There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Basic Word Lists
From: John Erickson
1b. Re: Basic Word Lists
From: Roger Mills
1c. Re: Basic Word Lists
From: Ralph DeCarli
1d. Re: Basic Word Lists
From: Gary Shannon
2a. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: And Rosta
2b. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: Matthew DeBlock
2c. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: Sai
2d. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: Sai
2e. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: Gary Shannon
2f. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: Matthew DeBlock
2g. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: Matthew DeBlock
2h. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: Adam Walker
3a. Re: Dessert
From: Roger Mills
4a. Re: letter for 'th'
From: And Rosta
5. Plus ça change...
From: Douglas Koller
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Basic Word Lists
Posted by: "John Erickson" [email protected]
Date: Thu Sep 6, 2012 1:27 pm ((PDT))
Changing topic slightly, it occurs to me that small, specialized word/concept
lists might be very helpful to conlangers as well. For example, if you're
making a conlang for a space-faring society, you're going to want it to have a
lot of space travel and technology vocab, so it would helpful to have a mini
thesaurus of just those words, put together by someone knowledgable in that
area.
I might try to do that for some topics I'm more familiar with (not space
travel), if I can find the time.
Messages in this topic (13)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Basic Word Lists
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Thu Sep 6, 2012 2:46 pm ((PDT))
I think I have more than once touted by wordlist designed for research in
Indonesia-- http://cinduworld.tripod.com/wordlist.txt -- 1100+ words, but it
can be adapted to fit any place..........
--- On Thu, 9/6/12, Jim Henry <[email protected]> wrote:
From: Jim Henry <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Basic Word Lists
To: [email protected]
Date: Thursday, September 6, 2012, 11:05 AM
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 1:38 AM, Alex Fink <[email protected]> wrote:
> Not to be unduly harsh, but I think most of these are not as good than the
> previous suggestions on this thread (Annis' thesaurus and SIL's DDP list,
> both of which are awesome), or at least not as good for the purpose.
I haven't studied the latest version, but I remember that back in the
day Rick Harrison's Universal Language Dictionary was pretty useful
and non-relexy.
http://www.uld3.org/
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
Messages in this topic (13)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Basic Word Lists
Posted by: "Ralph DeCarli" [email protected]
Date: Thu Sep 6, 2012 5:06 pm ((PDT))
On Wed, 5 Sep 2012 20:56:34 -0700
Roget's Thesaurus has some interesting thought starters.
http://poets.notredame.ac.jp/Roget/contents.html
Ralph
--
Have you heard of the new post-neo-modern art style?
They haven't decided what it looks like yet.
Messages in this topic (13)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Basic Word Lists
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Thu Sep 6, 2012 8:33 pm ((PDT))
I once started (but never completed) a project to construct a
task-based corpus and word list. My approach was to begin with a
hypothetical village of hunter/fisher-gatherers on a remote island,
and construct a corpus of things that the villagers might say to one
another.
Certain assumptions would have to be made about what kind of food
plants and animals were available on the island, and some geographic
and geological features of the island, such as the existence (or not)
of streams/rivers, lakes/ponds, mountains, hills, volcanoes, and the
typical weather patterns throughout the year.
Assumptions would also have to be made about their family and social
structures, religious/magical beliefs, and their legends and
traditions.
Once the culture was fairly well described one could begin to write
dialogs representing what would be said on the occasion of women
gathering to prepare a communal festival meal; men preparing the nets
for the days fishing expedition; elders sitting around the fire
telling the children their creation myth; a family calling for help in
locating a missing child; two children arguing over who gets to keep a
sea shell found on the beach; etc....
Words would be created only as actually needed for some specific task.
The telling of the creation myth would perhaps require the names of
some gods and devils, and words for "sun" and "moon", as well as
"land" and "sea" and "animals" and "food", etc.
The corpus could even be in the form of a narrative about the people
themselves as told by a member of the village. (See, for example,
Ursula K. Le Guin's "Always Coming Home")
--gary
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 1:27 PM, John Erickson
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Changing topic slightly, it occurs to me that small, specialized word/concept
> lists might be very helpful to conlangers as well. For example, if you're
> making a conlang for a space-faring society, you're going to want it to have
> a lot of space travel and technology vocab, so it would helpful to have a
> mini thesaurus of just those words, put together by someone knowledgable in
> that area.
>
> I might try to do that for some topics I'm more familiar with (not space
> travel), if I can find the time.
Messages in this topic (13)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "And Rosta" [email protected]
Date: Thu Sep 6, 2012 1:41 pm ((PDT))
Matthew DeBlock, On 06/09/2012 10:18:
> definatly exactly what the conlang community needs I think!
>
> Everywhere I go in the conlang online world it is dead-links and missing
> conent... as if there are a million "ghost towns"
>
> I think Gary is right, the whole approach has to shift in many areas if
> success if to be acheived on a significant level
In what ways are current conlang's successes not at a significant level? What
are the criteria for significant level of success?
I ask those questions skeptically. I think Gary's essay has no bearing on the
level of success achieved by many conlangs.
With regard to Gary's interesting essay, I think it's a shame that the world's
most successful collaboratively designed conlang, namely Loglan--Lojban, isn't
considered -- one can learn from the many failed collaborative projects, some
of which Gary considers, but also from the most successful. The extremely
impressive collaborative Akana project isn't mentioned either.
Gary's essay presumes that the criterion for success is that the conlang
acquire a large community of speakers. That's not relevant to projects whose
goal is to create the langue itself, such as most conlang projects, or to
projects for which a satisfactory design is a prerequisite for success, even if
it's not the only goal. An example of the latter sort of project is a loglang
that has the potential to be actually usable, as a loglang, for some functions
for which natlangs are currently used. In recent weeks on the Engelang list
there has been some highly productive collaborative conlanging of this sort:
the collaboration works because the conlang is an engelang and has pretty clear
design goals (and also probably because the collaborators have each already
spent many years thinking about the design issues).
Oddly enough, a while ago I'd considered writing for Fiat Lingua an essay on
what it would take to create a satisfactory loglang of that sort (but too many
other demands on my time kept me from writing it). But essentially my argument
was that you need to keep the overall structure of the language highly modular
-- that is, language is modular, but the design project would as far as
possible insulate issues in the design of one module from issues in the design
of others -- and then you freely allow forking of designs for a module when a
consensus isn't able to form (whether for rational reasons or because of
orneriness of some collaborators). Hopefully a general consensus on the best
module designs would emerge, and a user community could coalesce round that,
but if there are rival overall designs, they ought to be automatically
intertranslatable. Speakers could all belong to the same community of speakers
who favour the notion of a usable loglang, without them all having to
agree on what is the best design, and without wasteful debates about
schismaticism and without plurality of usable designs being viewed as schism.
The main content of the essay was to be an outline of the inventory of modules.
--And.
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "Matthew DeBlock" [email protected]
Date: Thu Sep 6, 2012 8:36 pm ((PDT))
I meant "success" as in "survive and prosper as a language"
Right now Dothraki is being tatooed all over peoples bodys, people are
laerning it, and it is attracting hoards to people the conlang, many of
which have neaver heard of it before. This is I would classify as a
"conlang success story". Lojban is a success story as well, and many more,
the probelm is sucess rate, scale, and survival.
It doesnt mater how "good the language is" application is all that matters
in the long run.
And if you say "It doesnt have to be used or usable" you are now of in a
purely artistic or experimental realm, and the language element is
negligable, not very pertenant to a discussion of practical application.
Thats like an artist telling an engineer "you dont have to worry about
what the wheels are made of, as long as they look and feel round people
will see them as wheels"... of course.. but my car won't run! what is more
important?.
I think the problem is conlanging is far to fractured.
This is a fundamental problem in the nature of conlanging i suppose.
There are a plethora of small, single person projects out there, with
rigid "centralized control" by the creator(s)...... most die with the
author.
If people pooled their efforts, instead of each creating his/her own
"fiefdom" then pehaps there would be more hope for "serious
application"(by serious I only mean huge scale and global coverage user
wise).
The modular/decentralized appoach you guys are talking about is definatly
the idea to go with. particular implementation details will be tough to
work out though.
Personally one of the biggest hurdles is phonology i think. I would
guess(just off hand) at least half the debates and causes for rejecting
conlangs by potential users starts here(keywords "by potential users" not
"by crititcs/experts").
If there were a way erect a 'chinese wall' between langauge and phonology,
pehaps this would ease things.
of course then you may end up like china where inter sub-culture spoken
language has barriers or is impossible, and can only be resolved with
written word.(or unification after a period of diversification)
> Matthew DeBlock, On 06/09/2012 10:18:
>> definatly exactly what the conlang community needs I think!
>>
>> Everywhere I go in the conlang online world it is dead-links and missing
>> conent... as if there are a million "ghost towns"
>>
>> I think Gary is right, the whole approach has to shift in many areas if
>> success if to be acheived on a significant level
>
> In what ways are current conlang's successes not at a significant level?
> What are the criteria for significant level of success?
>
> I ask those questions skeptically. I think Gary's essay has no bearing on
> the level of success achieved by many conlangs.
>
> With regard to Gary's interesting essay, I think it's a shame that the
> world's most successful collaboratively designed conlang, namely
> Loglan--Lojban, isn't considered -- one can learn from the many failed
> collaborative projects, some of which Gary considers, but also from the
> most successful. The extremely impressive collaborative Akana project
> isn't mentioned either.
>
> Gary's essay presumes that the criterion for success is that the conlang
> acquire a large community of speakers. That's not relevant to projects
> whose goal is to create the langue itself, such as most conlang projects,
> or to projects for which a satisfactory design is a prerequisite for
> success, even if it's not the only goal. An example of the latter sort of
> project is a loglang that has the potential to be actually usable, as a
> loglang, for some functions for which natlangs are currently used. In
> recent weeks on the Engelang list there has been some highly productive
> collaborative conlanging of this sort: the collaboration works because the
> conlang is an engelang and has pretty clear design goals (and also
> probably because the collaborators have each already spent many years
> thinking about the design issues).
>
> Oddly enough, a while ago I'd considered writing for Fiat Lingua an essay
> on what it would take to create a satisfactory loglang of that sort (but
> too many other demands on my time kept me from writing it). But
> essentially my argument was that you need to keep the overall structure of
> the language highly modular -- that is, language is modular, but the
> design project would as far as possible insulate issues in the design of
> one module from issues in the design of others -- and then you freely
> allow forking of designs for a module when a consensus isn't able to form
> (whether for rational reasons or because of orneriness of some
> collaborators). Hopefully a general consensus on the best module designs
> would emerge, and a user community could coalesce round that, but if there
> are rival overall designs, they ought to be automatically
> intertranslatable. Speakers could all belong to the same community of
> speakers who favour the notion of a usable loglang, without them all
> having to
> agree on what is the best design, and without wasteful debates about
> schismaticism and without plurality of usable designs being viewed as
> schism. The main content of the essay was to be an outline of the
> inventory of modules.
>
> --And.
>
Messages in this topic (11)
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2c. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "Sai" [email protected]
Date: Thu Sep 6, 2012 8:54 pm ((PDT))
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 8:36 PM, Matthew DeBlock <[email protected]> wrote:
> I meant "success" as in "survive and prosper as a language"
I think And's point is that what counts as propsering is something
that varies quite a bit, depending on the conlanger's intent.
Dothraki isn't especially meant to be a lingua franca, for instance.
It might get to the level of Klingon uptake, but its primary aim is
simple: to fulfill an aesthetic role needed by the film.
Likewise for many conlangers, whether other people speak their
language or not is perhaps a perk but not criterial to prosperity, any
more than wide dissemination is criterial to how good a piece of art
is.
For myself, I really don't care at all if people start using my
conlangs; my interest is simply in pushing the boundaries of language,
seeing what can be done, satisfying my own intellectual curiosity,
having something fun to do with my boyfriend.
> It doesnt mater how "good the language is" application is all that matters
> in the long run.
Matters to whom? If it doesn't matter to the conlanger, I don't see
how you get to impose that criterion from outside.
> And if you say "It doesnt have to be used or usable" you are now of in a
> purely artistic or experimental realm, and the language element is
> negligable, not very pertenant to a discussion of practical application.
I don't see how those two things are at all contrastive. Why can't a
language be purely artistic or experimental, yet fully a language? Why
does art or experiment have to have practical application, let alone
one measured in the number of users?
> I think the problem is conlanging is far to fractured. […]
To preempt a flamewar: I suggest you take that line of discussion over
to AUXLANG-L (http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A0=AUXLANG).
It's okay there, but not here.
Your line of argument — an attempt at getting everyone to use or work
on the same conlang, have languages be measured by their uptake, etc —
is more or less categorically rejected here, because it gave rise to
the flamewars of old. It is why AUXLANG-L was made and separated from
this list. Perhaps auxlangs are more your style; if yes, I'd suggest
that at least you take a look at the various prior projects in that
realm (and Okrent's book), so that you have a realistic sense of what
you're dealing with.
Discussion of auxlang linguistics is fine, but proselytization,
judging others' work by factors other than of their own choosing, or
trying to get everyone to work on the One True Language is not. Sorry.
Tolerance of each others' peculiarities of preference is how we get
along. ;-)
- Sai
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
2d. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "Sai" [email protected]
Date: Thu Sep 6, 2012 9:05 pm ((PDT))
To comment on topic:
I'd say absolutely, collaborative conlangs are possible; Alex & I have made two.
Of course, we're in an unusual situation — partners who are both
conlangers, and who have more or less compatible aesthetics. I'm not
sure that Gary's proposed anarchic development process would really
work for an engelang, at least not until it were fairly stable.
I'm minded of something from ASL: creating new signs is generally
frowned upon if you're not Deaf. Issues of Deaf culture insularity per
se aside, the reason for this is simple: most hearing people have
horribly butchered the modality when they try to make new signs (viz.
SEE). Making decent signs requires a good understanding of their
morphosyntax, the properties you play with, the references /
similarities you can make, the different POV from a spoken language.
I think the same is essentially true for engelangs: they have a
significantly nonstandard framing. If you don't understand where
they're coming from, what they're trying to do, their design
aesthetic, then your contributions will be, frankly, pretty crap —
they just won't integrate well. But if you do, then I see no reason
why you couldn't do so.
In an early stage engelang (like UNLWS), this is even harder, because
the design aesthetic isn't even fully fleshed out yet. A lot of *our*
ideas are pretty crap! We work through them by discussion, refining on
the spot, tabling things (sometimes for months) to mull it over when
it doesn't quite feel right. Eventually we come up with some fairly
neat resolutions.
I'd be happy to have others participate, if they wanted to engage with
that kind of discussion. But just random anarchic mutation, without
grokking the system, would just butcher the thing.
I make no claim that the same applies to artlangs; I am no artlanger,
let alone a naturalistic one, so my concerns are rather different. ;-)
- Sai
Messages in this topic (11)
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2e. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 12:06 am ((PDT))
I probably should have stated explicitly that I was considering only
"naturalistic" conlangs. The process of "growing" a language is
definitely different than the process of engineering one. Engelangs
definitely need to be designed and controlled right from the start,
and collaboration is only possible among people who agree on every
detail. If not, then you get splintering again.
Historically, however, if a large enough group of people needs a
common language then nobody has to design it. It will emerge. That is
a collaborative "constructed" language. Anyway, my perspective is from
the desire to sort of simulate the real processes by which languages
come into being by setting up the kind of environment in which a new
language can emerge as the result of collaboration. Such an emergent
language will be naturalistic, and no natural language will ever be an
engelang.
--gary
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 9:05 PM, Sai <[email protected]> wrote:
> To comment on topic:
>
> I'd say absolutely, collaborative conlangs are possible; Alex & I have made
> two.
>
> Of course, we're in an unusual situation � partners who are both
> conlangers, and who have more or less compatible aesthetics. I'm not
> sure that Gary's proposed anarchic development process would really
> work for an engelang, at least not until it were fairly stable.
>
> I'm minded of something from ASL: creating new signs is generally
> frowned upon if you're not Deaf. Issues of Deaf culture insularity per
> se aside, the reason for this is simple: most hearing people have
> horribly butchered the modality when they try to make new signs (viz.
> SEE). Making decent signs requires a good understanding of their
> morphosyntax, the properties you play with, the references /
> similarities you can make, the different POV from a spoken language.
>
> I think the same is essentially true for engelangs: they have a
> significantly nonstandard framing. If you don't understand where
> they're coming from, what they're trying to do, their design
> aesthetic, then your contributions will be, frankly, pretty crap �
> they just won't integrate well. But if you do, then I see no reason
> why you couldn't do so.
>
> In an early stage engelang (like UNLWS), this is even harder, because
> the design aesthetic isn't even fully fleshed out yet. A lot of *our*
> ideas are pretty crap! We work through them by discussion, refining on
> the spot, tabling things (sometimes for months) to mull it over when
> it doesn't quite feel right. Eventually we come up with some fairly
> neat resolutions.
>
> I'd be happy to have others participate, if they wanted to engage with
> that kind of discussion. But just random anarchic mutation, without
> grokking the system, would just butcher the thing.
>
>
> I make no claim that the same applies to artlangs; I am no artlanger,
> let alone a naturalistic one, so my concerns are rather different. ;-)
>
> - Sai
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
2f. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "Matthew DeBlock" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 2:09 am ((PDT))
Well put, I perhaps went a little strong there.
But think you glaze over "usage/application" with a blanket statement as
if to imply it is not important in your verbage here.
I agree it is important to encourage a creative environment, restriction
and boundry free.
But what I am sying by "success" is not to set some standard, more what
the article says, that success will be decided by usage/application over
time. I am by no means trying to lay out some standard for perfection.
But one must admit, much of the conlang world "suffers" from a kind of
"mortailty", which could be solved easily nowadays.
Most conlangs I have seen are still just a devote VERY small group, with
obvious exceptions like esperanto.
I have no problem with musing ideologically. I'm just coming from a
realistic perspective, coming at it form a "what will time just wash away"
perspective and what can actually "survive and grow on its own merit".
That is what I reffer to as success in this sense.
I dont even want to start on the psycological frictions inherint in a bunc
of "people playing god over imaginary kingdoms/cultures" giving up their
"throne" and working together hehe... im not saying its easy, im just
saying this should REALLY be dealt with.. we have the tools and broadcast
reach...
> On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 8:36 PM, Matthew DeBlock <[email protected]> wrote:
>> I meant "success" as in "survive and prosper as a language"
>
> I think And's point is that what counts as propsering is something
> that varies quite a bit, depending on the conlanger's intent.
>
> Dothraki isn't especially meant to be a lingua franca, for instance.
> It might get to the level of Klingon uptake, but its primary aim is
> simple: to fulfill an aesthetic role needed by the film.
>
> Likewise for many conlangers, whether other people speak their
> language or not is perhaps a perk but not criterial to prosperity, any
> more than wide dissemination is criterial to how good a piece of art
> is.
>
> For myself, I really don't care at all if people start using my
> conlangs; my interest is simply in pushing the boundaries of language,
> seeing what can be done, satisfying my own intellectual curiosity,
> having something fun to do with my boyfriend.
>
>> It doesnt mater how "good the language is" application is all that
>> matters
>> in the long run.
>
> Matters to whom? If it doesn't matter to the conlanger, I don't see
> how you get to impose that criterion from outside.
>
>> And if you say "It doesnt have to be used or usable" you are now of in a
>> purely artistic or experimental realm, and the language element is
>> negligable, not very pertenant to a discussion of practical application.
>
> I don't see how those two things are at all contrastive. Why can't a
> language be purely artistic or experimental, yet fully a language? Why
> does art or experiment have to have practical application, let alone
> one measured in the number of users?
>
>> I think the problem is conlanging is far to fractured. [â¦]
>
> To preempt a flamewar: I suggest you take that line of discussion over
> to AUXLANG-L (http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A0=AUXLANG).
> It's okay there, but not here.
>
> Your line of argument â an attempt at getting everyone to use or work
> on the same conlang, have languages be measured by their uptake, etc â
> is more or less categorically rejected here, because it gave rise to
> the flamewars of old. It is why AUXLANG-L was made and separated from
> this list. Perhaps auxlangs are more your style; if yes, I'd suggest
> that at least you take a look at the various prior projects in that
> realm (and Okrent's book), so that you have a realistic sense of what
> you're dealing with.
>
> Discussion of auxlang linguistics is fine, but proselytization,
> judging others' work by factors other than of their own choosing, or
> trying to get everyone to work on the One True Language is not. Sorry.
> Tolerance of each others' peculiarities of preference is how we get
> along. ;-)
>
> - Sai
>
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
2g. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "Matthew DeBlock" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 2:18 am ((PDT))
I agree completly.
but again, I dont see anything really geared toward "attracting potential
conlangers" and getting them under a common framework(the framework shoudl
allow for everythign of course)
This industry needs SERIOUS consolidation.
Tha does not have to mean "uniformity" if you consolidate properly
and it doesnt mean monopoly or anything horrible either
just that the many small participants should be trying to combine their
efforts.
> To comment on topic:
>
> I'd say absolutely, collaborative conlangs are possible; Alex & I have
> made two.
>
> Of course, we're in an unusual situation â partners who are both
> conlangers, and who have more or less compatible aesthetics. I'm not
> sure that Gary's proposed anarchic development process would really
> work for an engelang, at least not until it were fairly stable.
>
> I'm minded of something from ASL: creating new signs is generally
> frowned upon if you're not Deaf. Issues of Deaf culture insularity per
> se aside, the reason for this is simple: most hearing people have
> horribly butchered the modality when they try to make new signs (viz.
> SEE). Making decent signs requires a good understanding of their
> morphosyntax, the properties you play with, the references /
> similarities you can make, the different POV from a spoken language.
>
> I think the same is essentially true for engelangs: they have a
> significantly nonstandard framing. If you don't understand where
> they're coming from, what they're trying to do, their design
> aesthetic, then your contributions will be, frankly, pretty crap â
> they just won't integrate well. But if you do, then I see no reason
> why you couldn't do so.
>
> In an early stage engelang (like UNLWS), this is even harder, because
> the design aesthetic isn't even fully fleshed out yet. A lot of *our*
> ideas are pretty crap! We work through them by discussion, refining on
> the spot, tabling things (sometimes for months) to mull it over when
> it doesn't quite feel right. Eventually we come up with some fairly
> neat resolutions.
>
> I'd be happy to have others participate, if they wanted to engage with
> that kind of discussion. But just random anarchic mutation, without
> grokking the system, would just butcher the thing.
>
>
> I make no claim that the same applies to artlangs; I am no artlanger,
> let alone a naturalistic one, so my concerns are rather different. ;-)
>
> - Sai
>
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
2h. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "Adam Walker" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 7:44 am ((PDT))
On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 4:18 AM, Matthew DeBlock <[email protected]> wrote:
> This industry needs SERIOUS consolidation.
>
>
It needs NO SUCH THING. The whole POINT of conlanging for many, if not
most, of us is to explore language and its possibilites creatively and
independently. I don't have any intention of anyone, other than myself,
ever actually **using** any of my languages. Probably none of them is even
well enough documented in its on-line materials for anyone to do so. Only
Carrajina is worked out well enough on paper for anyone, other than myself,
to have any real hope of using correctly. I have no desire to
"consolodate" and if such were the nature of this hobby, would never have
become involved. To quote a Fthsaisthf turn of phrase -- you blow at
crosswinds to me, the breeze flows not well between us.
Adam
Messages in this topic (11)
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3a. Re: Dessert
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Thu Sep 6, 2012 2:31 pm ((PDT))
--- On Wed, 9/5/12, Sam Stutter <[email protected]> wrote:
I very rarely hear the word "dessert" actually used in general conversation
unless it's in discussion of a specific foodstuff - things which are branded as
such or restaurant desserts. The word has always seemed (to me) an affectation:
that somehow this food is light and expensive, possibly something involving
sorbet or soufflés. Most of the time the words "afters" (which has a pretty
obvious etymology) or "pudding" work fine (apparently it's a C20th thing where
pudding generally suggests sweetness - the word "really" means "sausage").
Just me?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Dessert" is the _only_ word used in US English AFAIK, except for specific
things like "Pie, cake, ice cream, pudding [the real thing, not generic] etc."
I'm familiar with "afters, pudding" as UK speech only because a) I was in
England many years ago, and b) have watched a lot of British TV imports
............
Messages in this topic (23)
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4a. Re: letter for 'th'
Posted by: "And Rosta" [email protected]
Date: Thu Sep 6, 2012 5:46 pm ((PDT))
Tony Harris, On 05/09/2012 01:14:
> Is <z> in use? You could always go with the Castillian option and use
> C (before i or e) and Z, or Z alone, to cover [T].
<z> is in use, for a phoneme whose primary allophone is [z]. The only letters
not in use are C and X (and W, which it might be anachronistic to use, and J
and V, which are currently treated as allographs of I and U).
Wesley Parish, On 04/09/2012 11:39:
> Cakobau (Thakombau) says, use C.
I had a look at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fijian_language>, and it says c =
[ð]. For Livagian, <d> = [ð].
Michael Everson, On 05/09/2012 03:47:
> On 4 Sep 2012, at 16:31, And Rosta wrote:
>> þ would be my preference too, but I cannot think of a historically
>> plausible explanation for Livagian using it.
>
> Missionaries from the west?
Livagia is SW of Ireland. As far as I currently know, missionaries didn't
arrive until the late 1500s (Jesuits), tho Paul did write them a censorious
epistle (Epistle to the Lychagians, reproving them for their wantonness). I
guess missionaries might have come many centuries earlier from Ireland, but
they wouldn't have brought thorn with them.
Alex:
> (I don't suppose the Livagians are swayed by the Irish use of
> overdots everywhere. Actually, didn't the old Irish use of overdot
> here develop from the _punctus delens_, overdot as a deletion mark?
> Another thing which the Livagians must not have adopted.)
Despite their relative geographical propinquity, I'm not currently aware of
significant Livagico-Hibernian cultural contacts.
A. da Mek, On 05/09/2012 10:18:
>> þ would be my preference too, but I cannot think of a historically
>> plausible explanation for Livagian using it.
>
> Could be plausible Greek theta?
>
> Or t followed by the rough breathing diacritic mark (similar grapheme
> as left single quotation mark). t'
I'd considered theta, and while it's historically plausible, it's
linguistically implausible. The Livagian sprachanschauung is a very classical
structuralist one, and the idea that a letter have some kind of ineluctable
intrinsic phonetic value would seem ludicrous. Livagians would not bat an
eyelid at using C or X for /T/. But I'm deliberating whether to let the
orthographic choices Livagia made a couple of millennia ago be influenced by
the orthographic tastes of my fellow conlangers, within limits set by
historical plausibility and fidelity to the Liwagisch Sprachanschauung.
Alex Fink, On 05/09/2012 01:35:
> On Wed, 5 Sep 2012 00:31:10 +0100, And Rosta<[email protected]>
> wrote:
>> I'm assuming that the available stock of letters is the Latin
>> alphabet, augmented, out of necessity, by ash and letters with
>> over- and/or under- dots. I haven't been able to find anything
>> less odd. I have a rule that an overdot can't occur with a letter
>> whose roman or italic minuscule sometimes has an ascender and an
>> underdot can't occur with a letter whose roman or italic minuscule
>> sometimes has a descender -- not counting fancy swashy italics (so
>> z can have an underdot but f and s can't). This rule must, I guess,
>> have developed with the maturation of minuscules and Renaissance
>> lettering.
>
> Do over- and under-dot contrast, or is there just a single diacritic
> dot which is placed where it fits?
They do contrast on N. N-underdot is /N/, N-overdot is tonic/accented /n/. And
N with over- and under- dots is tonic /N/. Other than that, over- and under-
dots contrast with letters that never have ascender or descender, but in these
cases the dots serve only an abbreviatory function and are not fundamental to
the orthography.
> The latter has precedent: the IPA recommends it for things like
> [N_0], Latvian uses G with over-comma in a series with KLN(R) with
> under-comma, etc. The former I myself wouldn't be content with, as
> an unjustifiable anachronism, if it's meant to continue a system from
> before the lowercase letters developed.
I agree. So they were probably using T-overdot for /T/ (or T-underdot for /T/
and T-overdot for the alveolar click), and then probably with the advent of
printing and Renaissance minuscules, minuscules would have become more
established and T-overdot would have come to be felt unsatisfactory. On the one
hand, the Livagians might have searched abroad for replacements, and lit on
thorn, but I am more inclined to agree with David:
David McCann, On 05/09/2012 15:55:
> The historical argument supports c (or rather ċ). In the Middle Ages
> and Renascence, t was often without an ascender ꞇ, while in some
> late Gothic cursive (e.g. English Secretary Hand) c can look like т.
> This would make it easy to switch from a dotted t to a dotted c.
This is a good story: I am going to adopt it. The dot on the C would be
redundant, and therefore removed by Livagian perfectivism.
--And.
Messages in this topic (23)
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5. Plus ça change...
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 4:50 am ((PDT))
Well, it was another one of those moments...
I was just trying to figure out what to call Laos in Géarthnuns, so went to
Wikipedia and found "Muang Lao" or "Pathet Lao". Over to Omniglot and Wiki Lao
Alphabet to work it out on my own, and lo, the Lao letter for /N/ could very
easily swing for Géarthnuns /N/ in certain fonts. Now it originally was
supposed to hail from Ancient Greek double gamma, becoming increasingly
stylized until it ended up in its current form. Certainly, a Fraktur-style
Géarthnuns /N/ would not be mistaken for a Lao /N/, but in modern typefaces it
would.
I just marvel when things like this happen. Clearly some Géarthnuns letters are
outright rip-offs, er, borrowings, er, developments. Géarthnuns i, e, o, s, and
ch come straight from the Greek; b from Arabic. "A" comes from Phoenician alf
but instead of turning it up to look like "A", I turned it down (looked more to
me like a ox's head that way to me), and in modern writing it looks like a "v".
dh and th are a nod to Early Modern English thorn; f and l, from Latin. The
machinations of a fourteen-year-old conlanging mind back in the day. Who are
you to judge me!!?? ;)
But I did go off the beaten path with other letters, and still:
Handwritten Géarthnuns r looks an awful lot like Cyrillic lower-case italic ge.
Géarthnuns rh resembles Cyrillic zhe. "rs" looks like mirror-image Arabic final
and isolated kaf. "ts", in a pinch, looks like Cyrillic "tse". Cursive "kf"
looks like a cursive something in Teonaht (apparently, I can't go back and look
-- an "s", maybe?). And these were made independently by a lanky naïf in his
bedroom in hicksville Wilmot, New Hampshire during the Carter administration,
for crying out loud (and as I write this, I notice that Géarthnuns "w" looks
suspiciously close to Phoenician "mem").
I've talked before about how "nü", the hortative for "be", resembles the
Devanagari ligature for "om", and how that would have made for some fun
tie-dyed Géarthtörs T-shirts back in the 60's. When I made the "ts"-"tse"
connection a few months back, I thought that maybe that could be used in a
movie poster. I saw a film recently about Chernobyl, and the title sequence was
spelled "Cheяnoбyl" or "Cherиobyl" or some such, giving it that eerie, evil
Soviet vibe. So maybe some hip, shoulder-padded, Géarthçíns movie exec in the
80's could break out his synth and come up with some Russians-are-bad film
(Géarthtörs is on the doorstep of Primorsky Krai, and the Géarthçíns are
nothing if not circumspect, so it's doubtful such a film would get made,
but...), you know, some leg-warmer and Madonna-bracelet clad Géarthçíns teens
save their town from a Soviet invasion. And instead of spelling it, like,
"Prémnats", it could be "Prémnaц" (and the letters would actually *correspond*,
not like я and и for R and N). Ooooo, how deliciously sinister. Hard to imagine
a Lao ng adding much to a movie poster, but maybe on a Lao restaurant menu you
could write "ngalars" as "ງalars" and that would indicate to a Géarthçíns
patron, "Hey, you're in authentic Lao cuisine territory here."
My point to all of this, if there was one, is: Phoenician heth looks like
Chinese 日. Is it like, there are so many words in so many languages floating
around out there that you're going to get hits like Turkish "bad" meaning
"bad", by extension, there are so many written symbols running around that
you're bound to encounter some that look alike and further still, some that
look AND sound alike?
And if you were wondering, I think I'm going to run with "Muang Lao" to get
"Mwanglowsars". "Pathet Lao" seems to have historico-political
(politico-historical?) overtones that I don't want to touch with a barge pole
(if anyone in the know about Lao politics thinks "Mwanglowsars" will rankle, do
let me know). And its capital: "Wíangchans".
Kou
Messages in this topic (1)
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