & French" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> >
> > > Andreas skrev:
> >
> > > First: roughly 10% of Swedish nouns, common gender ending in "-a",
> >> plural in "-or". Three ending in a consonant are listed: "ros,
> >> rosor", "v�g, v�gor", och "svan, svanor."
> >
> >_Svanor_? If I encountered that in a text, my immediate reaction would be to
> >take it as the pl of an unknown word *_svana_. The pl of _svan_ "swan" is
> >_svanar_.
>
> My dictionary gives both, with "svanar" listed first. I won't mess
> with your native instincts, but it would appear the some Swede
> somewhere at some time uttered "svanor", and it codified as
> acceptable usage.
Well, I've never, as far as I can recall, heard or seen the form before.
Checking a couple of dictionaries, one does not mention it, and the other gives
_svanor_ as a side-form. I suppose it's a regional or obsolete form.
Andreas
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 12:00:40 +0100
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: A noun class system
I've got to a stage in my book where I needed names for some characters,
and thus needed to create a bit of the language for their culture. It's a
descendent of Khanga�yagon (as always), with some later influence from
M�gikimnaz. I decided to give it a noun class system. Noun class is
indicated by a suffix on the root, and the following classes exist.
��li - Things regarded as sacred. From the Khanga�yagon ��li, yew tree. The
yew tree is regarded as sacred in this country, because some are believed
to have stood since the creation of the world, and thus be a link with the
Creator.
rik - male proper names (from the Khanga�yagon for "man")
poh - female proper names (from the Khanga�yagon for "woman")
hol - people (not proper names)
gravd - ground dwelling animals.
rris - birds and other flying creatures (from the Khanga�yagon zerrish, "bird")
kulb - fish and other swimming creatures. (from the Khanga�yagon for fish)
lara - plants
ziel - places (Khangathyagon zhel)
sek - tools and weapons (Khangathyagon for "knife")
en - things
vrok - substances (Khanga�yagon givrok, "earth")
nis - abstract (Khanga�yagon nesh)
These undergo fusion with relativising suffixes (retained from
Khanga�yagon) and case/number endings (borrowed from M�gikimnaz).
Pete
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Message: 4
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 14:18:16 +0200
From: Tamas Racsko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Chinese Romanization (was: USAGE: Help with Chinese phrase)
On 9 Sep 2004 Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I really do not think this is getting us anywhere.
Yes, let's stop it.
> My understanding (which I admit may be faulty, but I my evidence is
> limited) is that:
[...]
> relied mainly on the tradition of Western transcriptions which started with
> Matteo Ricci in 1605.
Basically I agree, but I think that work of Nicolas Trigault in
1625 should be mentioned as a competitor to Ricci's system. As for
the initials, Wade-Giles, French system etc. cannot be descendants
of Ricci's system.
> if I have understood correctly, put a greater emphasis on German tradition
> than on other western traditions
I see this emphasis only in case of the initials. My
argumentation on finals served only to demonstrate that German
transciption was considered during design of the Chinese systems.
> > ............. 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.
[...]
> Didn't the Yale system, used by the Americans during WWII, use the same
> system?
When was Yale system designed? Voiced-unvoiced notation was used
also in GR which was created not later than in 1920s, if I
understand you correctly. AFAIK there were four Yale systems (YS)
for Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and Korean. And they were all
designed only during WWII. I think that YS would be a good evidence
of influence of Chinese systems on Anglophonic ones but not of the
opposite direction.
> 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.
I have a number of books from Teach Yourself series and the
accuracy of their phonetics section is very uneven. E.g. in "Teach
Yourself Thai", the author invented a special notation, including
triplets like - |p|, |bp|, |b| (without any useful phonetic
explanation). This |bp| is stands for a sound with quality similar
to PY intial |b| (i.e. unvoiced inaspirate), it may be evident for
Anglophones, but I do not think that it would have been an
effective model for Thai transcription designers in 1920s. Not even
for Russians despite the striking paralelism of digraphs made of
voiced and unvoived sound pairs as {ts.z} and {ch.zs} in Russian
Chinese transcription...
I leave the other parts unanswered in order to facilitate the end
of our
debate.
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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 12:29:17 -0400
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Conlang meetings during Worldcon
The panel on "Really Alien Languages" (with Tim Smith, Laurence Schoen of the KLI,
Mark Mandel, Nomi Burstein and a couple of others) was fairly interesting,
including comments on center-embedding, alternate media for language such
as scent and skin color alteration, phonemes impossible for humans, and so
forth. I recorded it for the SF Oral History Association; you can order a copy
from them (after giving them time to catalog all the tapes made at the con).
I met with Sylvia Sotomayor, Tim Smith and Carol Ann Buckley for lunch Sunday
during Worldcon. Jeffrey Henning wasn't able to come, unfortunately.
Ms. Buckley is a Polynesianist and sf writer interested in sf'nal linguistics
who expressed some interest in subscribing to CONLANG-L.
Sylvia reported that the panel on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis got
off-topic quickly and was not very interesting, unfortunately.
We talked some about trying to do a more formal conlang get-together, maybe a
room party, during some future con. The Glasgow Worldcon next August, or the Seattle
NASFiC in September, are good possibilites. Sylvia also mentioned Norwescon 28,
next March in Seattle, whose theme is to be "The Language of Fantasy and Science
Fiction".
Suzette Haden Elgin (creator of Laadan) will be one of the guests of honor.
http://www.norwescon.org/?menuarea=
After Tim Smith's presentation on auxlangs Monday morning, several of us
moved to the consuite to continue the conversation, which centered on
center-embedding in Ian Watson's _The Embedding_, the evolution of a
colloquial dialect of Lojban, ape sign language, and other such topics. I
unfortunately did not note the names of most of the people involved.
I gave information on CONLANG-L and AUXLANG-L to a couple of people
who were still present when our group broke up after about an hour and
fifteen minutes. I recorded Tim Smith's talk and the first twenty minutes or
so of the conversation.
Someone had placed a sign stating "This is Not A Door" over a forbidden door
in the Sheraton Hotel. SF fans being what they are, it quickly accumulated
annotations such as "Ceci n'est pas une porte", "No, it's ink on on a sign on a door",
"It's a butterfly dreaming it's a door" and comments or translations in several
other languages including Japanese, Chinese, Klingon, Toki Pona and Esperanto.
- Jim Henry
http://www.mindspring.com/~jimhenry/conlang.htm
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Message: 6
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 20:04:52 +0100
From: Tamas Racsko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Spanish ll in different dialects
On 8 Sep 2004 Trebor Jung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Any other dialects have <y> as /dZ/?
My Spanish textbook uses the phonetic transcription of Revista de
Filolog�a Espan~ola (RFE). In RFE this sound is rendered by "y-
acute" |y^|.
According to this book it is an allophone of |y| /j/ in absolute
word-initial position (examples: |yo| and |ya|) and after |n| or
|l| (examples: |c�nyuge| and |el yerno|).
There is no mention of dialectal limitations, therefore, it seems
to me that this is a standard pronounciation.
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Message: 7
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 20:19:14 +0200
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: En n�got ogrannlaga fr�ga om svenska
Quoting "Douglas Koller, Latin & French" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Andreas skrev:
>
> >Ogrannlaga? Inte ett ord jag h�r eller ser med ngn n�mnv�rd frekvens ...
>
> Ah, the curse o' the dictionary. I was going for "a rather indelicate
> question". I looked up "indelicate" on the English-Swedish side and
> found "taktl�s, ogrannlaga, plump, smakl�s." Being the good little
> language student that I am, I then went to the Swedish-English side
> to see if they translated back properly. Well, "taktl�s", okay, but
> booooring. I wanted to try something a little more exotic. "Plump"
> and "smakl�s" sounded a little strong. Now "ogrannlaga" was
> admittedly not on the Swedish side, but "grannlaga" was and was
> translated as "fink�nslig" and "�nt�lig", and when I went and checked
> out "�nt�lig," it even gave the example "grannlaga fr�ga," so it
> seemed an apt choice. Oh well, back to the drawng board.
It's not wrong. Just unusual. Not a word you expect in informal contexts.
> >The "too hard for foreigners to pronounce" thing comes from
> >the fact that the standard once had [x\] (simultaneous [x] and [S]), which
> >indeed is fairly tough to acquire.
>
> It doen't sound like it's for the faint of heart. I think I'll pass
> for now on attempting it until I actually hear a native produce it.
Actually producing the sound isn't that tough. Doing it consistently in
connected speech is. I've never had the motivation to learn to. Finding a
native who uses it might prove less than easy.
I'd heartily recommend it for frankenlang inclusion, tho!
> >* Let's, for now, not speak of syllable-final position
>
> Oh indeed let's not.
The interesting bit is that while my idiolect is supposedly very close to the
standard language, the most straightforward phonematicization of it on this
point is quite at odds with how Swedish phonology is usually described.
> Tack f�r alla tre svar. Mycket upplysande.
Inga problem.
Andreas
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Message: 8
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 21:38:52 +0300
From: "Isaac A. Penzev" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Chinese Romanization (was: USAGE: Help with Chinese phrase)
Tam�s Racsk� jazdy:
> The real Slav usage is Cyrillic, indeed. Before WWII, nearly
> almost nations under the Soviet domination were forced to use
> Cyrillic orthography instead of their previous Latin traditions;
> even Rumanians living in Soviet Moldova.
Just a side note: Romanian was written with Cyrillic letters till 1859.
Latin orthography was introduced after independent Romanian state came to
existence, as a symbol of Westernization and being a "Romance" country. So
in 1930s Moldovan Romanians simply returned to their native orthography
(that I personally find very aesthetic).
> Turks has a long connection with Venice.
[skip]
> Therefore Turkish system is a balkanized amalgam of various
> Romance conventions plus German for un-Romance front round vowels.
Hehe. One more side note: the Turkish alphabet is an adaptation (sic!) of
Azeri "New Alphabet" ("Yenalif"), that was designed in 1920s by Soviet
linguists. The lgs are pretty close, you know, so it was not a problem to
borrow the whole alphabet, throwing away three letters denoting specific
Azeri sounds!
-- Yitzik
(from ex-USSR, and proud of that)
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Message: 9
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 19:53:17 +0100
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Orthographic miscellanea (was: Chinese Romanization etc)
On Wednesday, September 8, 2004, at 09:55 , Tamas Racsko wrote:
> On 8 Sep 2004 Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> I have always been struck by certainly resemblances between Turkish and
>> Volap�k orthography (the use of the trema and the peculiar value of |c|
>> =
>> [dZ] are obvious examples), that I had long wondered if Atat�rk had known
>> Volap�k. But it appears that these resemblances are just co-incidental.
>
> Turks has a long connection with Venice. Italian use |c| for /tS/
> before front vowels, and common Italian /tS/ is often voiced in
[rest snipped]
Yes, yes - I can all sorts of reasons why the Turkish conventions were
adopted. In fact I knew the Turkish system years before I came across
Volap�k. But when I met the Volap�k system, I was struck by certainly
similarities with Turkish orthography.
> Therefore Turkish system is a balkanized amalgam of various
> Romance conventions plus German for un-Romance front round vowels.
Yep.
> Schleyer faced a similar problem as Turks with a similar phoneme
> inventory.
Except the Turks, so to speak, inherited the phoneme inventory; Schleyer
had a 'blank slate' - he could choose his own inventory. He did not have
to have rounded front vowels nor retain the distinction between |�| and |e|
- a distinction which few of his fellow countrymen seem to keep today.
> And similar circumstances may lead to similar solutions
> even independently, cf. dolphins and sharks, hummingbird hawk moth
> and hummingbird, thylacines and canines etc.
Yes, as I wrote, the resemblances in the two systems appear to be
coincidental. I think on Turkish orthography we are probably in total
agreement :)
>
>> Pinyin does allow the alternative spelling _lyu_ and _nyu_. One
>> wonders why they didn't simply adopt the alternative forms as
>> standard.
>
> IMHO _lyu_ and _nyu_ is a bit odd, off-system solution.
Yes, not entirely satisfactory, I agree. But it is similar to the solution
adopted by GR.
> It
> implies a velar glide ending (the first palatal glide of the coda
> is rendered as |i| in other finals).
I don't really see why it should as |y| is not used a vowel symbol in
Pinyin. But the fact that Pinyin renders palatal glides in codas as |i|
should make it clear that |y| is not a glide here, but part of a graphy
whereby |yu| = [y]. But as I have said, it is not entirely satisfactory.
My fellow countrymen would be liable to read _nyu_ as /naju/ :)
> Russian solution is a bit more
> appropriate since the final glide is palatal: Russian {n'u} for PY
> |nu| and {n'uj} for |n�|. This could be |nui| or |lui| in PY.
Except that |ui| is actually used in Pinyin for /[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ (yes, I know there
are arguments about the phonematization of vowels in Mandarin), tho IIRC
/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ doesn't occur after /l/ or /n/.
> French is much more systematic: PY final |iu| is always |ieou|
> here, therefore they can use |iu| for /y/.
GR also used |iu| for /y/.
> In Pinyin there would
> have been also possible a |niou| /nju/ ~ |niu| /ny/ contrast.
It would indeed, and this solution had occurred to me.
> This
> solution would be solve also the problem in Pinyin that the same
> final is written differently in |you| vs. |jiu|, |liu| etc.
I agree.
> And of course, simple |ly|, |ny| would be also better choice than
> |lyu|, |nyu|.
Yes, it would.
> IMHO also they were not satisfied with |lyu| and |nyu|. I think
> that they defined only for special media such as telegraph.
Probably true. But in view the use of diacritics to show tone, it would
have been better, I think, to have avoided the double-dot solution. But
'tis now now.
> Hungarian also has a special convention for telegraphic usage, i.e.
> vowel doubling instead of acute accent,
Makes sense.
> |oe| for |�| and |ue| for |�|
That of course follows German practice. One German visitor who stayed with
us several years ago told me that |�|, |�| and |�| should be written as
|AE|, |OE| and |UE| when writing in block capitals. I don't know whether
this is universally true or just a habit of hers.
> (optionally |ooe| and |uue| for long variants).
Now that I did not know. You keep learning new things on this list :)
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: 10
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 15:19:56 -0400
From: Jeffrey Henning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Conlang meetings during Worldcon
On Thu, 9 Sep 2004 12:29:17 -0400, Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I met with Sylvia Sotomayor, Tim Smith and Carol Ann Buckley for lunch Sunday
>during Worldcon. Jeffrey Henning wasn't able to come, unfortunately.
Sorry, Sunday didn't work for me, but Sylvia and I did get together Monday
night. I blogged about it here:
http://www.langmaker.com/db/log_0409.htm#SpeakingHerNativeTongue
I think it would be a great idea for many of us to meet together at
Norwescon. I will see if I can schedule any work trips to the West Coast
around that time!
Best regards,
Jeffrey
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Message: 11
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 16:06:21 -0400
From: David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A noun class system
<snip Pete's description>
Wow, cool! Here's a question I'll put to you that I've struggled with:
In having a very similar noun class system with Zhyler (not similar
classes, but similar in that they're suffixes), I've noticed that it's near
impossible to make short words, i.e., monosyllabic words. I don't
think there are any monosyllabic nouns in Zhyler (well, maybe one
or two), whereas in a language like English, most "basic" words are
monosyllabic. Is that a problem, or is that just something one has
to deal with? What do you think? Have you noticed something
similar with Kangathyagon? [Sorry; can't do thorn.]
-Dave
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Message: 12
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 16:47:56 -0400
From: Mark Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Spanish ll in different dialects
On Thu, 9 Sep 2004 20:04:52 +0100, Tamas Racsko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 8 Sep 2004 Trebor Jung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Any other dialects have <y> as /dZ/?
>
> My Spanish textbook uses the phonetic transcription of Revista de
> Filolog�a Espan~ola (RFE). In RFE this sound is rendered by "y-
> acute" |y^|.
Can you not send accented characters from freemail.hu? both n+tilde
(�) and y+acute (�)
are standard Latin-1 characters that pass unscathed through even our
wonky listserv software. Although from your rendition of "y acute" as
|y^| I wonder if you don't really mean y + circumflex, which is not in
Latin-1. [It is available in Unicode as U+0177, but were I to include
it in this message the entire thing would be transmogrified into UTF-8
which would render the whole Latin-1 discussion pointless. :)]
> There is no mention of dialectal limitations, therefore, it seems
> to me that this is a standard pronounciation.
>From the lack of mention of dialectical limitations I would guess that
it is probably a feature that doesn't characterize certain dialects so
much as appear in several; nevertheless I'm sure it is mostly limited
to a certain subset. But the pronunciation of |y| as [dZ] is fairly
common in the Spanish (and English) of Latin American immigrants of my
acquaintance.
-Marcos
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Message: 13
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 17:53:26 -0400
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Conlang meetings during Worldcon
On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 12:29:17 -0400, Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Sylvia reported that the panel on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis got
> off-topic quickly and was not very interesting, unfortunately.
Sounds like a typical Sapir-Whorf discussion... ;-)
Paul
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Message: 14
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 18:01:01 -0400
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Suzette Haden Elgin online (was Re: Conlang meetings during Worldcon)
On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 12:29:17 -0400, Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Suzette Haden Elgin (creator of Laadan) will be one of the guests of
> honor.
For fans, Elgin has a Livejournal, and is a member of the LJ Conlangs
community...
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ozarque/
http://www.livejournal.com/community/conlangs/
Paul
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Message: 15
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 22:32:57 -0400
From: Amanda Babcock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Conlang Flag: Voting
On Wed, Sep 08, 2004 at 08:32:51PM +0930, Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)
wrote:
> Philippe Caquant wrote:
>
> > As most of these flags are highly symbolic, would it
> > be possible to shortly remind the voter, on the page,
> > what each part of each proposal is supposed to mean ?
> > Some may have it in mind, some may not.
>
> Anyone who is voting would have already looked up the flags (at
> conlangflag.htm) where they are fully explained.
I wasn't planning to, actually. I've been ignoring all that and just
waiting for the vote, as I assumed I'd have all the info I needed on
the voting page. Maybe a link from the voting page to the flag
explanation page would serve both needs?
Amanda
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Message: 16
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 07:06:37 +0100
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: CHAT Rabelais (was: CHAT Latin sig?)
On Wednesday, September 8, 2004, at 08:04 , Philippe Caquant wrote:
> --- Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> "Magis magnos clericos non sunt magis magnos
>>> sapientes".
>>>
>>> (Francois Rabelais)
>>
>> Ach!!! "magis magnus" = 'greater', I can go along
>> with - But using the
>> accusative case for the subject!! Ach!
>>
>> It is obviously an early example of one of the many,
>> many neo-Latin
>> conlangs :-)
>>
> Rabelais's purpose was satirical, or humoristic.
Yes, I'm sure it was. Many years ago when I still a schoolkid, some of us
discovered Rabelais. He appealed to our schoolboy sense of humor :)
> He
> loved to mix bad Latin with parts of other existing,
> and forged, languages. I would bet he very well knew
> how one should write this sentence in correct Latin.
Yes, I'm darn sure he did.
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: 17
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 16:14:04 +0930
From: "Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: The Grammar of Hebrew
I have been enjoying an email discussion with a friend in Israel,
covering a variety of topics, but of course no self-respecting
conlanger would fail to ensure that a certain amount of linguistics is
included among those topics.
The following is that part of our discussion so far which has emerged
from a comparison of the English and Hebrew in the example of "the gate
of mercy" / "sha'ar ha'rakhamim". I thought it was worth sharing. I
particularly like the touch of humour.
Adrian.
> > > > OK, but what's puzzling me is that in "Sha'ar Ha'Rakhamim",
> > > > you're now implying that this means "Gate Of The Mercies" and
> > > > not "The Gate Of Mercy" as previously translated. After all,
> > > > the "Ha" prefix comes before the "Rakhamim", not before the
> > > > "Sha'ar".
> > >
> > > Very good, although you will be punished with an explanation.
> > > You've pointed out one of the characteristics of Hebrew.
> > [...]
> > > Secondly, let us tackle the slightly more complicated question
> > > of "The Gate of Mercy" versus "Gate of the Mercies". Hebrew,
> > > alas, has no way of distinguishing between the two. By this
> > > point you probably think that Hebrew is a god-awful language,
> > > but I assure you I generally find it less ambiguous than
> > > English. You just happened to stumble one of the language's
> > > weaker points. To clarify, consider the following example. You
> > > can easily
> >
> > Did you mean to write "can't" instead of "can"?
>
> No. However, I did mean "An English speaker" instead of "You", which
> you somehow failed to guess.
>
> > > distinguish between "(a) keeper of the gate" (there's no "a" in
> > > Hebrew, but never mind that) to "the keeper of the gate". In
> > > Hebrew, they are both "shomer ha'sha'ar" ("shomer" - keeper).
> > > They are nonetheless distinguishable from "keeper of gate"
> > > ("shomer sha'ar"), although in English you would probably say
> > > "gatekeeper".
> >
> > So how do you write, "the colour of the roof of the house of the
> > neighbour of the grandfather of the keeper of the gate of mercy",
> > for example? And why can't I write, "ha'shomer sha'ar" if I want
> > to?
>
> Let's tackle this one at a time. As for your first question, you
> could say, if you were to use as few words as possible, "tzeva gag
> beit shken sav shomer sha'ar ha'rakhamim." (The order of the words is
> the same, so you can guess what each word means, although the words,
> as I will soon fail to explain, are not in their original form.)
> Alternatively, you could use the combination "shel ha'" - roughly "of
> the" - and thus create a sentence entirely identical to English
> syntactically - "ha'tzeva shel ha'gag shel ha'bait shel ha'shakhen
> shel ha'sav shel ha'shomer shel ha'sha'ar shel ha'rakhamim."
I'm assuming that "shel" (of) is closely related to "sheli" (of me).
This is actually a useful answer, because it indicates that even if
the simplest way to translate "the hoard of a dragon" and "a hoard of
the dragon" are indistinguishable from each other, one can always
distinguish them if one is willing to use an extra word or two in the
process.
Note that even in English, if one wanted to say, "the colour of the
roof of the house of /a/ neighbour of /a/ grandfather of the keeper of
the gate of mercy", one would probably not say that, but would instead
say, "the colour of the roof of the house of one of the neighbours of
one of the grandfathers of the keeper of the gate of mercy".
Presumably there is a way of saying something similar in Hebrew.
> If you're paying
> close attention, and I got the transliteration right, you'll note
> that "shken" metamorphed into "shakhen" and "beit" into "bait". Why
> is this so will not be explained at the moment, although I might at
> some other time explain why such changes are really not a problem,
> and are consistent.
By all means explain it, but I do understand what you have said anyway.
> Your second question is one to which the answer would appear to be
> quite obvious - because it's _wrong_ and you'll go to hell if you
> do. However, it is a bit more complicated than that, because some
> time ago the Academy of the Hebrew Language, supreme governing body
> of the Hebrew tongue, declared it legal, in sight of increased use
> by the masses of this form. (Although not in this particular case,
> of course, sha'ar ha'rakhamim being an established name.) I do not
> agree with this ruling, and have every intention to ignore it. Hell,
> on the other hand, may go easy on you.
>
> > > As far as adjectives are concerned, by the way, the situation is
> > > different. If you wanted to say "the tall gate", why, you would
> > > do just that. As would I, for that matter. However, if I were to
> > > translate this, I would say "ha'sha'ar ha'gavo'a" (_gavo'a_,
> > > obviously, "tall").
> >
> > The gate the tall ... ?
>
> I believe there is a reason for this. Hebrew does not use the verb
> "be" and its various inflictions ("is", "are" and "am") as English
> does. Thus, an English speaker can say "the tall gate is broken",
> and not mistake this for "the tall broken gate". In Hebrew, on the
> other hand, you would say "ha'sha'ar ha'gavo'a shavur" (the "tall
> gate is broken" - they really should have gotten it fixed by now) -
> note how there's no "ha" before "shavur" (broken), allowing one to
> tell this apart from "ha'sha'ar ha'gavo'a ha'shavur" - "the tall
> broken gate". I have no idea who broke it, however; it was fine a
> paragraph ago.
OK. How about, "The tall broken gate is the big unsolved problem"?
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 18
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 00:30:51 -0700
From: Philippe Caquant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Conlang Flag: Voting
--- Amanda Babcock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Anyone who is voting would have already looked up
> the flags (at
> > conlangflag.htm) where they are fully explained.
>
> I wasn't planning to, actually. I've been ignoring
> all that and just
> waiting for the vote, as I assumed I'd have all the
> info I needed on
> the voting page. Maybe a link from the voting page
> to the flag
> explanation page would serve both needs?
>
Thank you, kind soul. I feel less alone in this world
of user-unfriendly brutes :-)
I had made the same proposal and Adrian Morgan replied
he would do something.
He actually wrote:
-----
I'll link from the explanations page <conlangflag.htm>
to the voting
page, but I really do think it's silly to do it the
other way around.
The thing about symbols is that they stick in your
mind. If a symbol
does *not* stick in your mind then that symbol has
**FAILED**. So why
would you vote in favour of it? It's as simple as
that.
-----
The answer is obvious: before you can make a symbol
stick in your mind, you have to study it, with its
explanations, at least for a little while. I guess
nobody in the world, just looking to any of these
flags without having any comments at hand, could even
recognize that this is a symbol for Conlang Community.
- So what ? will be the answer. All explanations are
on conlangflag.htm. What more do you want ?
- Very simple. I want the information the moment I
need it, namely, in that case, the moment I'll have to
make a choice. Not at another place, not on another
day. Just hic et nunc. And I don't want to remember
the address of the something conlang something flag, I
just want a button, or a link, to click on. Because I
think my poor head is already overloaded enough with
needless information.
- Oh, so you're a darned lazy guy, aren't you ? You
don't want to learn or remember anything, do you ?
- Oh yes I am lazy, and I'm also pragmatic. I want to
choose the information I decide to learn by heart,
because I find it's vital, and discard the rest of it.
Did you ever have to do an intervention on a car, a
washing machine, a videotape recorder, a watch, when
you haven't the manual at hand ? How did you like the
experience ? The manual exists, it explains you how to
do it (in case it's not written in Finnish), only you
don't know where the manual is. May the one who never
experienced this throw the first stone at me ! (Of
course, some will say that they never need any manual
to fix anything on any machine or program. Shall we
believe them ?)
To get this into people's minds will take some more
decades, but I believe we will succeed one day.
See for ex Oracle's attitude:
- All our doc will be written in English, and only in
English. If you don't like it so, just don't buy
Oracle.
See Perl conceptor's attitude (Larry, ehm, forgot his
name):
- It is so because I decided it would be so, dot. It
might bring you extra difficulties, but that's not my
problem. I understand myself, that's important. Just
take it or leave it.
(sigh)
=====
Philippe Caquant
Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intellegor illis (Ovidius).
Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo (Horatius).
Interdum stultus opportune loquitur (Henry Fielding).
Scire leges non hoc est verba earum tenere, sed vim ac potestatem (Somebody).
Melius est ut scandalum oriatur, quam ut veritas relinquatur (Somebody else).
Ceterum censeo *vi* esse oblitterandum (Me).
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Shop for Back-to-School deals on Yahoo! Shopping.
http://shopping.yahoo.com/backtoschool
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 19
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 09:43:29 +0100
From: Peter Bleackley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A noun class system
Staving David Peterson:
><snip Pete's description>
>
>Wow, cool! Here's a question I'll put to you that I've struggled with:
>In having a very similar noun class system with Zhyler (not similar
>classes, but similar in that they're suffixes), I've noticed that it's near
>impossible to make short words, i.e., monosyllabic words. I don't
>think there are any monosyllabic nouns in Zhyler (well, maybe one
>or two), whereas in a language like English, most "basic" words are
>monosyllabic. Is that a problem, or is that just something one has
>to deal with? What do you think? Have you noticed something
>similar with Kangathyagon? [Sorry; can't do thorn.]
>
The noun class system doesn't belong to Khanga�yagon, but to a descendent.
Khanga�yagon can have short noun roots, but it can also have long chains of
suffixes for various grammatical functions (eg. relg, house relgbanipamar
"into those houses", which has a total of four suffixes).
The descendent language will have a tendency towards longer roots, so I'm
making it fusional to shorten the endings a bit. Also, some derivational
suffixes can be replaced with the noun class system, so that for example
yagon (language, which is the present participle of speak in Khanga�yagon,
can become yagnis speak.ABS in the descendent). zerrish, "bird" has been
reanalysed as ze+rris in the descendent. And longer roots can be reduced.
That being said, shortness isn't always part of my aesthetic for a language!
Pete
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________________________________________________________________________
Message: 20
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 11:18:49 +0200
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A noun class system
Quoting David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> <snip Pete's description>
>
> Wow, cool! Here's a question I'll put to you that I've struggled with:
> In having a very similar noun class system with Zhyler (not similar
> classes, but similar in that they're suffixes), I've noticed that it's near
> impossible to make short words, i.e., monosyllabic words. I don't
> think there are any monosyllabic nouns in Zhyler (well, maybe one
> or two), whereas in a language like English, most "basic" words are
> monosyllabic. Is that a problem, or is that just something one has
> to deal with? What do you think? Have you noticed something
> similar with Kangathyagon? [Sorry; can't do thorn.]
Is this a problem? Compared to most European languages, English is literally
stuffed with monosyllables ...
Andreas
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