There are 16 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Translating Franz Kafka, "An Imperial Message" into Ayeri
From: Gary Shannon
1b. Re: Translating Franz Kafka, "An Imperial Message" into Ayeri
From: Eric Christopherson
1c. Re: Translating Franz Kafka, "An Imperial Message" into Ayeri
From: Sam Stutter
2a. Re: language vs. economics
From: Roman Rausch
2b. Re: language vs. economics
From: MorphemeAddict
3a. Re: Іљте Ьлеј: Delang keyboard for Wi ndows
From: Peter Cyrus
3b. Re: Іљте Ьлеј: Delang keyboard for Windows
From: Тоłе МаьіЛеƒіљ
4a. inflection and agreement of adverbs?
From: Roman Rausch
4b. Re: inflection and agreement of adverbs?
From: Sam Stutter
4c. Re: inflection and agreement of adverbs?
From: Matthew Boutilier
4d. Re: inflection and agreement of adverbs?
From: Padraic Brown
4e. Re: inflection and agreement of adverbs?
From: Matthew Boutilier
5a. Re: New Blog Post: Mo ten Part VIII: Su rdé clinai so n , Def i
From: Elliott Lash
6a. Re: Target audiences of conlangs in media (was: R2D2 language)
From: Nikolay Ivankov
6b. Re: Target audiences of conlangs in media (was: R2D2 language)
From: Sam Stutter
6c. Re: Target audiences of conlangs in media (was: R2D2 language)
From: yuri
Messages
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1a. Re: Translating Franz Kafka, "An Imperial Message" into Ayeri
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Sat Apr 7, 2012 8:38 am ((PDT))
An impressive accomplishment. I enjoyed listening to the audio. It has
a very naturalistic feel to it.
--gary
On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 5:07 AM, Carsten Becker <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I just wanted to show off this: <http://benung.nfshost.com/archives/1893>.
> That is, I'm done with the series I've been posting since mid-February now.
> There's also a Youtube video included with a (slightly more elaborate)
> recording I made of the text.
>
> Cheers
> Carsten
Messages in this topic (4)
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1b. Re: Translating Franz Kafka, "An Imperial Message" into Ayeri
Posted by: "Eric Christopherson" [email protected]
Date: Sat Apr 7, 2012 11:06 am ((PDT))
On Apr 7, 2012, at 10:37 AM, Gary Shannon wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 5:07 AM, Carsten Becker <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I just wanted to show off this: <http://benung.nfshost.com/archives/1893>.
>> That is, I'm done with the series I've been posting since mid-February now.
>> There's also a Youtube video included with a (slightly more elaborate)
>> recording I made of the text.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Carsten
> An impressive accomplishment. I enjoyed listening to the audio. It has
> a very naturalistic feel to it.
>
> --gary
>
Indeed! The translation itself, the notes, the audio, and the writing are all
very impressive. I'm also impressed by how quickly you got it done.
Messages in this topic (4)
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1c. Re: Translating Franz Kafka, "An Imperial Message" into Ayeri
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" [email protected]
Date: Sat Apr 7, 2012 12:17 pm ((PDT))
I can only agree. This would have taken me years to do, and I would have been
so much less smooth.
Sam Stutter
[email protected]
"No e na'l cu barri"
On 7 Apr 2012, at 19:05, Eric Christopherson <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Apr 7, 2012, at 10:37 AM, Gary Shannon wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 5:07 AM, Carsten Becker <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I just wanted to show off this: <http://benung.nfshost.com/archives/1893>.
>>> That is, I'm done with the series I've been posting since mid-February now.
>>> There's also a Youtube video included with a (slightly more elaborate)
>>> recording I made of the text.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>> Carsten
>
>> An impressive accomplishment. I enjoyed listening to the audio. It has
>> a very naturalistic feel to it.
>>
>> --gary
>>
>
> Indeed! The translation itself, the notes, the audio, and the writing are all
> very impressive. I'm also impressed by how quickly you got it done.
Messages in this topic (4)
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2a. Re: language vs. economics
Posted by: "Roman Rausch" [email protected]
Date: Sat Apr 7, 2012 10:18 am ((PDT))
>Really? You think we shouldn't do science unless we can be 100% certain
>the data is without errors? Science doesn't work that way. You make
>observations as accurately as you can using the tools and methods
>available, then someone else looks at it again to make sure. And then
>another person. And then another.
I know how science works, I'm a scientist. ;-) You eliminate unwanted
variables by preparing a clean sample and figuring out an experimental setup
to measure the thing you're interested in. In this case it might be a game
involving decisions about whether to save or to get immediate payout with
equal starting conditions, but the participants should be unaware of what
the researchers are actually investigating. One could actually invent a
conlang with or without FTR, ask them to communicate in it and see whether
those using an overt future tense are going to plan more carefully.
And if you just combine two statistics with each other, I'd like to see a
kind of placebo study as they do in medicine: Take some other grammatical
features randomly and show that there is no correlation for those compared
to the future tense.
For example, from the chart in the video it seems to me that languages
without a definite article cluster on the left side, i.e. their speakers
save more: Korean, Russian, Japanese, Czech, Finnish. On the right side you
have mostly languages with a definite article: Greek, English, Hebrew,
Portuguese, Icelandic.
So how about this theory: If you speak a language without a definite
article, you are likely to save more money. I don't feel I have to explain
the mechanism of this, as it wasn't really explained for the future tense
either.
>I thought linguistic determinism was debunked decades ago.
In linguistics it was, but it seems that other disciplines have to go
through it on their own.
Messages in this topic (18)
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2b. Re: language vs. economics
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" [email protected]
Date: Sat Apr 7, 2012 2:57 pm ((PDT))
On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 1:18 PM, Roman Rausch <[email protected]> wrote:
> >Really? You think we shouldn't do science unless we can be 100% certain
> >the data is without errors? Science doesn't work that way. You make
> >observations as accurately as you can using the tools and methods
> >available, then someone else looks at it again to make sure. And then
> >another person. And then another.
>
> I know how science works, I'm a scientist. ;-) You eliminate unwanted
> variables by preparing a clean sample and figuring out an experimental
> setup
> to measure the thing you're interested in. In this case it might be a game
> involving decisions about whether to save or to get immediate payout with
> equal starting conditions, but the participants should be unaware of what
> the researchers are actually investigating. One could actually invent a
> conlang with or without FTR, ask them to communicate in it and see whether
> those using an overt future tense are going to plan more carefully.
>
> And if you just combine two statistics with each other, I'd like to see a
> kind of placebo study as they do in medicine: Take some other grammatical
> features randomly and show that there is no correlation for those compared
> to the future tense.
> For example, from the chart in the video it seems to me that languages
> without a definite article cluster on the left side, i.e. their speakers
> save more: Korean, Russian, Japanese, Czech, Finnish. On the right side you
> have mostly languages with a definite article: Greek, English, Hebrew,
> Portuguese, Icelandic.
> So how about this theory: If you speak a language without a definite
> article, you are likely to save more money. I don't feel I have to explain
> the mechanism of this, as it wasn't really explained for the future tense
> either.
>
> It makes a lot more sense intuitively for an obligatory future tense to
have an effect on something related to the future than the presence of
articles would.
I agree though, about further testing.
stevo
> >I thought linguistic determinism was debunked decades ago.
>
> In linguistics it was, but it seems that other disciplines have to go
> through it on their own.
>
Messages in this topic (18)
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3a. Re: Іљте Ьлеј: Delang keyboard for Wi ndows
Posted by: "Peter Cyrus" [email protected]
Date: Sat Apr 7, 2012 1:16 pm ((PDT))
I unzipped and installed it with no problem, but I'm having trouble getting
it to work.
The language is set to Yi (I guess that's whose codepoints you're stepping
on), but even a Unicode font doesn't display Delang.
What software did you use to create the keyboard?
On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 11:52 PM, Тоłе МаьіЛеƒіљ МаьіПаніљ <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Wanna write in Delang? Keyboard now available on site.
> http://illte.conlang.org/ (Link on bottom left)
>
> --
> Тоłе МаьіЛеƒіљ МаьіПаніљ
>
> Δебјані ҩнІљте Ьлеј
> http://illte.conlang.org/ http://delang.conlang.org/
> ___
> «Панемі ƒłе δеьлеј ҩнδеьомеłс» - анƕомі
>
Messages in this topic (3)
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3b. Re: Іљте Ьлеј: Delang keyboard for Windows
Posted by: "Тоłе МаьіЛеƒіљ" [email protected]
Date: Sat Apr 7, 2012 2:41 pm ((PDT))
Are there anyone else that has the same problem?
On 07.04.2012 22:16, Peter Cyrus wrote:
> I unzipped and installed it with no problem, but I'm having trouble getting
> it to work.
>
> The language is set to Yi (I guess that's whose codepoints you're stepping
> on), but even a Unicode font doesn't display Delang.
Tell me what program you used and what font, please.
>
> What software did you use to create the keyboard?
Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator 1.4.
>
> On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 11:52 PM, Тоłе МаьіЛеƒіљ МаьіПаніљ<
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Wanna write in Delang? Keyboard now available on site.
>> http://illte.conlang.org/ (Link on bottom left)
>>
>> --
>> Тоłе МаьіЛеƒіљ МаьіПаніљ
>>
>> Δебјані ҩнІљте Ьлеј
>> http://illte.conlang.org/ http://delang.conlang.org/
>> ___
>> «Панемі ƒłе δеьлеј ҩнδеьомеłс» - анƕомі
>>
--
Тоłе МаьіЛеƒіљ МаьіПаніљ
Δебјані ҩнІљте Ьлеј
http://illte.conlang.org/ http://delang.conlang.org/
___
«Панемі ƒłе δеьлеј ҩнδеьомеłс» - анƕомі
Messages in this topic (3)
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4a. inflection and agreement of adverbs?
Posted by: "Roman Rausch" [email protected]
Date: Sat Apr 7, 2012 3:19 pm ((PDT))
I'm wondering whether it is possible to have adverbs agree in person and/or
number with the verbs they're modifying, for example:
'He runs quickly'
= he quick-3.SG.ADV run-3.SG
rather than just 'he quick-ADV run-3.SG'
'They run quickly'
= they quick-3.PL.ADV run-3.PL
or at least:
= they quick-PL.ADV run-3.PL
So you would have a singular and a plural form of the adverb at the very
least (not necessarily related to the plural of adjectives); or a whole
paradigm of adverb conjugation for person. You could have gender agreement,
if it's marked on the verbs; and of course agreement in tense, aspect and
all that good stuff. But the basic question would be: Are there plural adverbs?
This seems like a logical possibility, yet doesn't seem to happen in
Indo-European. Maybe somewhere else, including conlangs?
Messages in this topic (5)
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4b. Re: inflection and agreement of adverbs?
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" [email protected]
Date: Sat Apr 7, 2012 3:43 pm ((PDT))
I always assumed it was possible, but, by the time I had gone through declining
nouns and adjectives and conjugating verbs, I could never be bothered to do
anything too complicated with adverbs :)
On 7 Apr 2012, at 23:19, Roman Rausch wrote:
> I'm wondering whether it is possible to have adverbs agree in person and/or
> number with the verbs they're modifying, for example:
>
> 'He runs quickly'
> = he quick-3.SG.ADV run-3.SG
> rather than just 'he quick-ADV run-3.SG'
>
> 'They run quickly'
> = they quick-3.PL.ADV run-3.PL
> or at least:
> = they quick-PL.ADV run-3.PL
>
> So you would have a singular and a plural form of the adverb at the very
> least (not necessarily related to the plural of adjectives); or a whole
> paradigm of adverb conjugation for person. You could have gender agreement,
> if it's marked on the verbs; and of course agreement in tense, aspect and
> all that good stuff. But the basic question would be: Are there plural
> adverbs?
> This seems like a logical possibility, yet doesn't seem to happen in
> Indo-European. Maybe somewhere else, including conlangs?
Messages in this topic (5)
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4c. Re: inflection and agreement of adverbs?
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" [email protected]
Date: Sat Apr 7, 2012 4:29 pm ((PDT))
this isn't exactly what you specified, but the closest thing i can think of
is how akkadian (and possibly other older semitic languages) uses two verbs
in hendiadys such that one of them has an adverbial meaning. the presence
or absence of the ability to create this kind of verbal hendiadys varies
lexically from verb to verb. ex:
atâr-ma alpī ušākal
1sg-return.DUR and oxen-ACC 1sg-feed.DUR
'I'm feeding the oxen again.' (lit: I'm returning and (I'm) feeding the
oxen.)
where târum 'to return, go back' has the meaning 'do something again' in
hendiadys.
iʾid-ma epištam epuš
2ms-be.careful-IMP and work-ACC 2ms-do-IMP
'Do the work carefully!' (lit: Be careful and do the work!)
where naʾādum (of which the 2ms imperative is iʾid, if memory serves) 'to
be careful' means 'do something carefully' in hendiadys.
the two verbs in each pair, virtually used in apposition, are in the same
tense (the durative in the former example; the present (imperative) in the
latter), and they are linked with that '-ma' enclitic conjunction that
basically just means 'and.' and obviously they have the same grammatical
subject in number, person, and gender.
i have always thought this was a super cool way to do adverbs, since it
lets them play a more morphologically active role in the sentence rather
than just floating out in the cold on their own (as so often seems to
happen in IE) with only some half-hearted 'adverbial suffix' to keep them
warm. (i should say, akkadian *has* several adverbial suffixes that
function just so, but the salience of the hendiadys construction is..well,
salient.)
matt
On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 5:19 PM, Roman Rausch <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm wondering whether it is possible to have adverbs agree in person and/or
> number with the verbs they're modifying, for example:
>
> 'He runs quickly'
> = he quick-3.SG.ADV run-3.SG
> rather than just 'he quick-ADV run-3.SG'
>
> 'They run quickly'
> = they quick-3.PL.ADV run-3.PL
> or at least:
> = they quick-PL.ADV run-3.PL
>
> So you would have a singular and a plural form of the adverb at the very
> least (not necessarily related to the plural of adjectives); or a whole
> paradigm of adverb conjugation for person. You could have gender agreement,
> if it's marked on the verbs; and of course agreement in tense, aspect and
> all that good stuff. But the basic question would be: Are there plural
> adverbs?
> This seems like a logical possibility, yet doesn't seem to happen in
> Indo-European. Maybe somewhere else, including conlangs?
>
Messages in this topic (5)
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4d. Re: inflection and agreement of adverbs?
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Sat Apr 7, 2012 4:55 pm ((PDT))
--- On Sat, 4/7/12, Roman Rausch <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm wondering whether it is possible to have adverbs agree in person
> and/or number with the verbs they're modifying, for example:
Why not? You could conjugate them in a verbal fashion to show whatever
you need them to show.
> 'He runs quickly'
> = he quick-3.SG.ADV run-3.SG
> rather than just 'he quick-ADV run-3.SG'
rapidet currit.
> 'They run quickly'
> = they quick-3.PL.ADV run-3.PL
> or at least:
> = they quick-PL.ADV run-3.PL
rapident current.
> So you would have a singular and a plural form of the adverb
> at the very
> least (not necessarily related to the plural of adjectives);
> or a whole
> paradigm of adverb conjugation for person. You could have
> gender agreement,
> if it's marked on the verbs; and of course agreement in
> tense, aspect and
> all that good stuff.
Begs the question why? Why would you need such redundancy? Do you really
need something like "rapideverunt cucurrerunt"? This is probably why
adverbs aren't conjugated in the first place, if they're just going to
show the same information that is displayed by the verb.
> But the basic question would be: Are there plural adverbs?
If you want there to be, sure!
> This seems like a logical possibility, yet doesn't seem to happen in
> Indo-European. Maybe somewhere else, including conlangs?
Some IE languages have conjugated preverbs (prepositions used with verbs),
so why not conjugate something else like adverbs?
Padraic
Messages in this topic (5)
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4e. Re: inflection and agreement of adverbs?
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" [email protected]
Date: Sat Apr 7, 2012 5:10 pm ((PDT))
something similar can be done in (ancient) greek, loading the adverbial
sense into a full-fledged verb and then putting the verbal sense into a
participle. so:
φάινονται ἐρχόμενοι
be.obvious-PRES-3p coming-MASC-PL
'They are obviously coming' (lit: Coming, they are obvious)
ἔτυχον ἱππεύων
chance-AOR-1s riding.a.horse-MASC-SG
'I was coincidentally riding a horse / I happened to be riding a horse'
(lit: Horseback-riding, I chanced)
but i think as soon as you start giving adverbial-meaning-carrying-things
tenses and numbers and what not, people get very reluctant to call them
adverbs.
matt
On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 6:28 PM, Matthew Boutilier <[email protected]>wrote:
> this isn't exactly what you specified, but the closest thing i can think
> of is how akkadian (and possibly other older semitic languages) uses two
> verbs in hendiadys such that one of them has an adverbial meaning. the
> presence or absence of the ability to create this kind of verbal hendiadys
> varies lexically from verb to verb. ex:
>
> atâr-ma alpī ušākal
>
> 1sg-return.DUR and oxen-ACC 1sg-feed.DUR
>
> 'I'm feeding the oxen again.' (lit: I'm returning and (I'm) feeding the
> oxen.)
>
>
> where târum 'to return, go back' has the meaning 'do something again' in
> hendiadys.
>
>
> iʾid-ma epištam epuš
>
> 2ms-be.careful-IMP and work-ACC 2ms-do-IMP
> 'Do the work carefully!' (lit: Be careful and do the work!)
>
> where naʾādum (of which the 2ms imperative is iʾid, if memory serves) 'to
> be careful' means 'do something carefully' in hendiadys.
>
> the two verbs in each pair, virtually used in apposition, are in the same
> tense (the durative in the former example; the present (imperative) in the
> latter), and they are linked with that '-ma' enclitic conjunction that
> basically just means 'and.' and obviously they have the same grammatical
> subject in number, person, and gender.
>
> i have always thought this was a super cool way to do adverbs, since it
> lets them play a more morphologically active role in the sentence rather
> than just floating out in the cold on their own (as so often seems to
> happen in IE) with only some half-hearted 'adverbial suffix' to keep them
> warm. (i should say, akkadian *has* several adverbial suffixes that
> function just so, but the salience of the hendiadys construction is..well,
> salient.)
>
> matt
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 5:19 PM, Roman Rausch <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> I'm wondering whether it is possible to have adverbs agree in person
>> and/or
>> number with the verbs they're modifying, for example:
>>
>> 'He runs quickly'
>> = he quick-3.SG.ADV run-3.SG
>> rather than just 'he quick-ADV run-3.SG'
>>
>> 'They run quickly'
>> = they quick-3.PL.ADV run-3.PL
>> or at least:
>> = they quick-PL.ADV run-3.PL
>>
>> So you would have a singular and a plural form of the adverb at the very
>> least (not necessarily related to the plural of adjectives); or a whole
>> paradigm of adverb conjugation for person. You could have gender
>> agreement,
>> if it's marked on the verbs; and of course agreement in tense, aspect and
>> all that good stuff. But the basic question would be: Are there plural
>> adverbs?
>> This seems like a logical possibility, yet doesn't seem to happen in
>> Indo-European. Maybe somewhere else, including conlangs?
>>
>
>
Messages in this topic (5)
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5a. Re: New Blog Post: Mo ten Part VIII: Su rdé clinai so n , Def i
Posted by: "Elliott Lash" [email protected]
Date: Sat Apr 7, 2012 7:28 pm ((PDT))
My mother, born in 1940s says 'text' as the past tense, and texes as the 3rd
singular, and texing as the participle...
el
________________________________
From: And Rosta <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 7:57 AM
Subject: Re: New Blog Post: Mo ten Part VIII: Su rdé clinaiso n , Def inition
and Main Nominal Use
Ralph DeCarli, On 21/03/2012 01:41:
> Adam Walker<[email protected]> wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Charlie Brickner<
>>> Speaking of which: "to text' often doesn't have a past tense in
>>> the spoken language. I watch two of the courtroom shows and I
>>> always hear, "He text me...." I guess "texted" is too difficult
>>> to say.
>>
>> Indeed. I rarely hear the -ed past used with "to text." I use
>> it, at least when I'm being careful, not sure about otherwise, but
>> hearing it is rare. The most common conjugation is clearly:
>>
>> I text, I am texting, I text, I have text
>
> Are we sure they aren't saying 'texed'?
If the ing-form really is _texting_, then the choice between the ed-form being
_text_ or _texed_ is arbitrary; but maybe the verb is regular, the stem is
always _tex_, and the ing-participle is _texing_; as a stem, _text_ is
phonologically irregular, so _tex_ would be a natural regularization. All my
students have _text/texed_ for the ed-form, but I haven't checked on what the
stem is for them. (I of course say _texted_, but I was born in the 1960s not
the 1990s.)
--And.
Messages in this topic (10)
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6a. Re: Target audiences of conlangs in media (was: R2D2 language)
Posted by: "Nikolay Ivankov" [email protected]
Date: Sun Apr 8, 2012 1:03 am ((PDT))
On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 7:15 PM, Jörg Rhiemeier <[email protected]>wrote:
> Hallo conlangers!
>
> On Wed, 4 Apr 2012 11:07:41 -0400 George Corley wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 9:56 AM, MorphemeAddict <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > I suspect that the language would have been too weird or too 'hard' if
> it
> > > had been any better. It was nearly optimal for its purpose.
> > >
> > > stevo
> > >
> >
> > Really? Klingon is not "too hard". Na'vi is not "too hard", Dothraki
> is
> > not "too hard". When you are creating a constructed language for a work
> of
> > fiction, specifically in the modern literature market, then I think you
> > should take linguistics geeks as the target audience for said language.
>
> Or rather, linguistics geeks are a noteworthy *part* of the
> audience. There are millions of Star Trek fans who are not
> interested in the Klingon language beyond a few set phrases.
> The same goes, mutatis mutandis, with fans of other media
> franchises featuring conlangs. Such people won't care about
> the conlangs being shallow relexes of English or whatever;
> on the other hand, I haven't heard of anyone who said that
> Sindarin, Klingon or Na'vi was "too difficult".
>
> But quite a few people *do* care about the quality of the
> conlangs used in books, movies, TV series or games. They are
> certainly a minority of the audience, but the days when the
> quality of the fictional languages in a media franchise "just
> didn't matter" are over. Fantasy and science fiction fans are
> now aware of the fact that a language is much more than a list
> of exotic-sounding words, and expect something original and self-
> contained, just as they expect excellent special effects when
> they go to the movies (even though the most important matter in
> a film is of course still the *story*). Good conlanging simply
> has become part of good worldbuilding craftsmanship.
>
I'd rather agree at this point. For instance, one of the thing which I
really didn't like about the Elder Scrolls series is that the languages
there (at least the Draconic) are the coinages from English. Even though
they've invented a really new writing system for Skyrim, and a brand new
vocabulary, the fact that Draconic just substitutes English words is for me
a sign of neglect. I appreciate that it's difficult for the designers to
learn an artlang, but other people do it.
>
> > Even if your overall work is intended for a general audience, the kind
> of
> > people who will be interested in the language itself are often the kind
> of
> > people who will dig as deep as we will. And once again, there are plenty
> > of ways to avoid the issue entirely without making more than a few token
> > words.
>
> Yes. Those who care for the languages look deeper and are
> disappointed when they find that the languages work just like
> English and the glyphs are just a letter substitution cipher.
> Those who don't care for the languages won't complain about
> such naive conlangs, but they won't complain about languages
> that are "too difficult". This is not like a Prisoner's
> Dilemma, it is like Pascal's Wager, where you can only win or
> draw but never lose when you "believe in God" and make a good
> conlang. (Pascal's Wager goes like this: If God exists, he will
> reward me if I believe, and censure me if I don't. If God
> doesn't exist, it makes no difference whether I believe or not.
> Hence, it is rational to believe in God.)
>
> Conclusion: Well-developed and original conlangs are state of the
> art in imaginative fiction, and doing them satisfies those who
> care and won't hurt those who don't care.
>
> --
> ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
> http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
> "Bęsel asa Ęm, a Ęm atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Ęmel." - SiM 1:1
>
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
6b. Re: Target audiences of conlangs in media (was: R2D2 language)
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" [email protected]
Date: Sun Apr 8, 2012 3:26 am ((PDT))
Maybe it also has something to do with a (widespread?) misconception that
languages are more similar than they actually are. Yeah, so French has this
"gender" malarkey, but otherwise it's just like English with a few
replacements, right? And Spanish is like French, only with more "h" and a lisp.
I don't know many monolingual people, but I've seen reasonably intelligent
people be shocked that there could be any more phonemes other than those of
English plus /x/, that Mandarin has tone or that case actually matters.
Sam Stutter
[email protected]
"No e na'l cu barri"
On 8 Apr 2012, at 09:02, Nikolay Ivankov <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 7:15 PM, Jörg Rhiemeier <[email protected]>wrote:
>
>> Hallo conlangers!
>>
>> On Wed, 4 Apr 2012 11:07:41 -0400 George Corley wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 9:56 AM, MorphemeAddict <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I suspect that the language would have been too weird or too 'hard' if
>> it
>>>> had been any better. It was nearly optimal for its purpose.
>>>>
>>>> stevo
>>>>
>>>
>>> Really? Klingon is not "too hard". Na'vi is not "too hard", Dothraki
>> is
>>> not "too hard". When you are creating a constructed language for a work
>> of
>>> fiction, specifically in the modern literature market, then I think you
>>> should take linguistics geeks as the target audience for said language.
>>
>> Or rather, linguistics geeks are a noteworthy *part* of the
>> audience. There are millions of Star Trek fans who are not
>> interested in the Klingon language beyond a few set phrases.
>> The same goes, mutatis mutandis, with fans of other media
>> franchises featuring conlangs. Such people won't care about
>> the conlangs being shallow relexes of English or whatever;
>> on the other hand, I haven't heard of anyone who said that
>> Sindarin, Klingon or Na'vi was "too difficult".
>>
>> But quite a few people *do* care about the quality of the
>> conlangs used in books, movies, TV series or games. They are
>> certainly a minority of the audience, but the days when the
>> quality of the fictional languages in a media franchise "just
>> didn't matter" are over. Fantasy and science fiction fans are
>> now aware of the fact that a language is much more than a list
>> of exotic-sounding words, and expect something original and self-
>> contained, just as they expect excellent special effects when
>> they go to the movies (even though the most important matter in
>> a film is of course still the *story*). Good conlanging simply
>> has become part of good worldbuilding craftsmanship.
>>
>
> I'd rather agree at this point. For instance, one of the thing which I
> really didn't like about the Elder Scrolls series is that the languages
> there (at least the Draconic) are the coinages from English. Even though
> they've invented a really new writing system for Skyrim, and a brand new
> vocabulary, the fact that Draconic just substitutes English words is for me
> a sign of neglect. I appreciate that it's difficult for the designers to
> learn an artlang, but other people do it.
>
>
>>
>>> Even if your overall work is intended for a general audience, the kind
>> of
>>> people who will be interested in the language itself are often the kind
>> of
>>> people who will dig as deep as we will. And once again, there are plenty
>>> of ways to avoid the issue entirely without making more than a few token
>>> words.
>>
>> Yes. Those who care for the languages look deeper and are
>> disappointed when they find that the languages work just like
>> English and the glyphs are just a letter substitution cipher.
>> Those who don't care for the languages won't complain about
>> such naive conlangs, but they won't complain about languages
>> that are "too difficult". This is not like a Prisoner's
>> Dilemma, it is like Pascal's Wager, where you can only win or
>> draw but never lose when you "believe in God" and make a good
>> conlang. (Pascal's Wager goes like this: If God exists, he will
>> reward me if I believe, and censure me if I don't. If God
>> doesn't exist, it makes no difference whether I believe or not.
>> Hence, it is rational to believe in God.)
>>
>> Conclusion: Well-developed and original conlangs are state of the
>> art in imaginative fiction, and doing them satisfies those who
>> care and won't hurt those who don't care.
>>
>> --
>> ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
>> http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
>> "Bęsel asa Ęm, a Ęm atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Ęmel." - SiM 1:1
>>
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
6c. Re: Target audiences of conlangs in media (was: R2D2 language)
Posted by: "yuri" [email protected]
Date: Sun Apr 8, 2012 4:36 am ((PDT))
On 8 April 2012 22:26, Sam Stutter wrote:
> Maybe it also has something to do with a (widespread?)
> misconception that languages are more similar than they actually are.
> Yeah, so French has this "gender" malarkey, but otherwise it's just
> like English with a few replacements, right? And Spanish is like
> French, only with more "h" and a lisp.
Yes, widespread.
The best way to lose this misconception is to start learning languages
which contain words that have no exact counterpart in your native
language.
e.g. I don't think there's a single English word that maps to the
Dutch word "gezelligheid"
In my own conlang I aim to have many abstract nouns for which there is
no exact English counterpart.
Yuri
Messages in this topic (7)
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