There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Tirelat vocabulary from one world to another
From: Herman Miller
1b. Re: Tirelat vocabulary from one world to another
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
2a. the term "epithentic"
From: Rick Harrison
2b. Re: the term "epithentic"
From: Tim May
2c. Re: the term "epithentic"
From: Eric Christopherson
2d. Re: the term "epithentic"
From: Carl Banks
2e. Re: the term "epithentic"
From: David J. Peterson
2f. Re: the term "epithentic"
From: Rick Harrison
2g. Re: the term "epithentic"
From: Eldin Raigmore
2h. Re: the term "epithentic"
From: Philip Newton
2i. Re: the term "epithentic"
From: Alex Fink
2j. Re: the term "epithentic"
From: ROGER MILLS
2k. Re: self-defining linguistics terms (was: the term "epithentic")
From: Tim May
3. LCC3?
From: Tim Smith
4. Vampiric: a Professionally-Created Artlang
From: Eldin Raigmore
Messages
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1a. Re: Tirelat vocabulary from one world to another
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 10, 2008 5:39 pm ((PDT))
Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> Hallo!
>
> On Tue, 9 Sep 2008 22:10:03 -0400, Herman Miller wrote:
>
>> I've been thinking about how to use Tirelat vocabulary and define the
>> meanings of Tirelat words. As I've discovered, Tirelat is a Sangari
>> langauge, but I don't know much about the Sangari world or culture. So
>> what I'm thinking is that Tirelat words have a parallel set of meanings,
>> one meaning relating to things and ideas in the familiar world, and
>> another meaning as actually used by Sangari speakers. That way I don't
>> have to be too precise about the Sangari meanings, but I can continue to
>> develop the language by writing and translating texts about the "real
>> world".
>
> This works of course only as much as your world is similar
> enough to ours. It works well, for instance, with Tolkienesque
> fantasy worlds that closely resemble Medieval Europe plus Elves
> and dragons, but not so well with a bizarre world like H. S.
> Teoh's Ferochromon where nothing is the way we are used to.
The reality of the Zireen and Sangari worlds is fundamentally very
similar to our own in the basics of physics and chemistry at least.
Impossible Gates between worlds do exist, but as they are so rare, we
could be living in a world with Impossible Gates and not even know it.
Biology is carbon-based, and the basics of metabolism are likely to be
very similar.
Actually I think in a bizarre world like Ferochromon it's even more
important to have a familiar set of words to get a handle on the alien
ideas, even though the equivalence can only be very rough; starbursts,
whirlpools, rivers, fountains, and so on. Even in our own bizarre
worlds; in quantum physics, particles have "spin", which has some
rotation-like properties. There's the famous example of the science
fiction story that was copied word for word from _The Last of the
Mohicans_, which was said to have taken place in some fraction of a
second on the surface of a neutron star. That's obviously an extreme
example (probably contrived to make a statement about how non-alien much
SF writing actually is), but how would you describe hypothetical life on
the surface of a neutron star any other way? The vocabulary doesn't exist.
>> For example, take a look at the basic color vocabulary. Tirelat as
>> spoken by Sangari has words for colors based on the perception of
>> Sangari vision, which ignores red but perceives ultraviolet.
>>
>> http://www.io.com/~hmiller/png/new-tirelat-colors.png
>>
>> For the Human Tirelat vocabulary, I've revised the color words based on
>> a red/green axis and a yellow/blue axis, which fits the way humans
>> typically perceive color.
>>
>> http://www.io.com/~hmiller/png/2008-tirelat-colors.png
>
> A good solution. Indeed, it is not easy to match colour
> perception systems as different as those of human and Sangari,
> but you have made a rather good job of it.
Well, it's a rough approximation at best. We describe the sky as "blue",
which I've translated "nuri", while they would describe our sky probably
as "uli", as there's a lot of UV light in the sky color. "Zaari" is a
more precise word for the color of the sky in both interpretations of
Tirelat vocabulary, but it's not a basic color word.
>> Compare this with the older, more artificial decimal system of color
>> that I used for Tirelat before the Sangari transition. This system was
>> based on the internal encoding of colors in a computer file, and had
>> little to do with human perception.
>>
>> http://www.io.com/~hmiller/png/tirelat-colors.png
>>
>> Other aspects of the vocabulary could use a similar kind of rough
>> correspondence of meaning. So I can continue using words like
>> "squirrel", "guitar", or "pizza" in the Tirelat vocabulary, even if
>> there aren't any exact counterparts.
>
> This is, essentially, the same approach that Mark Rosenfelder
> uses to gloss Verdurian words. Verdurian is spoken in a world
> that doesn't have the same plants, animals, foods and cultural
> objects as Earth, but many have Earth near-equivalents, and
> Mark uses the English words for those near-equivalents to gloss
> Verdurian words. Yet, there are things on Almea (Mark's conworld)
> that have no counterpart on Earth, and Mark thus leaves the
> Verdurian words for those things untranslated.
>
> ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
>
I imagine there will also be Sangari Tirelat words that I'll leave
untranslated, like going into the specifics of the different kinds of
dragons, or aspects of their social life, just as there are will be
specific Human Tirelat words that aren't a part of the Sangari language
(e.g., the word for "red" -- maybe they use "infrayellow" or something).
Messages in this topic (4)
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1b. Re: Tirelat vocabulary from one world to another
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Sep 11, 2008 7:20 am ((PDT))
Hallo!
On Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:39:05 -0400, Herman Miller wrote:
> Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> > Hallo!
> > [...]
> >
> > This works of course only as much as your world is similar
> > enough to ours. It works well, for instance, with Tolkienesque
> > fantasy worlds that closely resemble Medieval Europe plus Elves
> > and dragons, but not so well with a bizarre world like H. S.
> > Teoh's Ferochromon where nothing is the way we are used to.
>
> The reality of the Zireen and Sangari worlds is fundamentally very
> similar to our own in the basics of physics and chemistry at least.
> Impossible Gates between worlds do exist, but as they are so rare, we
> could be living in a world with Impossible Gates and not even know it.
> Biology is carbon-based, and the basics of metabolism are likely to be
> very similar.
Yes. With my main conlang Old Albic, it is even simpler: its
speakers are humans, and they live in the same world as we do,
only quite a long time ago (the Classical Era of Elvendom is
around 600 BC). This means that many concepts in Old Albic
are the same as in English. For example, the Old Albic word
_mordenda_ can easily be translated as 'blackbird' because it
refers to the same species as the English word, namely _Turdus
merula_. Of course, there are cultural terms which have no
simple English counterpart, as the culture of the British Elves
is quite different from that of present-day England or America.
> Actually I think in a bizarre world like Ferochromon it's even more
> important to have a familiar set of words to get a handle on the alien
> ideas, even though the equivalence can only be very rough; starbursts,
> whirlpools, rivers, fountains, and so on. Even in our own bizarre
> worlds; in quantum physics, particles have "spin", which has some
> rotation-like properties.
Yes. On the other hand, such metaphors can cause misunderstandings,
especially with people not knowledgable enough to know that the
everyday meanings of the words cannot apply. How many physics
students, after reading of "spins" of particles, imagine spinning
little balls? Probably many, before they realize that what is
more like a field than a solid object can hardly "spin" in the same
way as for instance a tennis ball does.
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
Messages in this topic (4)
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2a. the term "epithentic"
Posted by: "Rick Harrison" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 10, 2008 8:51 pm ((PDT))
Is the term "epithentic" used or defined in any scholarly books or journals?
This word produces a very small number of Google hits. Is it a recent
innovation?
Messages in this topic (11)
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2b. Re: the term "epithentic"
Posted by: "Tim May" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 10, 2008 8:58 pm ((PDT))
Rick Harrison wrote at 2008-09-10 23:50:27 (-0400)
> Is the term "epithentic" used or defined in any scholarly books or journals?
> This word produces a very small number of Google hits. Is it a recent
> innovation?
I'd tend to assume it was an error for "epenthetic", if that makes
sense in context.
Messages in this topic (11)
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2c. Re: the term "epithentic"
Posted by: "Eric Christopherson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 10, 2008 9:11 pm ((PDT))
On Sep 10, 2008, at 10:50 PM, Rick Harrison wrote:
> Is the term "epithentic" used or defined in any scholarly books or
> journals?
> This word produces a very small number of Google hits. Is it a recent
> innovation?
I believe it's a malapropism for "epenthetic", but I don't know how
recent it is.
Messages in this topic (11)
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2d. Re: the term "epithentic"
Posted by: "Carl Banks" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 10, 2008 9:27 pm ((PDT))
Rick Harrison wrote:
> Is the term "epithentic" used or defined in any scholarly books or journals?
> This word produces a very small number of Google hits. Is it a recent
> innovation?
I suspect epithentic is a metathesis of epenthetic.
Carl Banks
Messages in this topic (11)
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2e. Re: the term "epithentic"
Posted by: "David J. Peterson" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 10, 2008 9:35 pm ((PDT))
The only other possibility I can think of is that it's "epithetic"
with an epenthetic "n".
-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
On Sep 10, 2008, at 9°06 PM, Carl Banks wrote:
> Rick Harrison wrote:
>> Is the term "epithentic" used or defined in any scholarly books or
>> journals?
>> This word produces a very small number of Google hits. Is it a recent
>> innovation?
>
> I suspect epithentic is a metathesis of epenthetic.
>
>
> Carl Banks
Messages in this topic (11)
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2f. Re: the term "epithentic"
Posted by: "Rick Harrison" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed Sep 10, 2008 11:22 pm ((PDT))
Thanks for the replies. I had struggled to recall this half-remembered word
but *epithentic was as close as I could get.
Messages in this topic (11)
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2g. Re: the term "epithentic"
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Sep 11, 2008 9:20 am ((PDT))
I tend to use these terms (not original with me!):
epenethetic
haplogy
metasethis
Messages in this topic (11)
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2h. Re: the term "epithentic"
Posted by: "Philip Newton" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Sep 11, 2008 10:04 am ((PDT))
On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 18:20, Eldin Raigmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I tend to use these terms (not original with me!):
>
> epenethetic
> haplogy
> metasethis
I wonder what else could be added.
assimblation/assimination, perhaps?
voizing, tefoicing? (including the special cases of initial gonsonant
voicing and terminal obstruent tefoicink?)
lenision?
rhotercism?
syncpee, apocop, phaeresis, lision?
clusser redushion?
compensatory leethning?
[ç]usion?
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Messages in this topic (11)
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2i. Re: the term "epithentic"
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Sep 11, 2008 3:03 pm ((PDT))
On Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:03:55 +0200, Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 18:20, Eldin Raigmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> I tend to use these terms (not original with me!):
>>
>> epenethetic
>> haplogy
>> metasethis
>
>I wonder what else could be added.
SpecGram -- actually it appears to have been Lingua Pranca at the time --
ran a big list of these once, "[c]ompiled by R.L. Rankin with much help and
many suggestions from far and wide":
http://specgram.com/LP/03.rankin.selfdefiner.html
Alex
Messages in this topic (11)
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2j. Re: the term "epithentic"
Posted by: "ROGER MILLS" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu Sep 11, 2008 6:48 pm ((PDT))
Alex Fink wrote:
> >>
> >> epenethetic
> >> haplogy
> >> metasethis
> >
> >I wonder what else could be added.
>
>SpecGram -- actually it appears to have been Lingua Pranca at the time --
>ran a big list of these once, "[c]ompiled by R.L. Rankin with much help and
>many suggestions from far and wide":
> http://specgram.com/LP/03.rankin.selfdefiner.html
>
A very similar list (and IIRC some of the same contributors) appears in the
"festschrift" _Out in Left Field: Defamatory essays presented to James
McCawley on the occasion of his 33d or 34th Birthday_ which appeared in the
early 70s (can't locate my copy at the moment).
Messages in this topic (11)
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2k. Re: self-defining linguistics terms (was: the term "epithentic")
Posted by: "Tim May" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 12, 2008 7:55 am ((PDT))
Alex Fink wrote at 2008-09-11 18:02:57 (-0400)
> On Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:03:55 +0200, Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
> >On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 18:20, Eldin Raigmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> I tend to use these terms (not original with me!):
> >>
> >> epenethetic
> >> haplogy
> >> metasethis
> >
> >I wonder what else could be added.
>
> SpecGram -- actually it appears to have been Lingua Pranca at the time --
> ran a big list of these once, "[c]ompiled by R.L. Rankin with much help and
> many suggestions from far and wide":
> http://specgram.com/LP/03.rankin.selfdefiner.html
>
> Alex
There's another such list here:
http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/ulsa/glossary.html
Messages in this topic (11)
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3. LCC3?
Posted by: "Tim Smith" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 12, 2008 7:58 am ((PDT))
I've still heard nothing definite about the date(s) of LCC3. All I know
is that it's supposed to be sometime in October, at Brown University in
Providence, Rhode Island, USA (which, unlike the sites of LCC1 and LCC2,
is actually someplace I could get to easily). According to the LCC
website, "more info is still to come" (presumably including the exact
dates and location). I've sent messages to various people offlist and
gotten no replies. October is fast approaching, and I need to get my
schedule nailed down soon; there are other things happening in October
that I need to give a definite yes or no to. Does anyone know anything
more about this?
TIA!
- Tim
Messages in this topic (1)
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4. Vampiric: a Professionally-Created Artlang
Posted by: "Eldin Raigmore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri Sep 12, 2008 8:50 am ((PDT))
Dr. Helen Charters is a Senior Tutor in Applied Language Studies & Linguistics
on the Faculty of Arts at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
She created the conlang "Vampiric" for use in the movie versions of the "30
Days of Night" comix and their sequels.
The conlang is copyrighted by her (the actual lines spoken belong to the
movies' scriptwriters, producers, and studio).
She has used this conlang as a source for exercises etc. in her classes.
She sent me three files back on August 9th but asked me not to share them
with anyone before September 8th.
I have placed them in the Files section of the Conlang Yahoo group.
< http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/files/Vampiric%2C%20a%
20Conlang%20/ >
Messages in this topic (1)
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