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There are 11 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Re: Sk�lansk - History and Babel text
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: does Language require Deception to exist?
From: Remi Villatel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: German style orthography
From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: Cookbooks (but not about cooking!)
From: "C. Vermeers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: partial letter replacement in languages?
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Cookbooks (but not about cooking!)
From: Arthaey Angosii <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: USAGE: Vowel recordings
From: Tristan Mc Leay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Greek definite article (was Re: Addendum: a holy spirit)
From: Tim Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: Conlangs in the movies
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: Coastlines
From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: Coastlines
From: "Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 18:17:49 -0500
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Re: Sk�lansk - History and Babel text
On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 18:43:36 +0000, Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Wednesday, December 8, 2004, at 10:44 , Keith Gaughan wrote:
>
>If the conclusion of the research by these scholars from the islands
>Sjaelland, Lolland, Holster and M�n in Denmark in the late middle ages was
>that it was not found in any other known language, then with respect one
>really has to ask how thorough the research was.
Well, their research possibilities were quite limited. Their independence
was a thorn in the eye of the other nordic countries, who constantly
attacked them and probably would've even succeded if they hadn't spent the
vast majority of their troops already to fight among each other about who
would get the islands. The Frankonians and Germans would also rather see
them as a part of their empires, but luckily for them were busy fending off
attacks coming from the east and the south. So they practically couldn't
turn anywhere for help in that matter, so they only had the knowledge they
got from travelling merchants and such.
>They really should have discovered that it was used, but less common than
>SVO or SOV. Far rarer are those languages that regularly put the object
>before the subject with OSV apparently being the rarest among the world's
>languages.
I considered that, but that seemed me too much of a change.
--
Pascal A. Kramm, author of:
Choton: http://www.choton.org
Ichwara Prana: http://www.choton.org/ichwara/
Sk�lansk: http://www.choton.org/sk/
Advanced English: http://www.choton.org/ae/
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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:21:54 +0100
From: Remi Villatel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: does Language require Deception to exist?
Rodlox wrote:
> In order to have a language, does a species first need to be able to
> lie/decieve/trick/fool/bluff others of their species?
> *If* a deception-free species could & did have a language, would it be
> easily translatable?
> food for thought, yes?
Not much. ;-) I've already solved the problem. A species doesn't need any
kind of deception to have a language.
In my SciFi con-universe, the Shaqueans are empathes i.e. they feel
eachother's emotions. A Shaquean would immediatly know that another Shaquean
is lying, so they don't lie/deceive/trick/fool/bluff/etc.
It doesn't prevent them from having a language. And if Shaquelingua may be
difficult to translate, it's because it's verb-less and contains alien
concepts or --at least-- concepts for which the human languages have no word
(AFAIK).
I don't think that the ability of lying has much impact on the language
apart from removing related words/concepts. The language is a mean of
communication. The transmission of false informations is just one of its
possibilities but not its only purpose. Unless you consider that language
itself is a lie because it only conveys an interpretation of the reality but
not the reality itself.
That's food for thought! ;-)
The stronger impact of the inability/impossibility of lying is on the culture.
How many times a day do you automatically say "Thank you" or "Have a nice
day" without really thinking it? Haven't you ever heard yourself saying
"That's a great idea" while thinking about a way to escape to the shore?
If you can't lie, it definitively changes the way you handle such situations
but it doesn't prevent you from talking about them.
As for the relation between intelligence and deception, contrarly to Chris
Bates, I think that people who can't lie must be much much smarter; they
must always face the reality in every situation. They can't hide problems
behind nice convenient little lies to please everybody and wait for the
problems to come back and bite their backs, like Humans do.
When in deep shit, a Shaquean don't say "I need further investigations. I
won't do anything until I get reports" but "I don't know how to get out of
this. Does anybody have an idea?". What is the most intelligent to say? The
truth or the usual/ritual lie?
Of course, in our societies, to always tell the truth isn't an appropriate
behavior.
-- What do you think of my new dress/shirt/jacket/etc?
-- Nice, very nice! (How can they sell such horrors?)
;-)
ji ka�t�lu soe, [ji: ka.CtO4u so^e] (one soon until)
--
==================
Remi Villatel
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
==================
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 15:52:07 -0800
From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: German style orthography
--- "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 08:28:17 -0800, bob thornton
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >--- Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >> Since word-initial |s| is always /z/ in German,
> I've
> >> seen |�| used in
> >> transcriptions of foreign languages (e.g. "��nks"
> >> for "thanks" in a
> >> tourist's guidebook/phrasebook of English) when
> the
> >> author wanted to
> >> make clear that an /s/ sound was intended. It
> looks
> >> a bit strange to
> >> me, though, since |�| does not occur
> word-initially
> >> in any native
> >> German word.
> >>
> >
> >So, perhaps use eszett initially, and s medially
> for /z/?
>
> That would be possible. I've read that Jacob Grimm
> (one of the two
> fairy-tale Grimms) proposed to use the long ſ
> for /z/ and round s for /s/,
> though he abandoned this proposition later.
Hrrrm. Interesting. I have noted suchlike in my notes.
How would one represent a syllabaic sound based upon
this orthography?
=====
-The Sock
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
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Message: 4
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 19:11:47 -0500
From: "C. Vermeers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Cookbooks (but not about cooking!)
On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 00:04:30 -0800, Arthaey Angosii <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>If "Describing Morphosyntax" is the conlang cookbook, and "Guns,
>Germs, & Steel" is the conculture cookbook, what other cookbooks are
>out there? How about a xenobiology (the next topic I'll be
>researching)?
it occurs to me that no one has responded to this request at any point, so
i'll make an attempt.
for xenobiology, there is _Life Beyond Earth_, by Timothy Ferris, or the
book of similar title (appended: "The Intelligent Earthling's Guide to Life
in the Universe") by Gerald Feinberg and Robert Shapiro is also excellent.
the latter has some very interesting discussions of possible
alternate "biochemistries", including hydrogen-based life in cryogenic
environments.
there are a number of books which discuss astrophysics and planetary
physics, but i don't know which are the best to work with, so i will leave
that response to others. after that, i can't think of anything else that
one might need: language, culture, biology (and ecology), and environment
would seem to me the only areas that offer any really intersting areas of
construction. perhaps technologies, which would obviously be the realm of
_Connections_ and other books by James Burke.
oh, and i will now go back to lurking. thank you all for your great
knowledge and useful discussions.
c. vermeers
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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 19:43:42 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: partial letter replacement in languages?
Philip Newton wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 02:48:04 +0200, Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > is there a term for when a language is evolving/being changed, &
> > replaces
> > one letter with another (ie, /d/ becomes /t/) in nearly all
> > instances...yet
> > there are still words in the resultant language which retain (to
> > continue
> > the example) /d/ ?
>
> I don't know a term for it, but just wanted to note that some
> instances of this come when there are two (nearly) concurrent sound
> changes such that, say, /d/ becomes /t/ while, say, /D/ becomes /d/ --
> so all or most original /d/'s disappeared but there are still /d/'s in
> the resulting language that used to be a different sound.
Yes; that sort of thing is explicable, and depends on rule ordering, which
presumably reflects sequence in time. Compare:
1. d > t
2. D > d
vs.
1. D > d
2. d > t
Otherwise, the situation Rodlox describes is truly the despair of the
Historical Linguist. If "ALL" d > t, then any observed d's must be 1.
irregular ~failed sound change (but why?) 2. later borrowings 3. "dialect
mixing" and/or "substrate influence", which in the absence of any real
evidence are simply fancy, less honest, ways of saying "inexplicable"."
Sometimes analogy (paradigmatic pressure) is the culprit-- e.g. in Buginese,
*d fairly regularly > r, but there was also /r/ < *r. Verbal forms had
C-final prefixes (modern ma?-, maN-) so you get alternations like:
(original *d) base /r..../, prefixed /ma?-d.... ~man-d..../ VS
(original *r) base /r..../ pfx. /marr... ~manr..../
Then for some perverse reason speakers decide that some random forms
with -Cd- must have a base with /d.../ --or vice versa, some forms with base
/r.../ < *d have prefixed forms as if they were original *r.
The old Neogrammarian dictum "sound change proceeds without exception" has
so many exceptions as to be little more than a suggestion.
More recent theories hold that "sound change proceeds word by word";
consequently some very frequent (or perhaps very infrequent) words become
exempt. This seems to explain such things as (assuming that same spelling =
same sound) Shakesperean (or earlier?) "great, meat" no longer rhyme (I
could be wrong on details here, but not on principle IIRC)
> Watch the Reply-To!
Ooh, caught it just in time............
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Message: 6
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 17:56:32 -0800
From: Arthaey Angosii <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Cookbooks (but not about cooking!)
On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 19:11:47 -0500, C. Vermeers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 00:04:30 -0800, Arthaey Angosii <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
> >If "Describing Morphosyntax" is the conlang cookbook, and "Guns,
> >Germs, & Steel" is the conculture cookbook, what other cookbooks are
> >out there? How about a xenobiology (the next topic I'll be
> >researching)?
>
> it occurs to me that no one has responded to this request at any point, so
> i'll make an attempt.
Actually, I got two private emails as replies. Thank you for your
suggestions, too!
> for xenobiology, there is _Life Beyond Earth_, by Timothy Ferris, or the
> book of similar title (appended: "The Intelligent Earthling's Guide to Life
> in the Universe") by Gerald Feinberg and Robert Shapiro is also excellent.
> the latter has some very interesting discussions of possible
> alternate "biochemistries", including hydrogen-based life in cryogenic
> environments.
In case others are interested in this topic, I've included the other
suggestions I received:
Emaelivpeith B. Garcia:
> For writing systems, "The World's Writing Systems" is probably a great
> resource for getting appropriate design ideas, and understanding the
> basic workings of most of the writing systems in existence ("natural"
> ones of course)
Emaelivpeith Joe:
> Not a cookbook, perhaps, but 'Evolving the Alien'(Also, I believe, known
> as 'What Does a Martian Look Like?') by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen is a
> good book on the subject, anyway.
--
AA
(watch the Reply-To)
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Message: 7
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 12:58:15 +1100
From: Tristan Mc Leay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: USAGE: Vowel recordings
On 10 Dec 2004, at 12.22 am, Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)
wrote:
> Tristan McLeay wrote, quoting myself:
>
>> > I've uploaded another file, which demonstrates the words:
>> > "Holy, wholly, holly"
>> > followed by the sentence:
>> > "This is our purest tour where all our tourists are pure".
>> >
>> > http://web.netyp.com/member/dragon/say/vowels2.mp3
>>
>> It sounds incredibly British to my ears, or like Alexander
>> Downer---and
>> *I'm* accused of sounding British by my peers. I think every word
>> sounds at least slightly different from how I'd say it. Would you
>> describe how you speak as General Australian? or something more like
>> Cultivated? (I'd call me General, but perhaps it takes about 200 years
>> for regional varieties to develop.)
>
> Well, A.D. is South Australian even if we might not like to admit it.
> :-)
But I'd been led to believe he sounded British because he was educated
in Britain or something, didn't realise it was (almost) normal for the
area.
> With the exception of the controversial "holy" I would say that every
> word in the sample is pronounced the same as most people I know would
> pronounce it. That's all I can say, really. I'm not quite sure where
> the division is between general and cultivated.
>
> I'm surprised you find that every word differs noticeably from your
> own pronunciation: I know there are other ways of pronouncing words
> like "our" and "tour" but my way is the way of the overwhelming
> majority of Australians who I know; the alternatives I associate
> mostly with old people.
I might've exaggerated a little bit, and I was thinking more of the
words we were talking about. On the other hand, your way of saying
'our' is very British to me (it sounds like 'ar', whereas I make it
like 'ow', with the linking-r before vowels optional).
On the other hand, don't forget that you used a real [EMAIL PROTECTED] in
'pure' at
the end, whereas I demand the opener vowel I've used.
> I wondered if perhaps you were planning to wait until you had a chance
> to record some comparative phonetic samples of your own before you
> replied. Or perhaps you're heavily involved in several threads and
> couldn't say everything you wanted to say in five posts (I haven't
> checked your posting count). Or perhaps there were technical
> difficulties involving computers. Or something.
Well, I might've reached my limit, and if I tried to reply it would've
been bounced back, I dunno. I don't pay attention, I'm always surprised
when I get told to shut up. The listserver should be in decent
timezone, like AEDT. (The A stands for Awesome.)
> I will be interested in hearing your samples when you get to it (as I
> think you said you intended to do). Will help me put your remarks into
> perspective.
Well, here's my crappy recording, made from on my hardware digital
music player. Best of a band bunch I'm afraid... MP3 at 96 kbps to
satisfy you ;) (I spose given that it's mono I might as well make it
48, but that's too much like hard work.)
http://thecartographers.net/sounds/vowels.mp3
I arbitrarily chose to use the 'holly' pronunciation of 'holy' but I
could just as well have used 'wholly'. Any difference between 'holly'
and 'holy' is purely random and nothing should be read into it.
--
Tristan.
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Message: 8
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 21:19:19 -0500
From: Tim Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Greek definite article (was Re: Addendum: a holy spirit)
At 12:35 PM 12/4/2004 -0500, Sally Caves wrote:
>This is most interesting. I'm also interested in what looks like a
>doubling of the definite article in Mt 12:32 tou pneumatos tou hagiou? The
>spirit the holy? It I'm right, that's quite some definition! Is this
>common in Greek?
As it happens, this is something I've been wondering about lately. I seem
to remember reading somewhere, years ago, that in Greek, when you have a
noun with a definite article and an adjective, it works something like this:
If the adjective is attributive (modifying the noun), the unmarked order is
article - adjective - noun (_to hagion pneuma_, to put the above example in
the nominative). The adjective-noun order can be reversed, to put extra
(contrastive?) emphasis on the adjective ("the HOLY spirit", as opposed to
some other spirit), but if so, the adjective gets its own article (_to
pneuma to hagion_). If the adjective appears to the right of the noun
without its own article (_to pneuma hagion_), it's understood as
predicative rather than attributive ("the spirit is holy"); likewise if the
adjective goes before the article-noun pair (_hagion to pneuma_, "holy is
the spirit" or something like that).
This struck me as a really nifty and elegant arrangement. But is it
correct? I can't remember where I read it, and I haven't found any
reference to this anywhere else. I'm starting to wonder if I dreamed it,
or just made it up in a moment of conlanging revery and then somehow got it
confused with Greek. Ray, or any other Greek scholars out there, can you
confirm or deny that Greek actually works this way? And if it does, is it
all periods of Greek (and if not, which one(s))?
- Tim
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Message: 9
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:10:33 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Conlangs in the movies
> On Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 09:43:03PM -0500, Thomas Leigh wrote:
> > Howdy all,
> >
> > I just got back from seeing "Blade: Trinity", and there's Esperanto in
> > the movie!
>
Hmph. Well, I suppose Esp. is in the public domain, so they didn't have to
pay a linguist to design yet a third language. (Recalling Matt Pearson's
unfortunate experience with the producers of Blade II.)
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Message: 10
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:11:26 -0500
From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Coastlines
Listserv interface was doing some weird things again. Expect to see this
message twice.
Adrian Morgan wrote:
> A technique I invented about a decade ago for drawing coastlines:
>
> http://web.netyp.com/member/dragon/temp/islandmap.htm
>
> Just in case it interests anybody.
Neat. Gives you peninsulas and bays and everything. Here's my result:
http://suzsoiz.free.fr/tempy/map1.jpg
I kinda like what converting it to .jpg did around the edges.
H. S. Teoh replied:
>Interesting way of creating maps. :-) I wonder, though, what I should
>do if I already have an approximate idea of what the map should look
>like, but just need to set down the "fuzzy bits"?
First, draw the general shape of the landmass in a colour that's not red or
blue. In a seperate window, make your red/blue "snow" with Adrian's
technique. Paste your third-colour landmass over the snow and fill the mass
with red, then blue ... that should be all it takes; by the third fill I
found it didn't look much like the original shape anymore and backed off
with 'undo'.
Clean up the shape as in steps 7-10 and there's your map.
Here's mine:
http://suzsoiz.free.fr/tempy/map2.jpg
M
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Message: 11
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 16:09:24 +1030
From: "Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Coastlines
Mike Ellis wrote:
> http://suzsoiz.free.fr/tempy/map1.jpg
> http://suzsoiz.free.fr/tempy/map2.jpg
Very nice hand; I've always known this would be possible but never
actually tried. And yeah, the JPEG edges could be submerged reefs or
something.
I originally uploaded my illustration for the benefit of someone in
another group who posted a message asking how to draw coastlines. For
her benefit could you please be sure to leave your very nice maps
(especially the second) online for at least a few days? I have posted
a new message pointing her to your post.
Adrian.
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