There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Verbs as locative verbnouns
From: Gary Shannon
1b. Re: Verbs as locative verbnouns
From: Hugo Cesar de Castro Carneiro
1c. Re: Verbs as locative verbnouns
From: Nikolay Ivankov
1d. Re: Verbs as locative verbnouns
From: Hugo Cesar de Castro Carneiro
1e. Re: Verbs as locative verbnouns
From: Nikolay Ivankov
2a. Dictionary of Made-up Languages
From: John H. Chalmers
2b. Re: Dictionary of Made-up Languages
From: Wm Annis
2c. Re: Dictionary of Made-up Languages
From: Padraic Brown
2d. Re: Dictionary of Made-up Languages
From: Sam Stutter
2e. Re: Dictionary of Made-up Languages
From: Sylvia Sotomayor
3a. Re: Illness, Disease, and Disorder
From: Charlie Brickner
4a. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part IV
From: Alex Fink
4b. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part IV
From: Alex Fink
4c. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part IV
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
5a. Re: Barsoomian units of length (was: Barsoomian Project)
From: Puey McCleary
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Verbs as locative verbnouns
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Mon Jan 2, 2012 7:08 am ((PST))
I played with a similar idea myself, many years ago, and as you point
out, anything beyond the primer level becomes increasingly difficult
to express. Things like: "John finished the project that Mary had
loaned him the tools for, and and having no further need of them,
returned them to her the following day." are simply impossible.
I ended up with so many cases that trying to apply "standard" case
names to them was a waste of time. They became nothing more than
attached prepositions so that in calling them "case endings" I think
was just kidding myself.
--gary
On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 4:10 AM, Nikolay Ivankov <[email protected]> wrote:
> I've had similar ideas in my conlang, where I actually had a two-case
> system for a word: the one dealing with the "verb class" and another with
> the "direction". Every word was in effect a verbnoun, but clearly there are
> still lots of complications because of that, and I still can't get rid of
> "childspeech".
>
> On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 6:11 AM, Brian Woodward <[email protected]> wrote:
>
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Verbs as locative verbnouns
Posted by: "Hugo Cesar de Castro Carneiro" [email protected]
Date: Mon Jan 2, 2012 9:01 am ((PST))
On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 1:07 PM, Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
> I played with a similar idea myself, many years ago, and as you point
> out, anything beyond the primer level becomes increasingly difficult
> to express. Things like: "John finished the project that Mary had
> loaned him the tools for, and and having no further need of them,
> returned them to her the following day." are simply impossible.
>
> I ended up with so many cases that trying to apply "standard" case
> names to them was a waste of time. They became nothing more than
> attached prepositions so that in calling them "case endings" I think
> was just kidding myself.
>
> --gary
>
You're right, Gary. I tried to translate this sentence you wrote, and I
ended up with something like this:
Making POSS-John GEN-end POSS-project INSTR-tool ABL-loaning POSS-Mary
COM-making POSS-man GEN-obtaining POSS-woman GEN-thing COMP-FIN-usage
CAUS-turning-3SG.GEN ABL-needing-3PL.GEN.
John's making of the project's end with (using) the tool(s) from Mary's
loaning (together) with the man's making of the woman's obtaining of [the
thing(s) for usage] (instruments) for the cause of turning/becoming of him
from the needing of them.
Glossary:
ABL - ablative case
CAUS - causal case
COM - comitative case
COMP - compositional prefix
FIN - final case
GEN - genitive case
INSTR - instrumental case
POSS - possessive case
Making - verbnoun I use for dynamic verbs with an agent, state - verbnoun
used for static verbs with no agent, turning/becoming - verbnoun for
dynamic verbs with no agent (He turned/became 18).
I needed 7 cases, 1 compositional prefix and (possessive and genitive)
determiner suffixes. :(
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Verbs as locative verbnouns
Posted by: "Nikolay Ivankov" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 3, 2012 4:59 am ((PST))
On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 2:29 PM, Hugo Cesar de Castro Carneiro <
[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 10:10 AM, Nikolay Ivankov <[email protected]
> >wrote:
>
> > I've had similar ideas in my conlang, where I actually had a two-case
> > system for a word: the one dealing with the "verb class" and another with
> > the "direction". Every word was in effect a verbnoun, but clearly there
> are
> > still lots of complications because of that, and I still can't get rid of
> > "childspeech".
> >
> >
> In my conlang there are no pronouns, only determiners (represented as
> affixes attached to the words they modify).
>
>
> So one can say "my book is blue" as "state book-GEN-1SG.POSS blue-ASS" (ASS
> representing the associative case, equivalent to English preposition "as").
> This can roughly be translated as "The state of my book as blue".
> One can even say "this book is blue, it is mine and it is old", simplifying
> this sentence into "this my book is blue and old" and can write it this
> way: "state book-GEN-1SG.POSS blue-ASS old-COM" (COM representing the
> comitative case, which is used instead of an additive conjunction). This
> can roughly be translated as "The state of my book as blue and (together
> with) old".
>
> Even sentences that usually require a special word from some pronouns, e.g.
> sentences in which pronouns are used as its indirect object (Latin mihi,
> German dir and so on), can be written without using specific words for
> these pronouns, and only the possessive determiner affix can be used, as
> can eb seen below:
> "He gave the book to me" can be written as "making-3SG.POSS
> possess-GEN-1SG.POSS book-GEN" (His making of my possess(ing) of the book).
>
>
> But as any other nominal, pronouns can use any case a noun can use. So
> there are still some sentences that are still impossible to write in my
> conlang, for instance the ones in which there is a pronoun in comitative
> case. I simply can't write words like "I went to the restaurant with her".
>
>
>
> As I understood your conlang also lacks some word classes. Does it lack
> pronouns? If it lacks it, how have you solved this problem?
>
Well, I don't think I' got rid of the pronouns completely, but, I think,
most of the words in my language are these verbnouns, including pronouns.
The idea of my (pre)language, as I've said, was that to every word one
attaches two case markers - one prefix and one postfix. The postfix was in
fact the real case, and in the last draft I've had 4 of them: zero case
nominative (0), locative (IN), ablative (FROM) and allative (TO). The
prefix cases used to be verb classifiers, like auxiliary verbs in European
languages, that finally started to be attached to every word, and I've
called them something like 0 (prefixal zero case) GO (movement/change
state), SAY (everything concerned with cognition + possession), HOLD (the
rest) and NOT ("not to be"). I really cared about not having too abstract
verbs like "to be" or "to have", but I think I haven't succeed. Moreover,
I'll probably need more cases. The main problem is the ambiguity between
ablative/allative and active/passive. As a simple phrase, I can say
(skipping the articles):
GO.man.TO 0-garden-0 = man goes to garden
GO.man.IN 0-garden-0 = man is in garden
SAY.he.FROM SAY.book.TO GO.read.TO sister = he reads the book to the sister
The last example is confusing even to me, I can't even give a good recipe
to compose this phrase still, set alone "Ge reads a book to his little
sister". So the work is not even in progress, it isn't really started yet.
As to Your conlang, I guess You compose the phrase like "I'm a conlanger"
as "being.-1SG.POSS conlanger.ASS", "My being as a conlanger". Am I right?
If so, here is my suggestion to Your example: "going-1SG.POSS (being with).-
2SG.COM restaurant.ABL", something like: "I went to the restaurant with her
proximity". You'll porbarly need to introduce several odd words "proximity"
or "being away" (Carol's "outgrabe" from "Jabberwocky") like this, but
that's how You may rule out this problem without introducing the pronouns.
And now I actually can guess how I may cope with the problems in my conlang.
Cheers,
Kolya
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Verbs as locative verbnouns
Posted by: "Hugo Cesar de Castro Carneiro" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 3, 2012 5:48 am ((PST))
> As to Your conlang, I guess You compose the phrase like "I'm a conlanger"
> as "being.-1SG.POSS conlanger.ASS", "My being as a conlanger". Am I right?
>
> Yes, it would be something like this. I created the associative case when
I read the 3rd versicle of Tower of Babel "And they had brick for stone,
and slime had they for mortar." and then I chose to use associative case
for the words "stone" and "mortar" (And they used brick *as* stone and
slime *as* mortar).
The only problem with this sentence is that conlanger is very complex
concept. And for this I would use a compound, but I don't agglutinate words
in order to create these compounds -- I wanted the words to be somewhat
small, even my language being highly synthetic (but not polysynthetic ;-)),
so the compounds would be composed of two separate words connected by a
compositional prefix and a case prefix (which marks its relation to the
previous word) in the second word (my language is intended to be VSO and
head-initial).
So this would be something like state/being-1SG.POSS ASS-building
COMP-GEN-language. (My state/being as a creator of languages).
> If so, here is my suggestion to Your example: "going-1SG.POSS (being
> with).-
> 2SG.COM restaurant.ABL", something like: "I went to the restaurant with
> her
> proximity". You'll porbarly need to introduce several odd words "proximity"
> or "being away" (Carol's "outgrabe" from "Jabberwocky") like this, but
> that's how You may rule out this problem without introducing the pronouns.
> And now I actually can guess how I may cope with the problems in my
> conlang.
>
I solved yesterday this problem by separating the cases in two groups
possessive/genitive and the rest. There would be two case positions, one
for each group. My idea came from the German Trennbare Verben (I thought
something like "of her mitbringen (with-bringing)", which would become
GEN-COM-bringing.
The sentence "I went to the restaurant with her" would be translated as
"making-1SG.POSS GEN-COM-going-3SG.POSS ALL-house/establishment
COMP-FIN-eating" (My making of her with-going to house-for-eating.
COM = comitative, FIN = final, ALL = allative
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
1e. Re: Verbs as locative verbnouns
Posted by: "Nikolay Ivankov" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 3, 2012 6:11 am ((PST))
On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 2:48 PM, Hugo Cesar de Castro Carneiro <
[email protected]> wrote:
> > As to Your conlang, I guess You compose the phrase like "I'm a conlanger"
> > as "being.-1SG.POSS conlanger.ASS", "My being as a conlanger". Am I
> right?
> >
> > Yes, it would be something like this. I created the associative case when
> I read the 3rd versicle of Tower of Babel "And they had brick for stone,
> and slime had they for mortar." and then I chose to use associative case
> for the words "stone" and "mortar" (And they used brick *as* stone and
> slime *as* mortar).
>
> The only problem with this sentence is that conlanger is very complex
> concept. And for this I would use a compound, but I don't agglutinate words
> in order to create these compounds -- I wanted the words to be somewhat
> small, even my language being highly synthetic (but not polysynthetic ;-)),
> so the compounds would be composed of two separate words connected by a
> compositional prefix and a case prefix (which marks its relation to the
> previous word) in the second word (my language is intended to be VSO and
> head-initial).
>
> So this would be something like state/being-1SG.POSS ASS-building
> COMP-GEN-language. (My state/being as a creator of languages).
>
>
>
> > If so, here is my suggestion to Your example: "going-1SG.POSS (being
> > with).-
> > 2SG.COM restaurant.ABL", something like: "I went to the restaurant with
> > her
> > proximity". You'll porbarly need to introduce several odd words
> "proximity"
> > or "being away" (Carol's "outgrabe" from "Jabberwocky") like this, but
> > that's how You may rule out this problem without introducing the
> pronouns.
> > And now I actually can guess how I may cope with the problems in my
> > conlang.
> >
>
> I solved yesterday this problem by separating the cases in two groups
> possessive/genitive and the rest. There would be two case positions, one
> for each group. My idea came from the German Trennbare Verben (I thought
> something like "of her mitbringen (with-bringing)", which would become
> GEN-COM-bringing.
>
> The sentence "I went to the restaurant with her" would be translated as
> "making-1SG.POSS GEN-COM-going-3SG.POSS ALL-house/establishment
> COMP-FIN-eating" (My making of her with-going to house-for-eating.
>
> COM = comitative, FIN = final, ALL = allative
>
Ok, I see, so basically You now let GEN and POSS to be more independent and
become prefixes. Well, then I have an idea for myself.
By the way, when I've been discussing my language last time, the people
here told me that verblessness is an ANADEW: there are Welsh with only one
"to be" verb aand Tagalog with only verbnouns.
Hm-m, I think the verbless language is something too popular by now. Maybe
it worth thinking about something nounless?
Messages in this topic (9)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Dictionary of Made-up Languages
Posted by: "John H. Chalmers" [email protected]
Date: Mon Jan 2, 2012 9:52 am ((PST))
I hadn't seen this before or discussed on Conlang, so I thought I'd pass
it on. Apologies if it is old news.
--John
*
*
*
A Dictionary Of Made-Up Languages by Stephen D. Rogers*
01/01/2012. Contributed by Geoff Willmetts
*pub: Adams Media. 293 page small hardback. Price: $16.95 (US), $17.99
(CAN). ISBN: 978-1-4405-2817-0).*
*check out website: www.adamsmedia.com <http://www.adamsmedia.com>*
'A Dictionary Of Made-Up Languages' in case you don't understand is also
equipped with the sub-title, 'From Adu(naic To Elvish, Zaum To Klingon
--The Anwa (Real) Origins Of Invented Lexicons'. In other words, this is
a guided tour around especially created languages, the majority in
fiction belonging to fantasy and Science Fiction.
Each language is noted where its source originated, some use of the
words and other information as appropriate. For those who want to dabble
further, there are also websites that you can look up and get more
involved in such languages. Rather amusingly, Ithkuil was a language
that even its creator, John Quijada, could never speak so if you're not
a polyglot there is no need to be ashamed. Littered throughout the book
are little tit-bits of information about languages from various sources
to keep you on your toes.
It shouldn't surprise anyone as to how many times J.R.R. Tolkien's 'Lord
Of The Rings' came up with number of creature species with their various
languages. Ursula LeGuin, Poul Anderson and C.J. Cherryh also have
several reference languages as well. Oddly, Anne McCaffrey isn't
actually cited for her Pern books which when you consider how new names
were found for things like nitric acid as 'agnothree' got seriously
overlooked. Then, too, so did DC Comics' Legion Of Super-Heroes 30th
century Interlac. It is referenced against the similarly titled language
in 'Babylon 5' but as its symbolic spelling was used thirty years before
it, should have merited its own entry rather than a brief line.
Of course, TV SF and films gets own share of entries. After all, where
else would you find a place to actually use them regularly. Klingon and
Vulcan are pretty obvious but the likes of 'Stargate' are also included.
If you wonder what happened to Romulan, then you need to look up
Rihannsu although the handy index will point you at the right place.
About the only other one missing is the 1985 film 'Enemy Mine' where a
human is taught the Drac language. Author Barry Longyear might not have
created the language in the book but it was certainly there in the film.
What amazed me was how many of the numbering names were based on the
French and how frequently 'ok' was used for the number 8. Likewise, the
number of artificial languages created in our own reality. Rogers
includes Esperanto and its derivative Ido as well as Volapu"k that were
made on this planet as an attempt to create a common language. When you
consider how many languages existing in our world today and how many
have died out, it does make you wonder why we would need more although
the aim of those was for a universal language. Odd that, because I
thought English which readily accepts words from other languages and
itself a combination of several languages already served that purpose.
Although Mandarin is spoken by the most people, its ideogram writing
tends to limit it extending beyond the orient.
If all this knowledge of languages has geared you up to create your own
language, even for the sake of a story, then the back section of this
book will get you started and even lists two hundred words that you
would need to translate as a starting point.
This book serves several purposes, key amongst them as a guide to the
various artificial languages out there and how many of them were created
for fantasy and Science Fiction. As a source book and despite the couple
errors I've pointed out, which no doubt will be amended in future
editions, it is also indispensable as a reference book for any of us in
our genre so be sure to add a copy to your bookshelves.
GF Willmetts
*A Dictionary Of Made-Up Languages by Stephen D. Rogers*
01/01/2012. Contributed by Geoff Willmetts
*pub: Adams Media. 293 page small hardback. Price: $16.95 (US), $17.99
(CAN). ISBN: 978-1-4405-2817-0).*
*check out website: www.adamsmedia.com <http://www.adamsmedia.com>*
'A Dictionary Of Made-Up Languages' in case you don't understand is also
equipped with the sub-title, 'From Adu(naic To Elvish, Zaum To Klingon
--The Anwa (Real) Origins Of Invented Lexicons'. In other words, this is
a guided tour around especially created languages, the majority in
fiction belonging to fantasy and Science Fiction.
Each language is noted where its source originated, some use of the
words and other information as appropriate. For those who want to dabble
further, there are also websites that you can look up and get more
involved in such languages. Rather amusingly, Ithkuil was a language
that even its creator, John Quijada, could never speak so if you're not
a polyglot there is no need to be ashamed. Littered throughout the book
are little tit-bits of information about languages from various sources
to keep you on your toes.
It shouldn't surprise anyone as to how many times J.R.R. Tolkien's 'Lord
Of The Rings' came up with number of creature species with their various
languages. Ursula LeGuin, Poul Anderson and C.J. Cherryh also have
several reference languages as well. Oddly, Anne McCaffrey isn't
actually cited for her Pern books which when you consider how new names
were found for things like nitric acid as 'agnothree' got seriously
overlooked. Then, too, so did DC Comics' Legion Of Super-Heroes 30th
century Interlac. It is referenced against the similarly titled language
in 'Babylon 5' but as its symbolic spelling was used thirty years before
it, should have merited its own entry rather than a brief line.
Of course, TV SF and films gets own share of entries. After all, where
else would you find a place to actually use them regularly. Klingon and
Vulcan are pretty obvious but the likes of 'Stargate' are also included.
If you wonder what happened to Romulan, then you need to look up
Rihannsu although the handy index will point you at the right place.
About the only other one missing is the 1985 film 'Enemy Mine' where a
human is taught the Drac language. Author Barry Longyear might not have
created the language in the book but it was certainly there in the film.
What amazed me was how many of the numbering names were based on the
French and how frequently 'ok' was used for the number 8. Likewise, the
number of artificial languages created in our own reality. Rogers
includes Esperanto and its derivative Ido as well as Volapu"k that were
made on this planet as an attempt to create a common language. When you
consider how many languages existing in our world today and how many
have died out, it does make you wonder why we would need more although
the aim of those was for a universal language. Odd that, because I
thought English which readily accepts words from other languages and
itself a combination of several languages already served that purpose.
Although Mandarin is spoken by the most people, its ideogram writing
tends to limit it extending beyond the orient.
If all this knowledge of languages has geared you up to create your own
language, even for the sake of a story, then the back section of this
book will get you started and even lists two hundred words that you
would need to translate as a starting point.
This book serves several purposes, key amongst them as a guide to the
various artificial languages out there and how many of them were created
for fantasy and Science Fiction. As a source book and despite the couple
errors I've pointed out, which no doubt will be amended in future
editions, it is also indispensable as a reference book for any of us in
our genre so be sure to add a copy to your bookshelves.
GF Willmetts
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Dictionary of Made-up Languages
Posted by: "Wm Annis" [email protected]
Date: Mon Jan 2, 2012 10:44 am ((PST))
On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 11:51 AM, John H. Chalmers <[email protected]> wrote:
> 01/01/2012. Contributed by Geoff Willmetts
> When you consider how many languages
> existing in our world today and how many have died out, it does make you
> wonder why we would need more although the aim of those was for a universal
> language. Odd that, because I thought English which readily accepts words
> from other languages and itself a combination of several languages already
> served that purpose.
It is hard to imagine two sentences which could surpass these in
demonstrating the ignorance, arrogance and snowclone-style laziness
that characterizes popular media discussions which encompass
endangered languages, IALs and conlangs in general.
--
William S. Annis
www.aoidoi.org www.scholiastae.org
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: Dictionary of Made-up Languages
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon Jan 2, 2012 11:48 am ((PST))
--- On Mon, 1/2/12, John H. Chalmers <[email protected]> wrote:
> I hadn't seen this before or
> discussed on Conlang, so I thought I'd pass it on. Apologies
> if it is old news.
The book itself was mentioned, with a small amount of discussion. The below
quoted review has not, so no worries!
A couple comments on the book, now that I've got it and have looked in it.
Honestly, I think it could have used some kind of editorial review before
publication. I noted enough errors (factual as well as "errors of
interesting material") that I'd take the whole with at least one grain of
salt.
For example, Rogers didn't list any of my conlangs, so the first ones I
looked up were Teonaht and Brithenig. Under Brithenig, we learn that it
is an "experiment to see how English might have developed differently".
Well, that's a pretty glaring factual error. (English doesn't fit into the
picture at all except for culturally, being the Saeson ffudded who live
across the Ffens). Under "Characteristics of the Language" we find that
"the last syllable is stressed" and "adding -th to a verb makes the
statement a command". HO-HUM!!! He says nothing at all about the language's
most striking feature, its system of initial mutations. I call that an
error of interesting material. If you think it's important to have a
section that highlights a language's interesting characteristics, then
give me an interesting characteristic, not a random bit of ordinary
morphology!
That said, I think the concept is a good one, the layout is handy and the
scope is broad enough to be interesting. The sections on creating your
own language and language games are interesting, but probably should be
better treated in separate works (and indeed there are at least two books
that I know of that help one along the path of language creation:
Rosenfelder's "Language Construction Kit" and Lisle's "Create a Language
Clinic").
Gentle content and grammatical editing as well as sample texts for each
language would be a great improvement. Perhaps even some regularisation
of content -- not all the entries have numbers listed, the wordlists
given vary as to words listed, etc.
> --John
>
> A Dictionary Of Made-Up Languages by Stephen D. Rogers*
>
> 01/01/2012. Contributed by Geoff Willmetts
>
> *pub: Adams Media. 293 page small hardback. Price: $16.95
> (US), $17.99 (CAN). ISBN: 978-1-4405-2817-0).*
>
> *check out website: www.adamsmedia.com <http://www.adamsmedia.com>*
>
> 'A Dictionary Of Made-Up Languages' in case you don't
> understand is also equipped with the sub-title, 'From
> Adu(naic To Elvish, Zaum To Klingon --The Anwa (Real)
> Origins Of Invented Lexicons'. In other words, this is a
> guided tour around especially created languages, the
> majority in fiction belonging to fantasy and Science
> Fiction.
>
>
>
> Each language is noted where its source originated, some
> use of the words and other information as appropriate. For
> those who want to dabble further, there are also websites
> that you can look up and get more involved in such
> languages. Rather amusingly, Ithkuil was a language that
> even its creator, John Quijada, could never speak so if
> you're not a polyglot there is no need to be ashamed.
> Littered throughout the book are little tit-bits of
> information about languages from various sources to keep you
> on your toes.
>
> It shouldn't surprise anyone as to how many times J.R.R.
> Tolkien's 'Lord Of The Rings' came up with number of
> creature species with their various languages. Ursula
> LeGuin, Poul Anderson and C.J. Cherryh also have several
> reference languages as well. Oddly, Anne McCaffrey isn't
> actually cited for her Pern books which when you consider
> how new names were found for things like nitric acid as
> 'agnothree' got seriously overlooked. Then, too, so did DC
> Comics' Legion Of Super-Heroes 30th century Interlac. It is
> referenced against the similarly titled language in 'Babylon
> 5' but as its symbolic spelling was used thirty years before
> it, should have merited its own entry rather than a brief
> line.
>
> Of course, TV SF and films gets own share of entries. After
> all, where else would you find a place to actually use them
> regularly. Klingon and Vulcan are pretty obvious but the
> likes of 'Stargate' are also included. If you wonder what
> happened to Romulan, then you need to look up Rihannsu
> although the handy index will point you at the right place.
>
> About the only other one missing is the 1985 film 'Enemy
> Mine' where a human is taught the Drac language. Author
> Barry Longyear might not have created the language in the
> book but it was certainly there in the film.
Rather a large number of constructed languages are not mentioned in the
book. Some from works of fiction, others not connected to some published
work. It is not comprehensive, but is a good first step. Next edition,
more languages should be added.
> What amazed me was how many of the numbering names were
> based on the French and how frequently 'ok' was used for the
> number 8.
Could this be because you were looking at Romance conlangs? It makes sense
for such languages to have Latin octo for their ancestral form! As for
being "based on French", I just didn't see that. Eight in French is "huit",
and while derived from octo, I don't think many of the conlangs in the
dictionary base their number 8 on "huit"!
> Likewise, the number of artificial languages
> created in our own reality. Rogers includes Esperanto and
> its derivative Ido as well as Volapu"k that were made on
> this planet as an attempt to create a common language. When
> you consider how many languages existing in our world today
> and how many have died out, it does make you wonder why we
> would need more although the aim of those was for a
> universal language.
Actually, I don't wonder at all. Humans are a creative lot. It's like this:
artists have already painted thousands of paintings and composers have
written thousands of concertos. Why do we need more? Because people are
still creative! As with paintings, so with languages: there's always room
for one more!
> Odd that, because I thought English
> which readily accepts words from other languages and itself
> a combination of several languages already served that
> purpose. Although Mandarin is spoken by the most people, its
> ideogram writing tends to limit it extending beyond the
> orient.
Politics, economics and colonialism answer the question better. English
isn't a "combination of several languages".
> If all this knowledge of languages has geared you up to
> create your own language, even for the sake of a story, then
> the back section of this book will get you started and even
> lists two hundred words that you would need to translate as
> a starting point.
>
> This book serves several purposes, key amongst them as a
> guide to the various artificial languages out there and how
> many of them were created for fantasy and Science Fiction.
Yes, that is the primary goal. Future editions should expand the number of
languages cited. For now, it's kind of like an atlas that leaves out all
the countries smaller than Greece. I'd rather see the make your own conlang
section disappear in favor of more actual language entries and improved
/ more informative articles, if it's a matter of space. If space isn't at
issue, I'd like to see more languages listed with improved content!
> As a source book and despite the couple errors I've pointed
> out, which no doubt will be amended in future editions, it
> is also indispensable as a reference book for any of us in
> our genre so be sure to add a copy to your bookshelves.
>
> GF Willmetts
>
Padraic
Messages in this topic (5)
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2d. Re: Dictionary of Made-up Languages
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" [email protected]
Date: Mon Jan 2, 2012 12:10 pm ((PST))
On 2 Jan 2012, at 19:48, Padraic Brown wrote:
> For example, Rogers didn't list any of my conlangs, so the first ones I
> looked up were Teonaht and Brithenig. Under Brithenig, we learn that it
> is an "experiment to see how English might have developed differently".
> Well, that's a pretty glaring factual error. (English doesn't fit into the
> picture at all except for culturally, being the Saeson ffudded who live
> across the Ffens). Under "Characteristics of the Language" we find that
> "the last syllable is stressed" and "adding -th to a verb makes the
> statement a command". HO-HUM!!! He says nothing at all about the language's
> most striking feature, its system of initial mutations. I call that an
> error of interesting material. If you think it's important to have a
> section that highlights a language's interesting characteristics, then
> give me an interesting characteristic, not a random bit of ordinary
> morphology!
Didn't he ask the people who created the languages? Or at least ask people who
knew them in reasonable depth?
Messages in this topic (5)
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2e. Re: Dictionary of Made-up Languages
Posted by: "Sylvia Sotomayor" [email protected]
Date: Mon Jan 2, 2012 12:35 pm ((PST))
On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 12:09 PM, Sam Stutter <[email protected]> wrote:
> Didn't he ask the people who created the languages? Or at least ask people
> who knew them in reasonable depth?
No. There are several (minor) inconsistencies in the section on KÄlen*
which I would have corrected if asked. On the other hand, this way all
the languages are treated with the same level of competency. :-)
-S
*that is, the section in so far as I can read it on amazon's look
inside feature.
--
Sylvia Sotomayor
The sooner I fall behind the more time I have to catch up.
Messages in this topic (5)
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3a. Re: Illness, Disease, and Disorder
Posted by: "Charlie Brickner" [email protected]
Date: Mon Jan 2, 2012 12:25 pm ((PST))
On Sat, 31 Dec 2011 23:31:53 +0000, Brian <[email protected]> wrote:
>Who here has delved into the medical field of sickness with his conlang? If
you have, how have you classified and categorized the various types of
abnormalities?
As the first-created of the six peoples of Sefdaania, the Ethrans, in the
156,000 years before the next people were created, learned much about the
planet on which they were placed. Their knowledge includes a catalog of 245
plant species, native to their homeland. Many of these are included in their
pharmacopoeia. The use of plants as medicine, however, was not necessary
until after the Great Sundering when sin and its effects entered the world.
Although the Ethrans are the scientists of the Sefdaanian world, it is the
Xylans who are the primary practitioners of herbal medicine, although all the
peoples have some knowledge about the curative properties of plants.
The names of types of medicines can be made by adding the suffix twis to
the root of the applicable verb.
kwáása, cough; kwáástwis, cough medicine.
mhéma, vomit; mhémtwis, emetic.
sweída, sweat; sweíðtwis, diaphoretic.
The Senjecan vocabulary has 176 anatomical terms. These can be combined
with other nouns to name various conditions and diseases.
nélhrhos, kidney + céémhas, inflammation = nèlhrhëcéémhas, nephritis.
bíslis, bile + álkas, disease = bislálkas, jaundice.
cííkos, urine + óltas, poison = ciikóltas, uremia.
Charlie
Messages in this topic (19)
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4a. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part IV
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Mon Jan 2, 2012 5:53 pm ((PST))
Sorry, I've been sitting on this and meaning to reply, but no-one's told me
the secret of the 48-hour day yet, and you know how it is.
Funnily enough I also have a conlang with Basque-inspired verbal behaviour
and a 3*2*2 system of clausal TAM possibilities: see
http://000024.org/conlang/AhH/05-11.html
under the section "Clausal tense and aspect". The main difference is that
mine are all TA, though; mode and some leftover TA is expressed by choice of
auxiliary and of oblique case on the nonfinite verb. It's interesting to
compare our approaches. I tried to give each element a consistent meaning:
one is the tense of the auxiliary (past / present / gnomic) which is
basically always still tense; and
| the existential construction tends to be dynamic and the possessive
| construction static. In the existential construction the absence of the
| progressive gives punctual senses; in the possessive the absence of the
| progressive tends to displace the event back in time.
There are probably cells in the resulting 3*2*2 system in AhH which are
quite rare, and/or never contrast with other cells: e.g. punctuality is
probably nearly perfectly lexical. That feels pleasingly realistic to me,
though. If I were sketching a descendant of AhH 500 years along, I'd want
to make at least one or two of the cells in the system have fallen into
disuse by then (though analogy might be a preservative or resurrecting
force... or it might entirely smash the system).
So, your Moten system feels a bit too cleanly filled-up to me. If it's
supposed to be old -- and it probably is -- I'd expect to see at least one of
(1) more orthogonality, due to recent analogy
(2) gaps
(3) forms with multiple unrelated uses.
That said, the thing I actually found weirdest about Moten, on reading your
verbs post, is that there are a mere 6 word forms (_ito ige etok egek patok
pagek_) one of which must appear in every canonical sentence, and they're
_bisyllables_! In a live language I'd expect fast speech processes to
reduce the length of those forms in an eyeblink...
Alex
Messages in this topic (17)
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4b. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part IV
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Mon Jan 2, 2012 10:19 pm ((PST))
On Mon, 2 Jan 2012 20:53:29 -0500, Alex Fink <[email protected]> wrote:
>Funnily enough I also have a conlang with Basque-inspired verbal behaviour
>and a 3*2*2 system of clausal TAM possibilities: see
> http://000024.org/conlang/AhH/05-11.html
>under the section "Clausal tense and aspect".
Apparently it's DNS change propagation time and people can't see that. I
quote the relevant section.
| == Clausal tense and aspect ==
|
| We have seen that that the p-verb has a two-way progressive vs. unmarked
| distinction and that the s-verb has a three-way distinction of tense.
| Taken together with the choice between the existential construction and
| the possessive construction, this makes 2 · 3 · 2 = 12 ways of marking
| any given canonical p-verbal clause. AhH makes good use of these,
| associating each with one of its twelve basic tense-aspect categories:
| pres existential present punctual
| prog pres existential present progressive
| past existential past punctual
| prog past existential past imperfect
| hab existential iterative
| prog hab existential habitual dynamic
| pres possessive aorist = past perfective
| prog pres possessive present static
| past possessive pluperfect; remote aorist
| prog past possessive perfect of result
| hab possessive past habitual
| prog hab possessive generic = habitual static
|
| The general scheme is that the existential construction tends to be
| dynamic and the possessive construction static. In the existential
| construction the absence of the progressive gives punctual senses; in the
| possessive the absence of the progressive tends to displace the event
| back in time.
|
| Clauses with no p-verb simply collapse many of these distinctions; only
| the tense distinction on the s-verb is available.
(I said present / past / gnomic last time, I meant present / past / habitual.)
Alex
Messages in this topic (17)
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4c. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part IV
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jan 3, 2012 12:34 am ((PST))
On 3 January 2012 02:53, Alex Fink <[email protected]> wrote:
> Sorry, I've been sitting on this and meaning to reply, but no-one's told me
> the secret of the 48-hour day yet, and you know how it is.
>
>
I'm still trying to discover it as well. You'll be the first to know if I
manage! :)
> Funnily enough I also have a conlang with Basque-inspired verbal behaviour
> and a 3*2*2 system of clausal TAM possibilities: see
> http://000024.org/conlang/AhH/05-11.html
> under the section "Clausal tense and aspect". The main difference is that
> mine are all TA, though; mode and some leftover TA is expressed by choice
> of
> auxiliary and of oblique case on the nonfinite verb. It's interesting to
> compare our approaches. I tried to give each element a consistent meaning:
> one is the tense of the auxiliary (past / present / gnomic) which is
> basically always still tense; and
> | the existential construction tends to be dynamic and the possessive
> | construction static. In the existential construction the absence of the
> | progressive gives punctual senses; in the possessive the absence of the
> | progressive tends to displace the event back in time.
>
>
Interesting. Originally mine was just filling up the possibilities with
what felt right (I was 15 at the time I designed Moten first!), although
over time I tweaked things to make them feel better (for instance, I
originally described the prospective aspect as a simple future tense, which
made it stand out as a sore thumb).
> There are probably cells in the resulting 3*2*2 system in AhH which are
> quite rare, and/or never contrast with other cells: e.g. punctuality is
> probably nearly perfectly lexical. That feels pleasingly realistic to me,
> though. If I were sketching a descendant of AhH 500 years along, I'd want
> to make at least one or two of the cells in the system have fallen into
> disuse by then (though analogy might be a preservative or resurrecting
> force... or it might entirely smash the system).
>
>
We have a single source for Moten: a single boy with amnesia. So it's
unknown whether the current verbal system is recent or old, remodelled by
analogy or academy fiat, etc. It's just the way it is at this moment for
this speaker.
> So, your Moten system feels a bit too cleanly filled-up to me.
It probably is. It's one of the mysteries of the language, but then it's
difficult to get more info when you have a single informant :) .
> If it's
> supposed to be old -- and it probably is -- I'd expect to see at least one
> of
> (1) more orthogonality, due to recent analogy
> (2) gaps
> (3) forms with multiple unrelated uses.
>
>
All the present forms are not used by all the verbs equally. The
auxiliaries, for instance, do not use the perfective and imperfective
aspects (using their synthetic forms instead). The middle voice is a weird
thing, and the capacitive mood is quite restricted in use. Only the
modalities seem to be truly stable and universally used for all verbs.
Also, I haven't mentioned it yet, but some forms I have yet to describe
point out to an older state of the language where verbs had synthetic forms
as well (or maybe additional non-finite forms, it's not completely clear
what they are). Some have been kept in frozen expressions, and seem to
indicate that the language, at one point, had at least an optative mood, as
well as a few other less well understood forms, with constructions
different from the modern ones.
For instance, the most common greeting in Moten is _mejto_, translated as
"hello". It is definitely related to the verb _imeti_: to greet, but how
exactly is not clear, as there is no productive construction that takes a
verb stem and adds an infix -j- and a suffix -o to it. It might have been a
separate hortative, an optative, or something else altogether. There's just
not enough data to know for sure.
So things are not as clean as they look. This impression of cleanliness is
partly a consequence of the description I made, where I left out some
details on purpose in order to simplify the explanation.
> That said, the thing I actually found weirdest about Moten, on reading your
> verbs post, is that there are a mere 6 word forms (_ito ige etok egek patok
> pagek_) one of which must appear in every canonical sentence, and they're
> _bisyllables_! In a live language I'd expect fast speech processes to
> reduce the length of those forms in an eyeblink...
>
>
Here again, I haven't mentioned it yet, but in actual speech those can in
certain circumstances be omitted. The pro-drop nature of Moten extends to
the periphrastic constructions themselves! I haven't mentioned it yet
though, as how it works can be rather complicated, and I need to discuss
surdéclinaison first before I can tackle this point.
In any case, while isolated sentences must contain an auxiliary (well, in
polite speech anyway), in connected speech those can often be omitted
altogether (according to some rules), and in informal speech they can be
omitted even more often (the rules are then relaxed :) ). So they are not
nearly as often used as it seems, and for this reason are rather stable in
form.
Thanks for your comments! I hope things will become clearer as I publish
more about Moten.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (17)
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5a. Re: Barsoomian units of length (was: Barsoomian Project)
Posted by: "Puey McCleary" [email protected]
Date: Mon Jan 2, 2012 7:46 pm ((PST))
Since any reconstruction of Barsoomian is going to be
rather imaginative, Id just like to toss out a few ideas.
For instance, isnt the Mangani language (the language of
the Great Apes) the ancestor of all human languages? Do the White Apes of
Barsoom speak Mangani? If so, one may want to look at what Burroughs (and
other authors) have done with it. Heres one list of words.
http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Mangani.pdf
The Mangani language was of course closely related to the
language of the Pal-ul-Don, though that language also had an article and
some verbal inflexion. The language of Pal-ul-Don used reduplication for
plurals, and the language of Amtor (Venus) used kl- as the plural prefix,
if I remember right.
It does strike me that Barsoomian, Mangani, Amtorian, and
even the language of Pellucidar shared a similar phonaesthetic.
Den Valdron wrote a couple of speculative essays on the
language of Barsoom. One of his ideas is that originally the Tur cult was
dominant on Barsoom, and that remnants of that name occur in several
places, such as with Dejah Thor-is.
http://www.erbzine.com/mag14/1423.html
http://www.erbzine.com/mag15/1504.html
And of course, John Carter was always finding lost cities
and new worlds on Barsoom, and it is entirely possible that the other
stories we have about Mars are just other valleys in Barsoom. From Beyond
the Zodiac I think we get a noun and verb paradigm. And from C. S. Lewis
Space Trilogy, we get some wonderful words and patterns, which can be
found here:
http://conlang27.tripod.com/osgramm.html
In short, there are many directions one can take in
constructing (or really imagining) the language of the Holy Therns and the
Tharks and the incomparable Dejah Thoris.
Messages in this topic (11)
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