There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: A different sort of Conlang Relay
From: Sam Stutter
1b. Re: A different sort of Conlang Relay
From: Sam Stutter
1c. Re: A different sort of Conlang Relay
From: Sam Stutter
1d. Re: A different sort of Conlang Relay
From: Matthew A. Gurevitch
2a. Re: Definiteness & Verb Classes
From: Garth Wallace
2b. Re: Definiteness & Verb Classes
From: David McCann
2c. Re: Definiteness & Verb Classes
From: Alex Fink
2d. Re: Definiteness & Verb Classes
From: Padraic Brown
2e. Re: Definiteness & Verb Classes
From: Jim Henry
3a. Re: About Professional Conlangers I've Studied
From: Arthaey Angosii
3b. Re: About Professional Conlangers I've Studied
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
3c. Re: About Professional Conlangers I've Studied
From: George Corley
3d. Re: About Professional Conlangers I've Studied
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
3e. Re: About Professional Conlangers I've Studied
From: Adam Walker
3f. Re: About Professional Conlangers I've Studied
From: David Peterson
3g. Re: About Professional Conlangers I've Studied
From: Puey McCleary
4.1. Re: Destroying the noun/verb distinction
From: And Rosta
5a. Outidic verbs
From: R A Brown
5b. Re: Outidic verbs
From: Padraic Brown
6a. Senjecas poem: The Forest
From: Charlie Brickner
6b. Re: Senjecas poem: The Forest
From: Daniel Bowman
6c. Re: Senjecas poem: The Forest
From: Padraic Brown
7a. Re: OT: Latin translation
From: Billy JB
7b. Re: OT: Latin translation
From: Daniel Bowman
8a. Re: New to the Message Board : Long-time Conlang Dicipherer
From: Elliott Lash
Messages
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1a. Re: A different sort of Conlang Relay
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 6:02 am ((PDT))
Well, sort of, but less labour intensive, more like: steal someone else's
conlang and use that as a basis for your own new conlang. Only more
co-operatively. And... damn, you know what I mean :)
Sam Stutter
[email protected]
"No e na'l cu barri"
On 30 Apr 2012, at 13:37, Fenhl wrote:
> On 2012-4-30 12:15, Sam Stutter <[email protected]> wrote:
>> We could swap conlangs and then use the language we receive to develop
>> another related language or dialect; a predecessor, a future form, a sister
>> language, a creole developed from contact with another language (possibly
>> our own conlang), a pidgin, or a dialect of another language spoken by
>> descendants of the received conlang.
> You mean like the games that resulted in the Akana conworld?
> http://www.frathwiki.com/Akana
Messages in this topic (8)
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1b. Re: A different sort of Conlang Relay
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 3:05 pm ((PDT))
I've bitten the bullet and put together a Google form if people want to sign
up. But don't expect anything to happen quickly :)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An0P5RMs_fRydGhzZFlLZWpkNnV3elhLNlYyb3BHZVE
Sam Stutter
[email protected]
"No e na'l cu barri"
On 30 Apr 2012, at 14:01, Sam Stutter wrote:
> Well, sort of, but less labour intensive, more like: steal someone else's
> conlang and use that as a basis for your own new conlang. Only more
> co-operatively. And... damn, you know what I mean :)
>
> Sam Stutter
> [email protected]
> "No e na'l cu barri"
>
>
>
>
> On 30 Apr 2012, at 13:37, Fenhl wrote:
>
>> On 2012-4-30 12:15, Sam Stutter <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> We could swap conlangs and then use the language we receive to develop
>>> another related language or dialect; a predecessor, a future form, a sister
>>> language, a creole developed from contact with another language (possibly
>>> our own conlang), a pidgin, or a dialect of another language spoken by
>>> descendants of the received conlang.
>> You mean like the games that resulted in the Akana conworld?
>> http://www.frathwiki.com/Akana
>
Messages in this topic (8)
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1c. Re: A different sort of Conlang Relay
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 3:08 pm ((PDT))
That should have been:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGhzZFlLZWpkNnV3elhLNlYyb3BHZVE6MQ
instead.
Sam Stutter
[email protected]
"No e na'l cu barri"
On 30 Apr 2012, at 23:05, Sam Stutter wrote:
> I've bitten the bullet and put together a Google form if people want to sign
> up. But don't expect anything to happen quickly :)
>
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An0P5RMs_fRydGhzZFlLZWpkNnV3elhLNlYyb3BHZVE
>
> Sam Stutter
> [email protected]
> "No e na'l cu barri"
>
>
>
>
> On 30 Apr 2012, at 14:01, Sam Stutter wrote:
>
>> Well, sort of, but less labour intensive, more like: steal someone else's
>> conlang and use that as a basis for your own new conlang. Only more
>> co-operatively. And... damn, you know what I mean :)
>>
>> Sam Stutter
>> [email protected]
>> "No e na'l cu barri"
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 30 Apr 2012, at 13:37, Fenhl wrote:
>>
>>> On 2012-4-30 12:15, Sam Stutter <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> We could swap conlangs and then use the language we receive to develop
>>>> another related language or dialect; a predecessor, a future form, a
>>>> sister language, a creole developed from contact with another language
>>>> (possibly our own conlang), a pidgin, or a dialect of another language
>>>> spoken by descendants of the received conlang.
>>> You mean like the games that resulted in the Akana conworld?
>>> http://www.frathwiki.com/Akana
>>
>
Messages in this topic (8)
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1d. Re: A different sort of Conlang Relay
Posted by: "Matthew A. Gurevitch" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 3:57 pm ((PDT))
No option for those who are too shy to share our own not even close to finished
conlangs and would like to join in just working with other people's languages?
Matthew
-----Original Message-----
From: Sam Stutter <[email protected]>
To: CONLANG <[email protected]>
Sent: Mon, Apr 30, 2012 6:52 pm
Subject: Re: A different sort of Conlang Relay
That should have been:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGhzZFlLZWpkNnV3elhLNlYyb3BHZVE6MQ
instead.
Sam Stutter
[email protected]
"No e na'l cu barri"
On 30 Apr 2012, at 23:05, Sam Stutter wrote:
> I've bitten the bullet and put together a Google form if people want to sign
up. But don't expect anything to happen quickly :)
>
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An0P5RMs_fRydGhzZFlLZWpkNnV3elhLNlYyb3BHZVE
>
> Sam Stutter
> [email protected]
> "No e na'l cu barri"
>
>
>
>
> On 30 Apr 2012, at 14:01, Sam Stutter wrote:
>
>> Well, sort of, but less labour intensive, more like: steal someone else's
conlang and use that as a basis for your own new conlang. Only more
co-operatively. And... damn, you know what I mean :)
>>
>> Sam Stutter
>> [email protected]
>> "No e na'l cu barri"
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 30 Apr 2012, at 13:37, Fenhl wrote:
>>
>>> On 2012-4-30 12:15, Sam Stutter <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> We could swap conlangs and then use the language we receive to develop
another related language or dialect; a predecessor, a future form, a sister
language, a creole developed from contact with another language (possibly our
own conlang), a pidgin, or a dialect of another language spoken by descendants
of the received conlang.
>>> You mean like the games that resulted in the Akana conworld?
http://www.frathwiki.com/Akana
>>
>
Messages in this topic (8)
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2a. Re: Definiteness & Verb Classes
Posted by: "Garth Wallace" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 8:49 am ((PDT))
On 4/30/12, Zach Wellstood <[email protected]> wrote:
> This post got me thinking about my own conlang, because I think the concept
> is kind of interesting. And then it dawned on me that I have kind of
> inadvertently done something like this, but in a different way. In my
> conlang, Åaá siri, verbs are inflected for something I call "proximity." (I
> made this up because I don't know if natlangs do it or something similar.)
> Admittedly, I haven't thought about salience of new/old information with
> these inflections, but I can definitely see the prospect of it in the
> future. For instance, if you're saying "The dog bit the cat," the verb
> would be inflected to indicate the proximity of the subject and the object
> from the speaker. The degrees of proximity I outlined are: immediate (which
> can also refer to "I"), near (which can also refer to any other pronouns),
> distant, absent, abstract. Right now these only refer to physical distance,
> but I think it would be interesting if they were extended to include
> definiteness or indefiniteness. For instance, maybe the "near" morpheme
> could also indicate a sot of, "this is new, pay attention!"
That's spatial deixis. It's what demonstratives do. AIUI definiteness
tends to develop from just this sort of thing. The Romance definite
articles developed from the Latin word for "this", IIRC.
Currently in my Ekmar-Tenkar, I have nouns inflecting for a four-way
status distinction: topic/definite/construct/indefinite.
Messages in this topic (14)
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2b. Re: Definiteness & Verb Classes
Posted by: "David McCann" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 10:08 am ((PDT))
On Mon, 30 Apr 2012 02:22:52 -0400
Ian Spolarich <[email protected]> wrote:
> Well, two things came to mind while on a flight to Chicago this
> evening while I was working on a new conlang. My first question is,
> are there more "levels" of definiteness than just "a" and "the"?
> Perhaps something like "the only"?
Definiteness does actually correspond to "the only", in that "the
book" means "the one book we're talking about" or "the one book in
plain sight". There are languages (Lakhota) which have two definite
articles, one for each of these cases.
It's also possible to distinguish the definite (clearly identified to
speaker and hearer) from the specific (clearly identified to the
speaker alone). The Polynesian languages have an article which is often
called definite, but is actually specific. As far as I know, no
language makes a three-way distinction with articles (it is done in
other ways) but one could:
"A woman called but wouldn't leave her name", "'O se fafine..." [Samoan]
- indefinite
"A woman in our street has just won the lottery", "'O le fafine..." -
specific
"The woman who called yesterday ...", "'O le fafine - definite
> And my second question is, are
> there any natlangs that have verb classes, beyond conjugations, for
> example a class of verbs dealing with weather, "to snow" and the like?
You can have different conjugation for transitive and intransitive
verbs, as in Bambara:
U ye a san - they PAST it buy - They bought it
U boli-la - they walk-PAST - They walked
As for verbs of weather, they could belong to a class of impersonals,
with no inflection for person, but I can't find any examples: e.g. Latin
"tonas" is as acceptable as "you thunder" in English ("No matter how
much you thunder...")
Messages in this topic (14)
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2c. Re: Definiteness & Verb Classes
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 10:25 am ((PDT))
Turning to the lesser-answered question:
On Mon, 30 Apr 2012 02:22:52 -0400, Ian Spolarich <[email protected]> wrote:
>And my second question is, are there any natlangs that have
>verb classes, beyond conjugations, for example a class of verbs dealing
>with weather, "to snow" and the like?
Verb classes are something that bring Australian languages in mind for me.
William McGregor has a book _Verb Classification in Australian Languages_ of
which you shd be able to see at least a little on Google Books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=ct4RYXdMPbcC&printsec=frontcover
A few different answers, as to how a verb classification system might be, are
already manifest in the table of contents.
Alex
Messages in this topic (14)
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2d. Re: Definiteness & Verb Classes
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 10:57 am ((PDT))
--- On Mon, 4/30/12, Ian Spolarich <[email protected]> wrote:
> Well, two things came to mind while
> on a flight to Chicago this evening
> while I was working on a new conlang. My first question is,
> are there more
> "levels" of definiteness than just "a" and "the"? Perhaps
> something like "the only"?
I think it's Rumelian (one of the languages of the World) where they have
a unique article, sort of "the ipsissimus itself!" kind of thing.
Kerno has three kinds of articles, the usual def/indef articles plus a
generic article that is epicene by gender and neither quite definite nor
quite indefinite by perspective. l' om = I have a specific man in mind;
'n om = any man, no specific in mind; c' om = you know, that guy, I'm sure
you know the one; or no, maybe twas some other fellow...
> And my second question is, are there any natlangs that have
> verb classes, beyond conjugations, for example a class of
> verbs dealing with weather, "to snow" and the like?
Well, apart from English? I guess you could say these form something of a
class apart, being defective of conjugation.
> -Ian Spolarich
Padraic
Messages in this topic (14)
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2e. Re: Definiteness & Verb Classes
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 4:58 pm ((PDT))
On 4/30/12, Ian Spolarich <[email protected]> wrote:
> And my second question is, are there any natlangs that have
> verb classes, beyond conjugations, for example a class of verbs dealing
> with weather, "to snow" and the like?
I've heard this recommended but haven't read it:
English Verb Classes and Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation by Beth Levin
http://www.amazon.com/English-Verb-Classes-Alternations-Investigation/dp/0226475336
Generally, verbs in English and a number of other languages can be
classified by their argument structure -- whether they must have or
optionally can have a subject, direct object, indirect object, certain
prepositional phrase complements or subordinate clause complements,
etc. I have a section of my gzb grammar on verb argument structures:
http://jimhenry.conlang.org/gzb/grammar.htm#section4
Verbs with similar semantics tend to have similar argument structures
and vice versa, but I'm not how strong those tendencies are. Some
languages put weather verbs in a special argument structure class by
themselves, or with a few other impersonal verbs, i.e. they take no
arguments, not even a dummy "it" subject as in English. In pro-drop
languages that's not particularly marked. Esperanto has a class of
impersonal verbs including weather verbs and a few other things like
"to be necessary", "to be missing", etc.
One way you could do verb classes in a conlang, though I don't know if
anybody actually has, is to have them be something like noun classes
or genders, so the adverbs or prepositions or something have to agree
in class with their head verb, and maybe by changing a verb from one
class to another you can change its semantics in a somewhat productive
way.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
Messages in this topic (14)
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3a. Re: About Professional Conlangers I've Studied
Posted by: "Arthaey Angosii" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 9:49 am ((PDT))
On Sun, Apr 29, 2012 at 1:55 PM, Sai <[email protected]> wrote:
> It's an approximation. And in case I was unclear, I certainly don't
> mean to invoke "real names" (I don't believe in any such thing). It's
> more of a broad qualitative difference.
>
> Take a look at the names used on ZBB vs the ones used here (both in
> FROM: and sigs). There's a marked difference, even if it's not one I
> can easily define.
I agree with you that there's a marked difference between the social
norms of ZBB and here. I also agree that a *much* larger percentage of
folks here use their real names.
But there are certainly some here (myself being a case in point) that
use a handle that they are never called in real life. Now, it's true
that Arthaey is my online identity that I use everywhere online, so
your point is still mostly correct. But I wanted to speak up for the
other pseudonymed people here that have nonetheless constructed a
civil and stable identity here. :)
--
AA
http://conlang.arthaey.com
Messages in this topic (25)
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3b. Re: About Professional Conlangers I've Studied
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 3:32 pm ((PDT))
Hallo conlangers!
On Sun, 29 Apr 2012 07:04:10 -0400 "Gimli G. Willikers" wrote:
> Frommer is no conlanger, but neither was Okrand. Their heart wasn't
> in it like the guys I've seen on Zompist.
Frommer and Okrand made conlangs - they are thus conlangers,
aren't they? Sure, their hired jobs, which probably had to be
finished within tight deadlines, can't compare with the years of
love and dedication that went into the self-commissioned
creations of people like Tolkien or Rosenfelder (or many of the
people here or on the ZBB), but saying that "Frommer is no
conlanger, but neither was Okrand" surely pushes the limits of
the definition of "conlanger". You should be less dismissive
towards them.
When the Dothraki bid was open, I briefly considered placing
a bid - but I decided not to because I felt that I would
probably meet difficult working conditions; also, I then knew
nothing about the _Song of Ice and Fire_ conworld (since then,
I have started reading the first novel, but I am stuck with
that one), so I felt that I could not do it justice as well
as some others who had read Martin's novels could.
> Okrand refused to do anything - anything - on Atlantean because
> "no one is interested in it", making me and handful of people
> "no body" in Okrand's checking book. But this, sigh, is the
> academic mentality, at least regarding anything with a popular
> appeal.
I don't know how tight the deadline and other constraints were
which Okrand had to cope with. I also don't know when and to
whom he said that "no one is interested in it". I would not
expect him to say that to *anybody*. He must have seen how
much following his Klingon language has garnered. Of course,
he may have been pessimistic about the box office performance
of the Atlantis movie.
> Frommer has a blog and keeps in contact with his dicipherers,
> but he still forces them to dicipher his rediculously amateur
> and over-complicated conlangs - I did nothing on Avatar, but
> saw its dicipherment and was appalled - did he know anything
> about conlanging before he made Na'vi ?
What is wrong with Frommer's Na'vi language? OK, it is no
Sindarin, and I consider the transcription he chose for the
ejectives ugly, but I have seen worse conlangs. The Na'vi
language shows pretty decent treatment of some matters.
> Both of them made up horrible orthographies : px for [p']
> instead of pp, and Okrand's I and G and whatever - capital
> letters.
I agree with you that Okrand's transcription of Klingon is
ugly. (I am also of the opinion that his phonology is neither
plausible nor interesting - it is essentially a selection of
odd phonemes that looks like the result of firing a shotgun at
an IPA chart, and those phonemes are then used to form CVC
syllables without anything of interest going on. Saying that
the language was "not human" is a poor excuse in my eyes.)
> Atlantean fixed all of Klingon's problems, but very few people
> seem to have seem my work.
I haven't seen your work either. Obviously, I am not one of
the "very few people" who have seen it ;)
> And my specialty is writing systems - and Klingon alphabet
> and Martian alphabet are terrible - they aren't even a priori,
> Klingon is based on Phoenician and Martian was based on
> Atlantean and upper-case Roman.
Pardon? I frankly don't get what you are talking about.
Some hints: First, don't confuse languages and writing systems.
Second, don't confuse orthographies (writing systems used by
the speakers of the relevant languages) and transcriptions
(writing systems used by scholars discussing the languages).
Klingon is, by the way, *not* based on Phoenician. It *is*
an a priori language, with some features inspired by some
natlangs, mostly Native American ones. Nor do I see why
Frommer's Martian should be "based on [Okrand's] Atlantean
and upper-case Roman"; it is based on some linguistic notes
and name material found in E. R. Burroughs's novels.
> These guys in Hollywood are goons. I don't think their
> movies are good enough to have conlangs, but even then
> they could get guys who care and aren't just in it for
> the money.
Guard your tongue, Glóin's son. Sure, Hollywood is mostly
about making money, and much of what they do is crap. But
I don't think your treatment of Okrand and Frommer is fair.
> So I'm sending a message by translating all of John
> Carter into Martian. For free. How's that for a
> standard ?
Do so if you feel like that. But don't complain if people
ask you what was the intended point of that exercise.
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (25)
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3c. Re: About Professional Conlangers I've Studied
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 3:45 pm ((PDT))
Don't worry too much about it Jörg. This guy's hobby appear to be dumping
all over professional conlangers without actually understanding the
realities of their work, like tight deadlines or studios who control how
much they can share about the language. Case in point:
> And my specialty is writing systems - and Klingon alphabet
> > and Martian alphabet are terrible - they aren't even a priori,
> > Klingon is based on Phoenician and Martian was based on
> > Atlantean and upper-case Roman.
>
> Pardon? I frankly don't get what you are talking about.
>
I believe he is talking about the invented writing systems used for these
languages. We can argue about the romanizations, but I have explained to
this guy before that the "native" scripts for Klingon and Barsoomian seen
in their respective properties were developed by linguistically naïve
artists, not by the conlangers.
Messages in this topic (25)
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3d. Re: About Professional Conlangers I've Studied
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 3:59 pm ((PDT))
Hallo conlangers!
On Mon, 30 Apr 2012 18:45:18 -0400 George Corley wrote:
> Don't worry too much about it Jörg. This guy's hobby appear to be dumping
> all over professional conlangers without actually understanding the
> realities of their work, like tight deadlines or studios who control how
> much they can share about the language.
Yes, obviously.
> Case in point:
> >
> > And my specialty is writing systems - and Klingon alphabet
> > > and Martian alphabet are terrible - they aren't even a priori,
> > > Klingon is based on Phoenician and Martian was based on
> > > Atlantean and upper-case Roman.
> >
> > Pardon? I frankly don't get what you are talking about.
> >
>
> I believe he is talking about the invented writing systems used for these
> languages. We can argue about the romanizations, but I have explained to
> this guy before that the "native" scripts for Klingon and Barsoomian seen
> in their respective properties were developed by linguistically naïve
> artists, not by the conlangers.
Yep. The Klingon alphabet has 26 letters - hardly a coincidence.
I guess it was designed as a letter-by-letter cipher of the Latin
alphabet, and Okrand decided to save what he could by giving his
language exactly 26 phonemes such that each letter of the alphabet
could represent one phoneme of his language. It is a retrofit.
(Yet, the Internet Klingonists don't consider this canon, I have
been told; also, most Klingon inscriptions seen on the screen big
or small don't make sense in Okrand's Klingon, as far as I have
heard of it.)
The Atlantean alphabet definitely *is* a letter-by-letter cipher
of the Latin alphabet. Likewise, not Okrand's fault.
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (25)
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3e. Re: About Professional Conlangers I've Studied
Posted by: "Adam Walker" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 4:05 pm ((PDT))
I haven't said anything on this thread yet, and I really have no desire to
contribute anything more than the following: I have met Okrand in person
and he is a very nice guy who is (or at least back when I met him, was)
quite responsive to the Klingon community as a whole, but due to having a
Real Life mostly limited his interraction to official channels through the
KLI. He was even taking requests (without guaranteeing delivery) for new
vocabulary. He participated in games and pannel discussions and general
schmoozing. I thoroughly enjoyed interracting with him.
Adam
On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 5:45 PM, George Corley <[email protected]> wrote:
> Don't worry too much about it Jörg. This guy's hobby appear to be dumping
> all over professional conlangers without actually understanding the
> realities of their work, like tight deadlines or studios who control how
> much they can share about the language. Case in point:
>
> > And my specialty is writing systems - and Klingon alphabet
> > > and Martian alphabet are terrible - they aren't even a priori,
> > > Klingon is based on Phoenician and Martian was based on
> > > Atlantean and upper-case Roman.
> >
> > Pardon? I frankly don't get what you are talking about.
> >
>
> I believe he is talking about the invented writing systems used for these
> languages. We can argue about the romanizations, but I have explained to
> this guy before that the "native" scripts for Klingon and Barsoomian seen
> in their respective properties were developed by linguistically naïve
> artists, not by the conlangers.
>
Messages in this topic (25)
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3f. Re: About Professional Conlangers I've Studied
Posted by: "David Peterson" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 4:14 pm ((PDT))
I have to say, I'm a little surprised that someone who spends so much time
studying languages created for films/tv (and specifically Barsoomian) is
apparently unaware of this interview conducted by Fredrik Ekman with Paul
Frommer about Barsoomian:
http://fiatlingua.org/2012/03/
In it, he specifically mentions that he had nothing to do with the invented
script (as well as other things about the movie and the language). I know Fiat
Lingua isn't exactly a big publication, but it's not like this was a secret...
David Peterson
LCS President
[email protected]
www.conlang.org
Messages in this topic (25)
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3g. Re: About Professional Conlangers I've Studied
Posted by: "Puey McCleary" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 6:10 pm ((PDT))
Im not sure what work this gentleman has done on the Atlantean language.
However, Im sure that there were not a few who were interested in it. A
few years ago I exchanged some correspondance with someone who had amassed
quite a lexicon Roger Lawrence I think his name was. I even translated a
sentence of Atlantean into Khlìjha for him.
This is the Atlantean:
*
Nishentop Adlantisag kelobtem gabrin karoklimik bet gim demotem net
getunosentem bernótlimik bet kagib lewidyok.*
Spirits of Atlantis, forgive me for defiling your chambers and bringing
intruders into the land.
I came up with this:
*
ÁjhoqhaTnànxhur Khatlhantikhàxhmikhh khlepepejopaingakh xoltayùlkha
túxhrejor arnumiyénxhàyengit khaôlye xhroe tsenakhanóqha se.
**
Oh Mentoring Nature Spirits of Khatlhàntikh, forgive me, the stranger, the
bringer of foreign devils into the land, for polluting your catachthonian
chambren
The Khlìjha is actually a bit more complicated than that and Khatlhàntikh
isnt really Atlantis its part of the Winterlands. But its close enough.
*
Messages in this topic (25)
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4.1. Re: Destroying the noun/verb distinction
Posted by: "And Rosta" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 11:05 am ((PDT))
Sai, On 29/04/2012 21:14:
> On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 21:21, Logan Kearsley<[email protected]> wrote:
>> Hm. Maybe we should come up with a new mathematical notation for
>> predicate logic based on Smalltalk:
>>
>> [X give: Y to: Z]
>
> *nod* I'd favor something like "give(X.agt Y.pat Z.recip) or the like,
> with free order; role marking is really quite useful. And you can
> retain the silly parens if you want 'em. ;-)
Roles that generalize across argument-places aren't an inherent part of
predicate structure, so the best notation is one that makes it hardest and
least tempting to make the false step of allowing the notation to invite
generalizes across argument-places. I don't have a specific suggestion for a
notation. but what's needed is something along the lines of "[X give Y to Z]",
where the symbols for argument-places (i) form an open-ended set (because
there's no upper limit to the number of arguments a predicate can have) and
(ii) are assigned as randomly as possible.
In 2D Livagian (as I mentioned off-list the other day), which I conceive of as
a notation of pure semantics, which turns out to be inherently 2D, and of which
1D Livagian is an unavoidably cumbrous linearization, each monadic predicate's
sole argument-place has a unique symbol (-- unique within the overall
notational system), and then these symbols are randomly recycled for polyadic
predicates so that every predicate is notationally defined as a unique set of
argument-place symbols. (The only exception is that the Davidsonian event
argument is represented by the same symbol for every polyadic predicate.)
--And.
Messages in this topic (36)
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5a. Outidic verbs
Posted by: "R A Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 11:09 am ((PDT))
Outidic, the fictitious 17th century auxlang, makes steady
progress. The morphology of the verb is now online:
http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Outis/Verbs.html
But Brx is progressing more slowly :(
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB]
Messages in this topic (2)
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5b. Re: Outidic verbs
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 2:32 pm ((PDT))
--- On Mon, 4/30/12, R A Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> Outidic, the fictitious 17th century auxlang, makes steady
> progress. The morphology of the verb is now online:
> http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Outis/Verbs.html
Given that this is a fictitious auxlang of a previous century, do I assume
right that Dr. Outis is also a fictional person? Have you discovered
anything about him, his life, place in society or activities? Speaking for
myself, I'd like to learn something about the illustrious auxlanger as
well as the language!
Padraic
> -- Ray
Messages in this topic (2)
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6a. Senjecas poem: The Forest
Posted by: "Charlie Brickner" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 2:07 pm ((PDT))
The forest is enclosed in the light of the moon;
my home is the forest in the light of the stars.
I enjoy doing translation exercises and thought Iâd try the above. It turned
out to be a well-formed poem in Senjecas.
mhÃĸos / meensés / leukós èna / tw̬áákaþos vúúa:
forest / moonâs / light in / enclosed is
NOM.sg / LOC.sg / prep. phrase / predicate
mùs nómosë / sterém / leukós èna / mhíkos ésa:
my home / starsâ / light in / forest is
NOM.sg / LOC.pl / prep. phrase/ predicate
An added surprise was the placing of âforestâ as the subject in the first
sentence and as the predicate in the second.
Charlie
Messages in this topic (3)
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6b. Re: Senjecas poem: The Forest
Posted by: "Daniel Bowman" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 2:10 pm ((PDT))
I actually started wondering about the English translation when trying to
translate the Latin into Angosey. I'll post what I came up with tonight.
Nice translatioN!
Danny
2012/4/30 Charlie Brickner <[email protected]>
> The forest is enclosed in the light of the moon;
> my home is the forest in the light of the stars.
>
> I enjoy doing translation exercises and thought Iâd try the above. It
> turned out to be a well-formed poem in Senjecas.
>
> mhÃĸos / meensés / leukós èna / tw̬áákaþos vúúa:
> forest / moonâs / light in / enclosed is
> NOM.sg / LOC.sg / prep. phrase / predicate
>
> mùs nómosë / sterém / leukós èna / mhíkos ésa:
> my home / starsâ / light in / forest is
> NOM.sg / LOC.pl / prep. phrase/ predicate
>
> An added surprise was the placing of âforestâ as the subject in the first
> sentence and as the predicate in the second.
>
> Charlie
>
Messages in this topic (3)
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6c. Re: Senjecas poem: The Forest
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 4:50 pm ((PDT))
--- Charlie Brickner <[email protected]> wrote:
> The forest is enclosed in the light of the moon;
> my home is the forest in the light of the stars.
>
> I enjoy doing translation exercises and thought Iâd try the above. It
> turned out to be a well-formed poem in Senjecas.
I like it! Not so nice a poem in Avantimannish, but a lot of the words are
familiar! --
Se zilvaz / is ômswathet / yn they meinô leichtô
the forest / is around-swathed / in the moons' light
m.NOM-s / 3s pass phr.vb / prep.phr. f.GEN-pl. nt.OBL.s.
they om-mih-buwend / they wodez / neth thon sternô leichtô
they around-me-dwell / the woods / under the stars' light
3pl. pvb-1sACC-3pl-wk.vb / m.NOM.pl / prep.phr. f.GEN.pl. nt.OBL.s.
Avantimannish still has some fairly archaic Thietish elements, notably a
distinct masc. -a and fem. -ô declension, though all nominal declensions
have been severely reduced to only three full-time cases, nom., gen.,
and oblique which sometimes derives from the old accusative and sometimes
from the old instrumental. The verbal conjugation is pretty well eroded.
The strong verbs are about the only classes where any endings at all
remain: ech drenccô / tha drencces / hie drenccet vs. ech / tha / hie
sete.
The above is perhaps a bit unusual in it being almost all Germanic words.
Normal speech reveals a rather high amount of Remish borrowing. Here,
zilvaz is the only borrowing.
Padraic
>
> mhÃĸos / meensés / leukós èna / tw̬áákaþos vúúa:
> forest / moonâs / light in / enclosed is
> NOM.sg / LOC.sg / prep. phrase / predicate
>
> mùs nómosë / sterém / leukós èna / mhíkos ésa:
> my home / starsâ / light in / forest is
> NOM.sg / LOC.pl / prep. phrase/ predicate
>
> An added surprise was the placing of âforestâ as the subject in the first
> sentence and as the predicate in the second.
>
> Charlie
Messages in this topic (3)
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7a. Re: OT: Latin translation
Posted by: "Billy JB" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 2:30 pm ((PDT))
I'd agree with the previous translations, seeing as the song is about a
werewolf (Das Tier in Mir/Wolfen) if I remember correctly, so yesh, it
makes sense, the whole 'hidden forest' in the light of the moon / open
sky~stars motif fits in from what I can see :D
I'd personally translate it as "The hidden forest in the light of the moon
is my home, the forest in the stars' light is my home".
Also, OT: E Nomine is awesome!
Messages in this topic (9)
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7b. Re: OT: Latin translation
Posted by: "Daniel Bowman" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 5:53 pm ((PDT))
Yes, E Nomine is pretty epic. Here's a link to a video of them performing
Das Tier in Mir. Keep in mind this is a gothic band; if you're not into
that sort of stuff you may want to skip the vid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq3BfMQ-oRo
The Latin is really cool.
2012/4/30 Billy JB <[email protected]>
> I'd agree with the previous translations, seeing as the song is about a
> werewolf (Das Tier in Mir/Wolfen) if I remember correctly, so yesh, it
> makes sense, the whole 'hidden forest' in the light of the moon / open
> sky~stars motif fits in from what I can see :D
>
> I'd personally translate it as "The hidden forest in the light of the moon
> is my home, the forest in the stars' light is my home".
>
> Also, OT: E Nomine is awesome!
>
Messages in this topic (9)
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8a. Re: New to the Message Board : Long-time Conlang Dicipherer
Posted by: "Elliott Lash" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 30, 2012 3:49 pm ((PDT))
Dear Gimli
I don't know what you are talking about here. I work on Old and Middle Irish
and I frequently make use of "Chomskyan" theoretical devices to talk about the
historical changes that go on between the two stages of Irish. I also know
people who work on Ancient Greek, Ancient Egyptian, Old Icelandic (Old Norse),
Old French, Latin, etc, all in partly "Chomskyan" derived theories. It is also
my observation that people who dislike "Chomskyan" derived theory are the only
ones who call it "Chomskyan" as opposed to its proper name which is "generative
grammar". For my part, I have not read a Chomsky paper for a year or two, and I
am quite capable of thinking of ideas on my own.
Elliott.
________________________________
From: Gimli G. Willikers <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2012 12:22 PM
Subject: Re: New to the Message Board : Long-time Conlang Dicipherer
One of the problems with Chompsky's school is that it restricts linguists from
studying ancient documents and challenging philosophy, then examining the
evidence. It's not wholelistic, it's not useful. It traps linguists in the
present, and usually in their country or in the West - it traps them from
finding - and examining - the viewpoints of other peoples, other times.
Chompsky and his ilk want us to use linguistics to be robots - we are only
rewarded if faceless theory is our only output. But the smarter people of the
society will be held accountable by God for their misuse of their talents and
the co-occuring abuse of their fellow man.
Messages in this topic (5)
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