There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: phonetic values of the 26-letter English alphabet
From: Herman Miller
1b. Re: phonetic values of the 26-letter English alphabet
From: MorphemeAddict
2a. Re: Is there a word for this?
From: Gary Shannon
3a. Re: Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (was RE: logical language VS not-so-logic
From: Chris Crawford
3b. Re: Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (was RE: logical language VS not-so-logic
From: George Corley
4a. Re: So, about Ithkuil...
From: David Peterson
4b. Re: So, about Ithkuil...
From: Gleki Arxokuna
4c. Re: So, about Ithkuil...
From: John Q
4d. Re: So, about Ithkuil...
From: MorphemeAddict
5a. Re: OT: Decimal vs. duodeciml (was: logical language VS not-so-logic
From: Leonardo Castro
6a. Re: THEORY: Practical limit of inflection complexity?
From: Leonardo Castro
6b. Re: THEORY: Practical limit of inflection complexity?
From: MorphemeAddict
7a. Re: Vulcan Language (was: Loglan VS Natlang)
From: Daniel Prohaska
7b. Re: Vulcan Language (was: Loglan VS Natlang)
From: Daniel Prohaska
8. Hypothetical situation (RE: logical language VS not-so-logical langu
From: Mathieu Roy
Messages
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1a. Re: phonetic values of the 26-letter English alphabet
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [email protected]
Date: Sat Jan 19, 2013 7:20 pm ((PST))
On 1/19/2013 7:43 PM, MorphemeAddict wrote:
> I've been using a normalized system of values for the 26-letter English
> alphabet for my conlanging work. This allows me to use all and only these
> 26 letters.
>
> a e i o u
>
> b p v f m
> d t h w n
> g k y x q
> z s j c
>
> l r
>
> The unusual mappings are
>
> c = ʃ
>
> h = θ
>
> j = ʒ
> q = ŋ
>
> w = ð
>
> y = ɣ
>
> An apostrophe can be added to this with a value of either h or glottal
> stop.
>
> stevo
j = ʒ isn't all that unusual, and I can see that y could be a good
substitute for ɣ. I used y for /ɣ/ in my romanization for Czirehlat,
which was a spinoff from Tirelat around 12 years ago. The "w" for /ð/ is
pretty unusual though, and /θ/ and /ð/ are both uncommon sounds even
though English-speaking conlangers tend to use them a lot. I've used
26-letter alphabets a couple of times before, once for a language called
Tilya in 2000, and previously in Eklektu from 1996. Both of these were
more or less what I might call experimental languages. Most of my langs
use either more or fewer than 26 sounds, so I haven't had much recent
interest in one-to-one Latin alphabet writing systems.
Here's the Tilya phoneme inventory:
p b t d q c k g i u
m n
f v s z x j h r e o
w l y a
The "q" and "c" are affricates, [tʃ] and [dʒ] (c = dʒ at least has a
precedent in Turkish). Probably the most unusual mapping is r = ɣ. I
never did write much in Tilya, but here's a sample:
Ke pasya hotsa sa nahpa ke hirkinofha. Mema bo le ka dahwa?
Birds fly over the rainbow. Why can't I?
My Eklektu document used an old non-Unicode IPA font (limitations of
Windows 95), so I have to go by the approximate English equivalents
(with the exception that "r" is trilled). This should be close enough:
a ɑ
b b
c ʃ
d d
e ɛ
f f
g ɡ
h h
i ɪ
j ʒ
k k
l l
m m
n n
o ɔ
p p
q ŋ
r r
s s
t t
u ʊ
v v
w w
x x
y j
z z
At the time it was customary to translate the Lord's Prayer into
conlangs. Here's the Eklektu version. Eklektu was a mix of words adapted
from different languages.
O tya per ni la nebo, hu sakra u nom de va,
Hu lai u va regala, hu esen u va vil, ve ni nebo, kai ni la mond,
Tya jur hleba hu don o tya ni kojur,
Et hu pardon o tya e tya deballi, ve kai ha tya pardon o tya debulli,
Et ne hu duk o tya al iskuc, no hu liberin u tya van zloi.
Messages in this topic (3)
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1b. Re: phonetic values of the 26-letter English alphabet
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" [email protected]
Date: Sat Jan 19, 2013 8:18 pm ((PST))
On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 10:20 PM, Herman Miller <[email protected]>wrote:
> On 1/19/2013 7:43 PM, MorphemeAddict wrote:
>
>> I've been using a normalized system of values for the 26-letter English
>> alphabet for my conlanging work. This allows me to use all and only these
>> 26 letters.
>>
>> a e i o u
>>
>> b p v f m
>> d t h w n
>> g k y x q
>> z s j c
>>
>> l r
>>
>> The unusual mappings are
>>
>> c = ʃ
>>
>> h = θ
>>
>> j = ʒ
>> q = ŋ
>>
>> w = ð
>>
>> y = ɣ
>>
>> An apostrophe can be added to this with a value of either h or glottal
>> stop.
>>
>> stevo
>>
>
> j = ʒ isn't all that unusual, and I can see that y could be a good
> substitute for ɣ. I used y for /ɣ/ in my romanization for Czirehlat, which
> was a spinoff from Tirelat around 12 years ago. The "w" for /ð/ is pretty
> unusual though, and /θ/ and /ð/ are both uncommon sounds even though
> English-speaking conlangers tend to use them a lot. I've used 26-letter
> alphabets a couple of times before, once for a language called Tilya in
> 2000, and previously in Eklektu from 1996. Both of these were more or less
> what I might call experimental languages. Most of my langs use either more
> or fewer than 26 sounds, so I haven't had much recent interest in
> one-to-one Latin alphabet writing systems.
>
> Here's the Tilya phoneme inventory:
>
> p b t d q c k g i u
> m n
> f v s z x j h r e o
> w l y a
>
> The "q" and "c" are affricates, [tʃ] and [dʒ] (c = dʒ at least has a
> precedent in Turkish).
I use "tc" and "dj" for these two afficates. The "c" and "j" are from
Loglan/Lojban.
stevo
Probably the most unusual mapping is r = ɣ. I never did write much in
> Tilya, but here's a sample:
>
> Ke pasya hotsa sa nahpa ke hirkinofha. Mema bo le ka dahwa?
> Birds fly over the rainbow. Why can't I?
>
> My Eklektu document used an old non-Unicode IPA font (limitations of
> Windows 95), so I have to go by the approximate English equivalents (with
> the exception that "r" is trilled). This should be close enough:
>
> a ɑ
> b b
> c ʃ
> d d
> e ɛ
> f f
> g ɡ
> h h
> i ɪ
> j ʒ
> k k
> l l
> m m
> n n
> o ɔ
> p p
> q ŋ
> r r
> s s
> t t
> u ʊ
> v v
> w w
> x x
> y j
> z z
>
> At the time it was customary to translate the Lord's Prayer into conlangs.
> Here's the Eklektu version. Eklektu was a mix of words adapted from
> different languages.
>
> O tya per ni la nebo, hu sakra u nom de va,
> Hu lai u va regala, hu esen u va vil, ve ni nebo, kai ni la mond,
> Tya jur hleba hu don o tya ni kojur,
> Et hu pardon o tya e tya deballi, ve kai ha tya pardon o tya debulli,
> Et ne hu duk o tya al iskuc, no hu liberin u tya van zloi.
>
Messages in this topic (3)
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2a. Re: Is there a word for this?
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Sat Jan 19, 2013 7:32 pm ((PST))
On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 3:37 PM, Ralph DeCarli <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> --snip--
> > For programming purposes the method is extremely useful, but for
> > the purpose of describing the algorithm I can't use existing terms
> > like "parts of speech" without misleading the reader. Thus the
> > need for a new term.
> >
> > So the question is not "does the method work?" For programming
> > purposes, it does. The questions is, what shall I call it?
> >
> > ---snip---
> >
> Who would your audience be? Confusing them least would depend on
> their background.
Realistically, my main audience would probably be my own future self,
when I go back in ten years to try to understand the code.
> I did something (possibly) similar and ended up with
> 'Objects' (mostly nouns) 'Descriptors' (mostly adjectives and
> adverbs) and 'Relationships' (everything else, including verbs). One
> might guess that I have a background in data modeling.
>
> I don't know if this will help, but you can see the upshot here.
That looks interesting.
I was wondering too how useful it might be to go to the opposite
extreme of what I had proposed and just tag words as "part of a noun
phrase" (which would include nouns, pronouns, adjectives, articles,
quantifiers, demonstratives,...), or "part of a verb phrase"
(including verbs, adverbs, auxiliaries,,,). Beyond that, the third
part of speech might be "connectors" like pronouns, conjunctions,
commas, and some other stuff (?)
So there would only be three parts of speech: Nouny, Verby, and
Connectors. A tagged sentence might look like:
All/N sorts/N of/C strange/N articles/N were/V arranged/V on/C the/N
shelves/N
In fact, it seems like no meaning is lost when the contiguous
like-tagged groups are permuted (internally):
Sorts/N all/N of/C articles/N strange/N arranged/V were/V on/C
shelves/N the/N
I notice in your web page you included the prepositional phrase "with
a fork" as part of the verb. I think I might apply it as a global
modifier to the whole sentence:
Bob eats asparagus [with a fork] [in the park] [under the elm tree]
[beside his friend Sally]
That way the prepositional phrases all get tacked to the sentence with
"connectors" as in:
NVN CN CN CN CN
--gary
Messages in this topic (14)
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3a. Re: Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (was RE: logical language VS not-so-logic
Posted by: "Chris Crawford" [email protected]
Date: Sat Jan 19, 2013 9:29 pm ((PST))
First off, strictly speaking, there is no Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Neither Sapir
nor Whorf ever wrote down anything that they declared to be their hypothesis.
However, Whorf wrote extensively about the idea, and his message was strong
enough that linguists began to talk in terms of "The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis".
But nobody could say exactly what it meant.
There are two common versions of the hypothesis: the weak version and the
strong version. The strong version is that language controls thought. "If you
can't say it, you don't know it." There is a bit of evidence to support this.
For example, an interesting series of experiments with Chinese and English
speakers showed that the Chinese speakers had more difficulty understanding
contrapositive questions. (e.g., "If Al Gore had won the 2000 election, would
the USA have invaded Iraq?") Nevertheless, the strong version does not command
a lot of respect.
The weak version, however, is broadly accepted. It states that language echoes
or reflects the perceptual reality of the speaker. For example, the Inuit have
a great many ways of talking about frozen water (NOT many words!), and the San
have no ways of talking about it.
Where all this gets interesting is in the issue of language influence on
thought. (BTW, Orwell's Newspeak, in which politically undesirable ideas had no
words, was inspired by Whorf's writings.) There's no question that there is
some influence, and a few rigorous experiments have nibbled at the edges of the
idea, but the folk wisdom on this is not supported by evidence. Speaking German
doesn't give you an edge in science, nor does speaking French make you more
romantic. (And speaking American English doesn't make you stupid, despite so
much correlation...) I think that the field is ripe for rigorous
experimentation, but the design of such experiments so as to truly isolate the
effects of language seems an insurmountable challenge. How do you separate
linguistic issues from cultural ones?
Messages in this topic (8)
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3b. Re: Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (was RE: logical language VS not-so-logic
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Sun Jan 20, 2013 2:46 am ((PST))
On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 11:29 PM, Chris Crawford <[email protected]>wrote:
> First off, strictly speaking, there is no Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Neither
> Sapir nor Whorf ever wrote down anything that they declared to be their
> hypothesis. However, Whorf wrote extensively about the idea, and his
> message was strong enough that linguists began to talk in terms of "The
> Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis". But nobody could say exactly what it meant.
>
A lot of these things are sort of formulated after the fact, so that's not
surprising.
> There are two common versions of the hypothesis: the weak version and the
> strong version. The strong version is that language controls thought. "If
> you can't say it, you don't know it." There is a bit of evidence to support
> this. For example, an interesting series of experiments with Chinese and
> English speakers showed that the Chinese speakers had more difficulty
> understanding contrapositive questions. (e.g., "If Al Gore had won the 2000
> election, would the USA have invaded Iraq?") Nevertheless, the strong
> version does not command a lot of respect.
>
> The weak version, however, is broadly accepted. It states that language
> echoes or reflects the perceptual reality of the speaker. For example, the
> Inuit have a great many ways of talking about frozen water (NOT many
> words!), and the San have no ways of talking about it.
>
I lean very much toward the weak version, though the way you explain them,
I suppose small parts of the "strong" theory might be true (previously, I
had thought that the weak theory also allowed language to influence
thought, but not seriously control or influence it -- is this not the case?)
> Where all this gets interesting is in the issue of language influence on
> thought. (BTW, Orwell's Newspeak, in which politically undesirable ideas
> had no words, was inspired by Whorf's writings.) There's no question that
> there is some influence, and a few rigorous experiments have nibbled at the
> edges of the idea, but the folk wisdom on this is not supported by
> evidence. Speaking German doesn't give you an edge in science, nor does
> speaking French make you more romantic. (And speaking American English
> doesn't make you stupid, despite so much correlation...) I think that the
> field is ripe for rigorous experimentation, but the design of such
> experiments so as to truly isolate the effects of language seems an
> insurmountable challenge. How do you separate linguistic issues from
> cultural ones?
>
I'd be interested in who in the world stereotypes *all* of American English
as "stupid". People with pronounced Southern American English dialects are
often stereotyped as ignorant, racist, and backward, and various other
regional accents have different stereotypes attached, but I have never
heard anyone stereotype *American English* speakers (to the extent that
this can be separated from "Americans") as stupid.
Messages in this topic (8)
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4a. Re: So, about Ithkuil...
Posted by: "David Peterson" [email protected]
Date: Sat Jan 19, 2013 10:19 pm ((PST))
On Jan 19, 2013, at 5:46 PM, selpa'i <[email protected]> wrote:
> It saddens me a bit to read this. Do you have solid evidence for your belief
> or is it more of an intuitive guess? Surely, you understand the complexity of
> Ithkuil the best, but I don't want to easily give up my hopes that "THAT
> level of fluency" is attainable. Why do you think it's impossible?
If I could add, you might want to search the archives for discussions of Fith
or Shallow Fith and its alienness. One of the things that And Rosta pointed out
about Fith is that it's possible to speak it without taking advantage of some
of the oddities of its stack operations. Doing so would technically be speaking
Fith, it just wouldn't be very interesting, compared to what it's possible to
do with Fith. I think John's saying the same thing here.
If we imagine a potential person that has the workings of Ithkuil so ingrained
they could produce examples like John's on the fly, it would be interesting. I
share his feeling that such mastery isn't possible, but I wouldn't go so far as
to say that I'm 100% certain it's not possible (my understanding of Ithkuil
isn't detailed enough to make any such claim with certainty). Whether it's
possible or not, though, I do believe a given human could be better than other
humans at doing it�and I think practice would be the key. It would take
discipline to ensure that one isn't taking any shortcuts and is giving a good
faith attempt at giving it their all, but I'm confident a human could get to a
point where it comes more naturally that it would to another. It's my guess,
though, that it would never approach the maximum potential the language holds
(and please note that for me, at least, it is definitely a guess; I don't have
evidence to back this up).
As to the benefits, I think the personal benefits would far outweigh any
possible external benefits. I, for one, would be impressed, but that only goes
so far. If the Ithkuil experiment works as I think it could, working with it
might sharpen one's observational and analytical skills when it comes to
examining some gestalt�whatever it is�and breaking it down. It would be a
different way of approaching a problem that humans often solve via metaphor.
That is, we understand and conceptualize many abstract concepts (and some not
so abstract concepts) in terms of concrete processes. It helps us to get a hold
of those concepts, while at the same time highlighting and sublimating certain
aspects of them (see Lakoff's work for more on this). Thus, it's a benefit and
a crutch at the same time. One of the things that gifted writers, orators and
teachers are able to is to take some concept we understand in a number of
standard ways and present it in some new way�perhaps using a different
conceptual metaphor or presenting a different analytic framework�which forces
to examine a concept we've heretofore understood in an entirely new way,
perhaps highlighting different aspects that had been deemphasized. Thus, we
gain a new understanding of that process.
Theoretically with Ithkuil one goes beyond metaphorical understanding allowing
one to break down any concept into its actual component parts. This isn't
something that comes easily or naturally to most people. If you continue to
work with Ithkuil, perhaps you will improve your ability to deconstruct
abstract phenomena.
I'm not sure if this would be encouraging or discouraging, and I don't have
anything to back this up. These are hypotheses and opinions. If you were to
work with Ithkuil and try to gain some measure of fluency, I'm sure the subject
would make a wonderful article for Fiat Lingua. :)
David Peterson
LCS President
[email protected]
www.conlang.org
Messages in this topic (8)
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4b. Re: So, about Ithkuil...
Posted by: "Gleki Arxokuna" [email protected]
Date: Sat Jan 19, 2013 10:32 pm ((PST))
On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 11:50 PM, selpa'i <[email protected]> wrote:
> I have made a few attempts in the past to "learn" Ithkuil; what I really
> did was that I read through some of the intro pages and then gave up in
> frustration each time. But for some reason, it all seems much easier this
> time around. I'm not nearly as confused, and most importantly, I now
> believe that it's possible to learn this language. Something which I highly
> doubted before.
>
> Now I'll be trying to get the Grammar of Ithkuil from lulu.com, hoping
> that shipping to Europe won't cause problems or huge delays.
>
> I'm wondering, however. There seems to be surprisingly little talk about
> Ithkuil on the net or on this list. There is no Ithkuil mailing list, no
> IRC channel, no youtube videos, no learning resources other than the
> Reference Grammar. Even Gua\spi seems to have a bigger web presence, and it
> was revived only some months ago by myself. Why is there so little
> activity, so little output? There clearly are people out there that have a
> serious interest in Ithkuil; I am aware of the reddit and facebook groups,
> and that there is a community of Russian enthusiasts, and yet, it seems
> that no texts have been translated into Ithkuil (e.g. The Little Prince).
>
Side note. This Russian community currently consists of only one person.
His name is la .zalaim. But he couldn't reach such level of proficiency in
Ithkuil as he could do in Lojban. He says that's because there are so few
Ithkuilists.
Another person who slowly studies Ithkuil is me (for now by just trying to
find lojbanic analogs to all affixes and roots) but don't expect me to
contribute something worthy of reading during the next 12 months or so.
> Is it simply that people are overwhelmed by Ithkuil? Or are they not
> motivated enough? Is the general opinion really that it cannot be learned?
> Because I actually doubt that. It is a very difficult language, no
> question, but other than that, there are polysynthetic natural languages
> with similarly complex morphologies, and there are also natural languages
> with similarly complex phonologies.
>
For me the biggest obstacle is that Ithkuil is not decomposable. You can't
utter only one affix. You have to build the whole word. This is in direct
violation of esperantic principle of sufficiency and necessesity (add as
many affixes as you need but not more). Of course esperanto itself violates
this principle although not to such extent.
>
> I do think that it would be extremely helpful to have some more didactic
> tutorials, preferably written by John Qijada himself, as he is the only one
> that can be trusted. I also know how busy life can get, and how little time
> there is sometimes left for such things.
>
> I am reminded of a semi-serious suggestion I once made in the Lojban
> community: Set out a cash prize for the first (or any) person to achieve
> complete spoken fluency in Lojban. The same idea works for any underused
> language, like Ithkuil. Of course, Lojban has the LLG behind them, which
> could pay this prize (in theory), whereas there is no such institution for
> Ithkuil. It would have to be crowd-funded. (As I said, half-joking, but not
> entirely)
>
> Lastly, a hypothetical: What would happen if a person did manage to learn
> Ithkuil to a decent level, such that they could speak the language mabye
> not to 100% of its potential, but well enough to not need a dictionary, and
> well enough to converse relatively freely in/about everyday situations?
> Would anybody care? Would this person be a "hero"? I have no idea.
>
> So these are just some of my thoughts about the current state of Ithkuil.
> Feedback is appreciated.
>
> mu'o mi'e la selpa'i
>
Messages in this topic (8)
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4c. Re: So, about Ithkuil...
Posted by: "John Q" [email protected]
Date: Sat Jan 19, 2013 11:44 pm ((PST))
>> It took me about fifteen minutes to piece together the above Ithkuil
>> word after first thinking about the "scene" I wanted to describe. A
>> "100% fluent" speaker (e.g., the hypothetical sports announcer)
>> would, in theory, be able to come up with such a word ON THE SPOT.
>> It is THAT level of fluency which Ithkuil potentially allows, and it
>> is THAT level of fluency which I now believe is unattainable.
>It saddens me a bit to read this. Do you have solid evidence for your
>belief or is it more of an intuitive guess? Surely, you understand the
>complexity of Ithkuil the best, but I don't want to easily give up my
>hopes that "THAT level of fluency" is attainable. Why do you think it's
>impossible?
____________________________________
Admittedly an intuitive guess. I doubt such a level of fluency is possible
because, being aware of how much mental effort I have to make during the
fifteen or so minutes to decompose the semantic elements of a scene like my
football example and then tediously map them one by one to the overt components
of Ithkuil morphology (including choosing which lexical roots to use, which
stems from those roots, which derivation all affixes to employ, and then
determine which of the myriad declensions of the 22 mandatory morphological
categories for each verb is appropriate, then string it all together
morpho-syntactically into a word or phrase or sentence, well...to expect a
human being to be able to do that on the fly in a couple of seconds like the
hypothetical sports announcer in my example seems like a super-human feat to
me. Perhaps, as Stevo says, an advanced human like a trained psychoneticist
perhaps could do it. ;-)
--John Q
Messages in this topic (8)
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4d. Re: So, about Ithkuil...
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" [email protected]
Date: Sun Jan 20, 2013 12:31 am ((PST))
On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 2:44 AM, John Q <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> It took me about fifteen minutes to piece together the above Ithkuil
> >> word after first thinking about the "scene" I wanted to describe. A
> >> "100% fluent" speaker (e.g., the hypothetical sports announcer)
> >> would, in theory, be able to come up with such a word ON THE SPOT.
> >> It is THAT level of fluency which Ithkuil potentially allows, and it
> >> is THAT level of fluency which I now believe is unattainable.
>
> >It saddens me a bit to read this. Do you have solid evidence for your
> >belief or is it more of an intuitive guess? Surely, you understand the
> >complexity of Ithkuil the best, but I don't want to easily give up my
> >hopes that "THAT level of fluency" is attainable. Why do you think it's
> >impossible?
> ____________________________________
>
> Admittedly an intuitive guess. I doubt such a level of fluency is
> possible because, being aware of how much mental effort I have to make
> during the fifteen or so minutes to decompose the semantic elements of a
> scene like my football example and then tediously map them one by one to
> the overt components of Ithkuil morphology (including choosing which
> lexical roots to use, which stems from those roots, which derivation all
> affixes to employ, and then determine which of the myriad declensions of
> the 22 mandatory morphological categories for each verb is appropriate,
> then string it all together morpho-syntactically into a word or phrase or
> sentence, well...to expect a human being to be able to do that on the fly
> in a couple of seconds like the hypothetical sports announcer in my example
> seems like a super-human feat to me. Perhaps, as Stevo says, an advanced
> human like a trained psychoneticist perhaps could do it. ;-)
>
> I don't think a trained psychoneticist would be an advanced human. It's
the raw material that makes one advanced or not. Anybody can be trained to
some degree.
stevo
--John Q
>
Messages in this topic (8)
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5a. Re: OT: Decimal vs. duodeciml (was: logical language VS not-so-logic
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Sun Jan 20, 2013 1:56 am ((PST))
2013/1/19 Charles W Brickner <[email protected]>:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On
> Behalf Of Leonardo Castro
>
> A base-12 system is closely related to base-60 because 12 x 5 = 60. If three
> people buy a package of dozen eggs, they can easily divide them equally.
> With 10 eggs, someone would get an extra egg.
>
> In short, the advantage of having more divisors is that you avoid dealing
> with non-integer numbers and breaking eggs...
> ===================================
>
> That makes sense, of course, but I can't help but ask: Suppose 5 people buy
> a dozen eggs. :-)
You see that it would be another advantage if 12 had also 5 as a divisor.
In addition to being disivible by 5, base-10 wins in another aspect:
we have 10 fingers in our hands. But here's a way of finger count in
base-12:
"Finger counting systems still in use in many regions of Asia allow
the counting to 12 by using a single hand. The thumb acts as a pointer
touching the three finger bones of each finger in turn, starting with
the outermost bone of the little finger. One hand is used to count
numbers up to 12. The other hand is used to display the number of
completed base-12s. This continues until twelve dozen is reached,
therefore 144 is counted."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_counting
Here you have a picture to finger count in base-2:
http://www.files.chem.vt.edu/chem-dept/field/numbers.htm
>
> Charlie
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6a. Re: THEORY: Practical limit of inflection complexity?
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Sun Jan 20, 2013 2:53 am ((PST))
2013/1/18 Patrick Dunn <[email protected]>:
> That's a really good question. I'm not sure how one would begin to answer
> it in any sort of analytic way, but when you consider things like Ancient
> Greek or Sanskrit, which have frankly *InSANE* amounts of inflection that
> people actually seemed to use (judging, at least, from the writing -- the
> spoken language may have been less complex in practice),
And that's the core of my question. In Portuguese, there are a lot of
verbal forms that people rarely use in spoken language. I have heard
also that German people don't use the genitive case anymore and the
French diglossia has been widely discussed in this list. Maybe there's
some "people valve" to expel excessive inflection.
> it seems like a
> pretty large range of permissible inflection. And, it seems to me, with no
> evidence whatsoever but a hunch, that the more agglutinating rather than
> inflecting a language is, the more such things it might support.
>
> (An ancient Greek verb is potentially conjugated for three persons, three
> numbers, one present tense, two past tenses, one future tense, the perfect
> aspect, three voices [active, passive, middle], three moods [indicative,
> optative, subjunctive] and a full range of participles, infinitives, and
> imperatives in most of these tenses, aspects, and voices . . . and so on.)
How many of them are permitted in Modern Greek?
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 9:37 AM, Leonardo Castro
> <[email protected]>wrote:
>
>> I have noticed that many languages have some inflections that are not
>> really used in everyday speech, being substituted with others (what
>> reduces the total number of inflection) or with more analytical
>> structures.
>>
>> Do you think there is a limit of the number of word inflection people
>> on the streets can deal with?
>>
>> Até mais!
>>
>> Leonardo
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
> order from Finishing Line
> Press<http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
> and
> Amazon<http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2>.
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
6b. Re: THEORY: Practical limit of inflection complexity?
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" [email protected]
Date: Sun Jan 20, 2013 3:32 am ((PST))
Aren't Finnish, Hungarian, and Turkish all able to use a lot of suffixes at
once?
E.g., Finnish "tottelemattomuudestansa" = 'because of his disobedience' is
tottele-ma-ttom-uude-sta-nsa (obey + deverbal suffix, used to form
action/result nouns from verbs + -less + quality noun from adjective +
elative singular + 3rd person possessive), with five suffixes.
stevo
On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 5:53 AM, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>wrote:
> 2013/1/18 Patrick Dunn <[email protected]>:
> > That's a really good question. I'm not sure how one would begin to
> answer
> > it in any sort of analytic way, but when you consider things like Ancient
> > Greek or Sanskrit, which have frankly *InSANE* amounts of inflection that
> > people actually seemed to use (judging, at least, from the writing -- the
> > spoken language may have been less complex in practice),
>
> And that's the core of my question. In Portuguese, there are a lot of
> verbal forms that people rarely use in spoken language. I have heard
> also that German people don't use the genitive case anymore and the
> French diglossia has been widely discussed in this list. Maybe there's
> some "people valve" to expel excessive inflection.
>
> > it seems like a
> > pretty large range of permissible inflection. And, it seems to me, with
> no
> > evidence whatsoever but a hunch, that the more agglutinating rather than
> > inflecting a language is, the more such things it might support.
> >
> > (An ancient Greek verb is potentially conjugated for three persons, three
> > numbers, one present tense, two past tenses, one future tense, the
> perfect
> > aspect, three voices [active, passive, middle], three moods [indicative,
> > optative, subjunctive] and a full range of participles, infinitives, and
> > imperatives in most of these tenses, aspects, and voices . . . and so
> on.)
>
> How many of them are permitted in Modern Greek?
>
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 9:37 AM, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]
> >wrote:
> >
> >> I have noticed that many languages have some inflections that are not
> >> really used in everyday speech, being substituted with others (what
> >> reduces the total number of inflection) or with more analytical
> >> structures.
> >>
> >> Do you think there is a limit of the number of word inflection people
> >> on the streets can deal with?
> >>
> >> Até mais!
> >>
> >> Leonardo
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
> > order from Finishing Line
> > Press<
> http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
> > and
> > Amazon<
> http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2
> >.
>
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
7a. Re: Vulcan Language (was: Loglan VS Natlang)
Posted by: "Daniel Prohaska" [email protected]
Date: Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:11 am ((PST))
Yes, Diane Duane wrote that in the same passage she made her worst linguistic
fluke� stating something along the lines of, by 'aging' Romulan
away from Old Vulcan, both Modern Vulcan and Modern Romulan had moved as far
away from each other as either Spanish and Basque have from their common (sic!)
ancestor Latin� mega-cringe�
Dan
On Jan 18, 2013, at 7:28 PM, Adam Walker wrote:
> There is a fair amount of Vulcan material in some of the novels and an
> explanation of the exact relationship between the vulcan and Romaulan
> languages (and how the Romulan language was purposefully "evolved" away
> from the Vulcan mother tongue after the Sundering in some of Diane Duane's
> books (IIRC). The Romulan Way has quite a bit of Rhiannsu dialogue in it
> an a glossary at the back.
>
> Adam
>
> On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 12:23 PM, MorphemeAddict <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 10:17 AM, George Corley <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 8:44 AM, Padraic Brown <[email protected]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>> I discussed this elsewhere and those who know more about Star Trek
>>> than
>>>>>> me seem to be saying that there is too much already written about
>>>>>> Vulcans and their space elvish language,
>>>>>
>>>>> But the Vulcans of Star Trek do NOT exist.
>>>>
>>>> True, and he didn't say they actually exist, but even if they did,
>> there
>>>> would be no reason to suppose they must speak a logical language (such
>> as
>>>> Lojban). We know just enough about Star Trek Vulcan culture, physiology
>>>> and psychology to know that they are not so different from us: they are
>>>> not logical by nature, but rather by long and arduous training. It may
>>>> very well be that those Vulcans who are deepest in the art of logic use
>>>> some kind of loglang as a second language; but I'd doubt that such a
>>> beast
>>>> would be their cradle language.
>>>>
>>>
>>> We really don't have any info on the Vulcan language. As far as I know,
>>> there are only a few lines in the language, developed by Mark Okrand to
>>> match the mouth movements of the scene as performed in English. I'm sure
>>> people have analyzed that small bit of data quite thoroughly, but I doubt
>>> we'll see more of Vulcan language later on.
>>>
>>
>> Here is a Vulcan dictionary: http://www.starbase-10.de/vld/
>> And some grammar information here:
>> http://www.stogeek.com/wiki/Category:Vulcan_Language_Institute
>>
>> stevo
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Within the ST universe, we also know that Romulans and Vulcans are very
>>>> close (if not identical) physiologically and they have a shared
>> history.
>>>> It would stand to reason that the basic nature of the Vulcan
>> language(s)
>>>> is more like that of the Romulans, barring some sort of radical purge.
>>>
>>>
>>> It is well-established and often stated that the Romulan and Vulcan
>>> languages are similar, so no purge. Probably both races speak some
>>> descendant of a language that existed before the split, which would in
>> turn
>>> be at least a descendant of a language that existed before the Vulcans
>>> learned to suppress their emotions. Certainly such a language would be
>>> naturally evolved.
>>>
>>>
>>>>>> but I think real world Vulcans would either convert their natural
>>>>>> language to a loglan or write one from scratch.
>>>>
>>>> They might very well do the latter.
>>>
>>>
>>> That would be very interesting to explore. I've noticed that as Star
>> Trek
>>> went on Vulcan Logic became less a rationalist ideology and more of a
>>> religion of sorts. Vulcans always did have incorrect or unusual ideas as
>>> to what was "logical" (look up the "Straw Vulcan" trope), and as their
>>> culture got fleshed out through the decades with rituals and mythology it
>>> seems more and more that Vulcan Logic is very dogmatic and is revered in
>> a
>>> way that seems quite religious.
>>>
>>> As such, it's hard to predict what they would do. Would they decide that
>>> the "logical" course of action would be to keep their own language, just
>>> out of pure pragmatism? Would they iron out some irregularities and be
>>> done with it? Or would the priesthood develop a loglang for themselves?
>>> Lots of interesting questions that we, unfortunately, can't answer,
>> since
>>> none of us get paid by Paramount to write about Vulcans.
>>>
>>
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
7b. Re: Vulcan Language (was: Loglan VS Natlang)
Posted by: "Daniel Prohaska" [email protected]
Date: Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:12 am ((PST))
Having said that I did, however, thoroughly enjoy her books. Bloody good read,
them�
Dan
On Jan 18, 2013, at 7:28 PM, Adam Walker wrote:
> There is a fair amount of Vulcan material in some of the novels and an
> explanation of the exact relationship between the vulcan and Romaulan
> languages (and how the Romulan language was purposefully "evolved" away
> from the Vulcan mother tongue after the Sundering in some of Diane Duane's
> books (IIRC). The Romulan Way has quite a bit of Rhiannsu dialogue in it
> an a glossary at the back.
>
> Adam
>
> On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 12:23 PM, MorphemeAddict <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 10:17 AM, George Corley <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 8:44 AM, Padraic Brown <[email protected]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>> I discussed this elsewhere and those who know more about Star Trek
>>> than
>>>>>> me seem to be saying that there is too much already written about
>>>>>> Vulcans and their space elvish language,
>>>>>
>>>>> But the Vulcans of Star Trek do NOT exist.
>>>>
>>>> True, and he didn't say they actually exist, but even if they did,
>> there
>>>> would be no reason to suppose they must speak a logical language (such
>> as
>>>> Lojban). We know just enough about Star Trek Vulcan culture, physiology
>>>> and psychology to know that they are not so different from us: they are
>>>> not logical by nature, but rather by long and arduous training. It may
>>>> very well be that those Vulcans who are deepest in the art of logic use
>>>> some kind of loglang as a second language; but I'd doubt that such a
>>> beast
>>>> would be their cradle language.
>>>>
>>>
>>> We really don't have any info on the Vulcan language. As far as I know,
>>> there are only a few lines in the language, developed by Mark Okrand to
>>> match the mouth movements of the scene as performed in English. I'm sure
>>> people have analyzed that small bit of data quite thoroughly, but I doubt
>>> we'll see more of Vulcan language later on.
>>>
>>
>> Here is a Vulcan dictionary: http://www.starbase-10.de/vld/
>> And some grammar information here:
>> http://www.stogeek.com/wiki/Category:Vulcan_Language_Institute
>>
>> stevo
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Within the ST universe, we also know that Romulans and Vulcans are very
>>>> close (if not identical) physiologically and they have a shared
>> history.
>>>> It would stand to reason that the basic nature of the Vulcan
>> language(s)
>>>> is more like that of the Romulans, barring some sort of radical purge.
>>>
>>>
>>> It is well-established and often stated that the Romulan and Vulcan
>>> languages are similar, so no purge. Probably both races speak some
>>> descendant of a language that existed before the split, which would in
>> turn
>>> be at least a descendant of a language that existed before the Vulcans
>>> learned to suppress their emotions. Certainly such a language would be
>>> naturally evolved.
>>>
>>>
>>>>>> but I think real world Vulcans would either convert their natural
>>>>>> language to a loglan or write one from scratch.
>>>>
>>>> They might very well do the latter.
>>>
>>>
>>> That would be very interesting to explore. I've noticed that as Star
>> Trek
>>> went on Vulcan Logic became less a rationalist ideology and more of a
>>> religion of sorts. Vulcans always did have incorrect or unusual ideas as
>>> to what was "logical" (look up the "Straw Vulcan" trope), and as their
>>> culture got fleshed out through the decades with rituals and mythology it
>>> seems more and more that Vulcan Logic is very dogmatic and is revered in
>> a
>>> way that seems quite religious.
>>>
>>> As such, it's hard to predict what they would do. Would they decide that
>>> the "logical" course of action would be to keep their own language, just
>>> out of pure pragmatism? Would they iron out some irregularities and be
>>> done with it? Or would the priesthood develop a loglang for themselves?
>>> Lots of interesting questions that we, unfortunately, can't answer,
>> since
>>> none of us get paid by Paramount to write about Vulcans.
>>>
>>
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
8. Hypothetical situation (RE: logical language VS not-so-logical langu
Posted by: "Mathieu Roy" [email protected]
Date: Sun Jan 20, 2013 5:06 am ((PST))
<<Me: Yes clearly; I was more asking the question from a though experiment
point of view.
Padraic: Maybe there's a misunderstanding? Without natural language, we
would not even be able to experiment with language! There would be no more
concept of "experimental language" in our heads than there is in the heads
of mice.>>
Fair enough. Let me try something else then.
Let's say there's only 1000 people that are alive, and we're all one of
them. We are all in the same village and speak only American Sign Language.
We have no written system. We are sedentary, but we are not technologically
advanced. It now has come to our attention that we are all affected by a
virus that will make us blind in 30 days. Therefore, we decide to create a
language using sound and ears instead of body and eyes, but we have only 30
days to create it, or at least to create the minimum (I took this number
because of Gary's challenge ^^). What do you think the spoken language will
look like in 30 days?
-Mathieu
Messages in this topic (1)
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