There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Is there an inverse relationship between lexical richness and gr
From: Logan Kearsley
1b. Re: Is there an inverse relationship between lexical richness and gr
From: Jim Henry
1c. Re: Is there an inverse relationship between lexical richness and gr
From: R A Brown
1d. Re: Is there an inverse relationship between lexical richness and gr
From: Gary Shannon
1e. Re: Is there an inverse relationship between lexical richness and gr
From: MorphemeAddict
1f. Re: Is there an inverse relationship between lexical richness and gr
From: R A Brown
2a. Re: Creating a Proto-language
From: Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones
3a. Re: Languages' Flag
From: George Corley
3b. Re: Languages' Flag
From: R A Brown
4.1. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
From: Isaac A. Penziev
4.2. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
From: H. S. Teoh
4.3. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
From: Adam Walker
4.4. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
From: Herman Miller
4.5. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
From: MorphemeAddict
5a. Re: "English has the most words of any language"
From: Padraic Brown
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Is there an inverse relationship between lexical richness and gr
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 10:35 am ((PDT))
On 20 March 2013 14:14, Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 11:29 AM, George Corley <[email protected]> wrote:
[...]
>> I don't think this is a given. Lexical meaning is a very fuzzy thing --
>> you can translate between languages, yes, but very often most of the words
>> actually cover different semantic spaces when considering their use in
>> other contexts. It's entirely possible to have two words in the same
>> language that mean almost precisely the same thing as well, meaning that
>> you could end up with alternate translations in language A for a single
>> word in language B.
>
> Certainly whenever a complex literary sentence rich with levels of
> meaning is translated to another language, some of the nuances are
> lost. But when you ask the man in the vegetable stall "Do you have any
> cabbage today?" I'm sure that this meaning could be reliably
> translated into any human language that includes the concept of
> "cabbage", without measurable loss of meaning. That being the case,
> there _must_ be _some_ element in each such translation that conveys
> each element of the whole meaning. If some part of the meaning is
> missing then the sentence has not been properly translated. If the
> sentence has been properly translated then no part of the meaning is
> missing, and is therefore carried by some element (or combination of
> elements) in the sentence.
>
> I'm speaking from the point of view of a software engineer. Uncle
> Claude said that if the information is there it's encoded somehow,
> otherwise it isn't really there.
This connects rather well with recent discussion of how to measure the
amount of meaning in a text, how many sentences with different
meanings there are, etc.
I would argue that in most cases, a lot of the information that
appears to be communicated actually *isn't* there in the language-
it's there in the conversants' minds independently already, and just
activated by smaller amounts of information conveyed by the language.
A thought experiment- how well could you get along conversing with
someone (or something- an AI program, e.g.) that had a perfect
knowledge of your language but absolutely no cultural experience? Not
very well, unless you restrict yourself to vegetable-stall sentences.
That category could be formalized as "sentences which actually encode
some large fraction of the information in their intended
interpretations".
As far as determining proper translations is concerned, even those
kinds of sentences may actually *encode* extra information that is
incidentally required by the system of the language, but *not*
important insofar as the intended interpretation or effect of the
sentence is concerned. Thus, we can translate "Do you see the boy?"
into a language without articles either by deciding that definiteness
isn't actually critical to the meaning, but merely required by English
grammar, or by trusting that the audience for the translation has the
right pre-existing background to properly activate the idea of
definiteness despite it not being encoded in language.
On 21 March 2013 06:02, taliesin the storyteller
<[email protected]> wrote:
[...]
>
> The problem isn't the string of tokens, the problem is that the sender and
> recipient do not and cannot have the same hardware. An identical string
> *will* be treated differently by different people. Encoding doesn't apply.
Encoding *does* apply, just at an earlier stage. If two people don't
have some large degree of overlap in their understanding of the
encoding system, then they literally "speak different languages".
After you get passed the encoding system, then the problem is that no
two people have the same system for interpretation. I would prefer not
to call it "hardware", though; this may be silly pedantism, but it
really doesn't matter whether the semantic interpretation system is
implemented in hardware or software or any combination of the two.
> .. and there are those that consider true communication between humans
> impossible, as a received attempt at communication is run through the
> emphatic system meaning that the receiver uses the string of tokens as input
> to run a simulation of the reality of the sender in order to guess at what
> the sender is attempting to convey. It's "monkey see, moneky (mentally) do"
> all the way down.
I am aware of that view, but I think it's just silly playing with
definitions of "communication". Clearly, humans *can* accurately
exchange information (in the Claude-Shannon-Information-Theory sense),
which means they can communicate (though sometimes it fails anyway).
Clearly as well, humans can't guarantee that other humans will
experience exactly the same thoughts as they do in response to any
particular input of linguistic information.
-l.
Messages in this topic (22)
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1b. Re: Is there an inverse relationship between lexical richness and gr
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 11:00 am ((PDT))
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 1:35 PM, Logan Kearsley <[email protected]> wrote:
> A thought experiment- how well could you get along conversing with
> someone (or something- an AI program, e.g.) that had a perfect
> knowledge of your language but absolutely no cultural experience? Not
> very well, unless you restrict yourself to vegetable-stall sentences.
I'm not sure the concept is coherent. If such an entity has perfect
knowledge of the language, it must at the very least have a vocabulary
as large as the average educated native speaker (not to get into
issues of what a totally complete lexicon would entail, or how you
could tell whether you'd left anything out). And if it "knows" those
words (and set phrases), it must know what they mean and not just what
part of speech they are and how they inflect (otherwise we could
hardly call its knowledge of the language perfect). And if it knows
the meanings of such words and phrases as "opera", "comics", "Internet
meme", and "talk show", then it must know an awful lot about the
culture of the people who speak the language.
One might posit another thought experiment -- suppose there's an
entity that has perfect knowledge of the language's phonology,
morphology and syntax, but a very limited vocabulary, or a very
limited mastery of a larger vocabulary. That's coherent, but perhaps
less interesting.
This breaks my suspension of disbelief, sometimes, when I read a story
in which magic has instantly given some character a full knowledge of
the language of the people they've fallen in among, but they still
stumble over the meanings of a lot of words and phrases, and they use
words and phrases and English idioms which confuse their
interlocutors, like an intermediate second-language learner. It's
possible to write such a scenario consistently, but most fantasy
authors who've used that trope do it inconsistently.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org
Messages in this topic (22)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Is there an inverse relationship between lexical richness and gr
Posted by: "R A Brown" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 1:37 pm ((PDT))
On 21/03/2013 17:05, Gary Shannon wrote:
[snip]
>
> If a translation of "See the boy." into a language that
> lacks a definite article fails to covey that sense of
> "the boy", then that language is at least mildly
> deficient in that it cannot convey such meanings.
Ouch! A bit anglocentric, methinks.
Also, of course, it is incorrect. I do not know of a
language that _cannot_ convey the meaning of definiteness,
_if it is required_. The point is that many languages,
including important ones like Russian and Chinese, do not
require nouns always to marked for definiteness or
indefiniteness.
Also, as any one who has learnt other languages which has
articles (or a definite article, at least), what different
languages consider to 'definite' and 'indefinite' varies
considerably.
Personally, I think a Chinese, say, might well consider
English to be mildly deficient in that singular nouns
normally have to be marked with "the" or "a" (or some other
determiner) in an often fairly arbitrary way. S/he may well
think that marking real definiteness or indefiniteness only
when it is necessary is more efficient.
[snip]
> In spite of those deficiencies, however, it is still
> possible to communicate clearly and completely enough to
> build bridges, buy and sell cabbages, and sing love
> songs.
We know all this. I do not imagine that anyone would
seriously disagree.
The problem is with the statements in your email of the
20th March:
"In point of fact, if two sentences in two different
languages carry nearly identical meaning then each element
of that shared meaning _must_ be carried by some element of
the sentence, regardless of whether the carrier
is a word or an affix. It follows that the number of units
of meaning _must_ be the same from one language to another,
and the only difference is how those units are divided up
between lexical words and grammatical 'words' (affixes)."
You seem to be saying that the number of morphemes in one
language is going to be the same in another. That just
ain't so.
> That is all that matters to an engineer. The rest is
> theoretical ivory tower stuff of no _practical_ value.
How very sad. Also, like all generalizations, I am pleased
to say, it is not universally true. Despite the
stereotypical image, some engineers do appreciate literature
and poetry, and don't confine it to an 'impractical' ivory
tower.
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"language
began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
for individual beings and events."
[Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
Messages in this topic (22)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Is there an inverse relationship between lexical richness and gr
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 2:57 pm ((PDT))
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 1:37 PM, R A Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 21/03/2013 17:05, Gary Shannon wrote:
> [snip]
>>
>>
>> If a translation of "See the boy." into a language that
>> lacks a definite article fails to covey that sense of
>> "the boy", then that language is at least mildly
>> deficient in that it cannot convey such meanings.
>
>
> Ouch! A bit anglocentric, methinks.
---
I also pointed out how English was deficient. You edited that part out,
> Also, of course, it is incorrect. I do not know of a
> language that _cannot_ convey the meaning of definiteness,
> _if it is required_. The point is that many languages,
> including important ones like Russian and Chinese, do not
> require nouns always to marked for definiteness or
> indefiniteness.
I agree. I imagine that all languages CAN mark for definiteness. But
if, in a specific translation, they do NOT mark for definiteness then
the translation is not a complete translation, and is somewhat
deficient, lacking some information present in the original.
---
>
>> In spite of those deficiencies, however, it is still
>> possible to communicate clearly and completely enough to
>> build bridges, buy and sell cabbages, and sing love
>> songs.
>
>
> We know all this. I do not imagine that anyone would
> seriously disagree.
>
> The problem is with the statements in your email of the
> 20th March:
> "In point of fact, if two sentences in two different
> languages carry nearly identical meaning then each element
> of that shared meaning _must_ be carried by some element of
> the sentence, regardless of whether the carrier
> is a word or an affix. It follows that the number of units
> of meaning _must_ be the same from one language to another,
> and the only difference is how those units are divided up
> between lexical words and grammatical 'words' (affixes)."
>
> You seem to be saying that the number of morphemes in one
> language is going to be the same in another. That just
> ain't so.
---
If a translated sentence carries the same number of units of
information as the original then it contains the same number of units
of information. That's a tautology. How many morphemes per unit of
information may differ from one language to another. (I don't recall
talking about morphemes.)
>> That is all that matters to an engineer. The rest is
>> theoretical ivory tower stuff of no _practical_ value.
---
> How very sad. Also, like all generalizations, I am pleased
> to say, it is not universally true. Despite the
> stereotypical image, some engineers do appreciate literature
> and poetry, and don't confine it to an 'impractical' ivory
> tower.
>
You have conflated "all that matters to an engineer in his role as an
engineer" with "all that matters to an engineer as a human being".
Surely you didn't mean to imply that every person is nothing more than
his career.
As a human being I love literature an poetry, and art and sculpture.
But as an engineer perspective and chiaroscuro (let alone symbolic use
of form and color) don't concern me when I'm engineering a molecule
for a paint pigment, and balanced composition and use of space don't
concern me when I'm engineering a rivet for a bridge.
Nor do nuances concern me when I'm exploring taking a rough measure of
the information content of a sentence. I think quarks and Higgs bosons
are fascinating things. I just don't take them into account when
measuring the opening for a gate in my garden fence.
My rough measure of units of meaning in a sentence is the gate in the
garden fence, not the quantum wave function of the unobserved virtual
fence.
"My red crayon is broken."
Carries four (?) units of meaning:
1. There exists an instance X of the class crayon.
2. I own X.
3. X is red.
4. X is broken.
That's four units of meaning in a five word sentence. (Perhaps there
are more units of meaning?)
The sentence "I have a crayon that is both read and broken." has ten
words, but seems to carry the same four units of meaning in a
different encoding.
How, then, does "unit of meaning" relate to "morpheme"?.
--gary
> --
> Ray
> ==================================
> http://www.carolandray.plus.com
> ==================================
> "language
began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
> for individual beings and events."
> [Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
Messages in this topic (22)
________________________________________________________________________
1e. Re: Is there an inverse relationship between lexical richness and gr
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 22, 2013 1:28 am ((PDT))
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 5:57 PM, Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 1:37 PM, R A Brown <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> > On 21/03/2013 17:05, Gary Shannon wrote:
> > [snip]
> >>
> >>
> >> If a translation of "See the boy." into a language that
> >> lacks a definite article fails to covey that sense of
> >> "the boy", then that language is at least mildly
> >> deficient in that it cannot convey such meanings.
> >
> >
> > Ouch! A bit anglocentric, methinks.
>
> ---
>
> I also pointed out how English was deficient. You edited that part out,
>
> > Also, of course, it is incorrect. I do not know of a
> > language that _cannot_ convey the meaning of definiteness,
> > _if it is required_. The point is that many languages,
> > including important ones like Russian and Chinese, do not
> > require nouns always to marked for definiteness or
> > indefiniteness.
>
> I agree. I imagine that all languages CAN mark for definiteness. But
> if, in a specific translation, they do NOT mark for definiteness then
> the translation is not a complete translation, and is somewhat
> deficient, lacking some information present in the original.
>
> ---
>
> >
> >> In spite of those deficiencies, however, it is still
> >> possible to communicate clearly and completely enough to
> >> build bridges, buy and sell cabbages, and sing love
> >> songs.
> >
> >
> > We know all this. I do not imagine that anyone would
> > seriously disagree.
> >
> > The problem is with the statements in your email of the
> > 20th March:
> > "In point of fact, if two sentences in two different
> > languages carry nearly identical meaning then each element
> > of that shared meaning _must_ be carried by some element of
> > the sentence, regardless of whether the carrier
> > is a word or an affix. It follows that the number of units
> > of meaning _must_ be the same from one language to another,
> > and the only difference is how those units are divided up
> > between lexical words and grammatical 'words' (affixes)."
> >
> > You seem to be saying that the number of morphemes in one
> > language is going to be the same in another. That just
> > ain't so.
>
> ---
>
> If a translated sentence carries the same number of units of
> information as the original then it contains the same number of units
> of information. That's a tautology. How many morphemes per unit of
> information may differ from one language to another. (I don't recall
> talking about morphemes.)
>
> >> That is all that matters to an engineer. The rest is
> >> theoretical ivory tower stuff of no _practical_ value.
>
> ---
>
> > How very sad. Also, like all generalizations, I am pleased
> > to say, it is not universally true. Despite the
> > stereotypical image, some engineers do appreciate literature
> > and poetry, and don't confine it to an 'impractical' ivory
> > tower.
> >
>
> You have conflated "all that matters to an engineer in his role as an
> engineer" with "all that matters to an engineer as a human being".
> Surely you didn't mean to imply that every person is nothing more than
> his career.
>
> As a human being I love literature an poetry, and art and sculpture.
> But as an engineer perspective and chiaroscuro (let alone symbolic use
> of form and color) don't concern me when I'm engineering a molecule
> for a paint pigment, and balanced composition and use of space don't
> concern me when I'm engineering a rivet for a bridge.
>
> Nor do nuances concern me when I'm exploring taking a rough measure of
> the information content of a sentence. I think quarks and Higgs bosons
> are fascinating things. I just don't take them into account when
> measuring the opening for a gate in my garden fence.
>
> My rough measure of units of meaning in a sentence is the gate in the
> garden fence, not the quantum wave function of the unobserved virtual
> fence.
>
> "My red crayon is broken."
> Carries four (?) units of meaning:
>
> 1. There exists an instance X of the class crayon.
> 2. I own X.
> 3. X is red.
> 4. X is broken.
>
> That's four units of meaning in a five word sentence. (Perhaps there
> are more units of meaning?)
>
> The sentence "I have a crayon that is both read and broken." has ten
> words, but seems to carry the same four units of meaning in a
> different encoding.
>
> How, then, does "unit of meaning" relate to "morpheme"?.
>
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language. It's synonymous
with "unit of meaning".
stevo
>
> --gary
>
> > --
> > Ray
> > ==================================
> > http://www.carolandray.plus.com
> > ==================================
> > "language ⦠began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
> > for individual beings and events."
> > [Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
>
Messages in this topic (22)
________________________________________________________________________
1f. Re: Is there an inverse relationship between lexical richness and gr
Posted by: "R A Brown" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 22, 2013 1:46 am ((PDT))
On 21/03/2013 21:57, Gary Shannon wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 1:37 PM, R A Brown wrote:
>> On 21/03/2013 17:05, Gary Shannon wrote: [snip]
>>>
>>>
>>> If a translation of "See the boy." into a language
>>> that lacks a definite article fails to covey that
>>> sense of "the boy", then that language is at least
>>> mildly deficient in that it cannot convey such
>>> meanings.
>>
>>
>> Ouch! A bit anglocentric, methinks.
>
> ---
>
> I also pointed out how English was deficient. You edited
> that part out,
Sorry.
On 21/03/2013 17:05, Gary Shannon wrote:
[snip]
> Similarly, having no distinction between the inclusive
> "we" and the exclusive "we" makes English mildly
> deficient in that specific sense.
English can, of course, make the distinction clear if it has
too. What I wrote about a possible Chinese view of English
use of articles, applies the other way round here. It could
be argued that by not requiring English to mark
inclusiveness or exclusiveness whenever the 1st person
plural is used, but only when necessary, English is mildly
more efficient.
Whether we think of the differences between languages as
efficiencies or deficiencies is rather the "glass half
empty" or "glass half full" type of arguments. Languages
are different in what they considered has to be obligatorily
marked or optionally marked. That's one of things that IMHO
makes the study of languages interesting.
[snip]
> I agree. I imagine that all languages CAN mark for
> definiteness. But if, in a specific translation, they do
> NOT mark for definiteness then the translation is not a
> complete translation, and is somewhat deficient, lacking
> some information present in the original.
I disagree. Translation is surely about conveying _meaning_,
not fussing about whether the English word "the"
shows up in a foreign translation when it is simply not needed.
All language teachers are very aware of the sort of nonsense
that gets produced by those who do a literal word by word
translation. It doesn't work because, far from conveying
meaning of the original, it in fact often distorts it.
"I see the boy" will just be "puerum video" in Latin in any
context where the boy has already been mentioned. If I
translate it as "puerum illum video" because not translating
English "the" has made the Latin 'deficient', I do not, in
fact, keep the information of the original - I change it! I
have now over-specified definiteness, and added something
that wasn't there in the original.
[snip]
>
> If a translated sentence carries the same number of
> units of information as the original then it contains the
> same number of units of information. That's a tautology.
> How many morphemes per unit of information may differ
> from one language to another. (I don't recall talking
> about morphemes.)
You did not use the word morpheme, but you did write:
{quote}
In point of fact, if two sentences in two different
languages carry nearly identical meaning then each element
of that shared meaning _must_ be carried by some element of
the sentence, regardless of whether the carrier
is a word or an affix. It follows that the number of units
of meaning _must_ be the same from one language to another,
and the only difference is how those units are divided up
between lexical words and grammatical "words' (affixes).
{/quote}
You speak of "each element of meaning" being carried by "a
word" or by "an affix". If you are not referring to
morphemes, then what do you mean by "word" and "affix"?
>>> That is all that matters to an engineer. The rest is
>>> theoretical ivory tower stuff of no _practical_
>>> value.
>
> ---
>
>> How very sad. Also, like all generalizations, I am
>> pleased to say, it is not universally true. Despite
>> the stereotypical image, some engineers do appreciate
>> literature and poetry, and don't confine it to an
>> 'impractical' ivory tower.
>>
>
> You have conflated "all that matters to an engineer in
> his role as an engineer" with "all that matters to an
> engineer as a human being". Surely you didn't mean to
> imply that every person is nothing more than his career.
The description of "the rest" as "ivory tower stuff" and of
"no practical value" sort of gave the impression of the
stereotypical engineer. Indeed, if you read on, I said I
know of engineers who do take a different view, i.e. I
clearly did _not_ imply that.
> As a human being I love literature an poetry, and art
> and sculpture.
Good.
[snip]
> "My red crayon is broken." Carries four (?) units of
> meaning:
>
> 1. There exists an instance X of the class crayon. 2. I
> own X. 3. X is red. 4. X is broken.
>
> That's four units of meaning in a five word sentence.
> (Perhaps there are more units of meaning?)
Ah, now we're getting somewhere. You seem to be implying
now that, say, Russian is not 'mildly deficient' because the
equivalent sentence will have nothing corresponding to
English "is".
Similarly, I maintain, where English "the" ain't needed in a
foreign translation, that translation is not deficient.
> The sentence "I have a crayon that is both read and
> broken." has ten words, but seems to carry the same four
> units of meaning in a different encoding.
Ah. Now you are maintaining that a sentence of four words
carries the same meaning as one of ten words! This does not
square up with the sentence I quoted from an earlier email,
which appeared not only to me but clearly to some others to
imply that you were identifying "unit of meaning" with
"morpheme."
> How, then, does "unit of meaning" relate to "morpheme"?.
Well, it doesn't IMO. Which is precisely what Charlie was
querying, and what I have been arguing all along.
But what a unit of meaning is ain't so easy to define,
otherwise we'd all agree what a sememe is. It's what
semantics is about. It is not trivial.
Nor, of course, is translation trivial; though its
difficulty will depend, on the type of speech or text being
translated.
Translating "Do you have any cabbages today?" will be
straightforward for anyone who knows the target language,
but could produce some odd results for a tourist reliant on
small dictionary or a badly written phrase book.
But IMHO though particular morphemes in the English sentence
often will not appear in another language's rending of "Do
you have any cabbages today?", I do not consider any of
these renderings as 'mildly deficient' in any way.
We seem, at last, to agree that "units of meaning" are not
the same as morphemes.
Yes, if a sentence in English and a sentence in Chinese
conveys (more or less) the same meaning, then the two will
have the same number of "units of meaning". It's pinning
those units down that's often the non-trivial bit.
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"language
began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
for individual beings and events."
[Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
Messages in this topic (22)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Creating a Proto-language
Posted by: "Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 1:31 pm ((PDT))
Agreed. I wasn't saying you need one, nor was I saying it should be realistic;
I was simply presupposing you wanted one, and pointing out that if you wanted
it to be naturalistic, the more fleshed-out the better.
Jeff
Sent from my iPhone
On 21 Mar 2013, at 13:47, Patrick Dunn <[email protected]> wrote:
> You don't *need* to have a protolanguage. A lot of us like to do that
> because we find figuring out the sound changes to be fun, but if you think
> it's a chore, skip it.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> So, I was wong, and do need to create the language. Any name ideas?
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On
>> Behalf Of Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones
>> Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 5:47 AM
>> To: [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: Creating a Proto-language
>>
>> You need to devise a series of sound shifts by which Yardish derived from
>> the proto-language, but in reverse. For example, if Yardish has /j/, you
>> could derive it from /g/ before a front vowel, (possibly via /dzh/, which
>> would give you an allophone of /g/; then you could posit the loss of front
>> vowels after /j/, which would result in /g/ being a different phoneme from
>> /j/. To make it more realistic, you also need to devise a phonology for the
>> proto-language from which derive the sound-changed which lead to Yardish,
>> possibly along with lexical, morphological and syntactic differences.
>>
>> Jeff
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On 21 Mar 2013, at 15:38, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> I haven't gotten to the section where I need this info, but when I do,
>> how
>>> do I create a proto-language for Yardish to borrow from? Can I have
>> Yardish
>>> borrow from itself? I think we may have discussed this awhile back. I
>> took
>> a
>>> read through the lesson, but it's written as if I was taking the course
>> with
>>> colleagues. I don't need to create that language, just be able to borrow
>>> words from it, and translate them into Yardish, and tell their original
>>> form.
>
>
>
> --
> 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 (12)
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3a. Re: Languages' Flag
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 1:46 pm ((PDT))
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 9:43 AM, A. da Mek <[email protected]> wrote:
> The idea that a nation and its language are synonymous is part of
>> nationalism, which is a relatively recent development in the world.
>>
>
> What is meant here by "recent"? If it is meant "not palaeolithic nor
> Mesolithic", then I could agree; but it is not for the first time that I
> read a similar surprising claim, and then it was specified as last century,
> so I wonder who and why invented it and how anybody can believe it.
> Although I do not intend to kindle any off topic flame war whether national
> states are a good or evil thing, I suppose that the attempts to rewrite the
> known history of languages should not be left without any comment.
>
"Not palaeolithic" would be "relatively recent" in many senses, though it
seem to be pushing things back a bit far.
> From the very beginning of the history (and the history itself, that is
> writing, begins as a consequence of the begin of states), the states were
> essentially national, because it was a state what made from the tribes a
> nation and from the continuum of dialects a language, that is a nation and
> a language in the sense used in last four millennia, expressed in the well
> known sayings that a language is a dialect with an army.
> Of course, as the states grew from tiny city states to huge empires, they
> often became temporally multinational, but even in the cases when such
> growth was accomplished peacefully and the greater unit began as a personal
> union of several states electing the same person on their thrones, such
> empire became stable only if the ruling dynasty succeeded to establish one
> official language to the whole territory and assimilate other nations.
>
An important question here is whether these "official" languages were as
heavily institutionalized as modern languages. The Roman elite were mostly
native Latin speakers, but also held Greek in high prestige, but were there
any laws and decrees establishing either language as official laws of
state? I honestly don't know the facts here, so I'll let the more
classically oriented among us answer that.
One could argue that virtually every Chinese dynasty from at least the Han
up to the fall of the Qing did have a very prescribed official language --
Classical Chinese -- since knowledge of that language was required to pass
the civil service examinations, but it's notable that for much of it's
history, this Classical Chinese was only preserved in writing, and much of
the business of state was in a decendant of that language when oral
communication was required. That said, this argument is about perceptions,
and all decendants of Old Chinese were and to an extent still are
considered the same language as Classical Chinese, but I would still argue
that the Chinese system really was more concerned with the elites speaking
the same language than with the entire population being fluent in it.
> I do understand that in the modern age (modern in the sense post
> medieval), nation-less states came into being and so their citizens reused
> the word nation in a different meaning, but they should be aware that such
> redefinition inevitably causes misunderstanding in discussion with people
> from the parts of the word where the traditional nations still survived.
>
Where are these places, if I may ask? Much of the world is quite
multilingual and multiethnic. I'm not sure I know of any political unit
that has continuously been what we think of as a "nation" for thousands of
years.
> Also I do understand than people can have different opinions; some hold
> that the traditional concept of nations is evil, or at least that the
> traditional nationality is of no value and thus no harm will be done if it
> is abandoned; and some even believe that a nation (that is its culture,
> connected with its language) can survive without its own national state.
> Such questions are a matter of politic and philosophy and thus off topic.
> But to claim that there was no nationalism and national states before the
> 19th century is either an anachronistic application of (post)modern
> meanings to the past, or else maybe part of some conspiratorial theory
> claiming that all historic documents, that clearly shows the real history
> of nations and their states, are forgeries.
>
I would feel better if you dropped this argument, as you seem to be
arguing against the idea that nation states are recent by associating it
with conspiracy theories and beliefs that you find to be either incorrect
or overly moralistic. That invokes several fallacies (straw man, ad
hominem) and makes it appear that you are really trying to argue the
political question of whether nation states are good or evil in an indirect
way.
Messages in this topic (17)
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3b. Re: Languages' Flag
Posted by: "R A Brown" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 22, 2013 12:27 am ((PDT))
On 21/03/2013 20:46, George Corley wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 9:43 AM, A. da Mek wrote:
>
>>> The idea that a nation and its language are
>>> synonymous is part of nationalism, which is a
>>> relatively recent development in the world.
>>
>> What is meant here by "recent"? If it is meant "not
>> palaeolithic nor Mesolithic", then I could agree;
[snip]
> "Not palaeolithic" would be "relatively recent" in many
> senses, though it seem to be pushing things back a bit
> far.
Yep - also such silly exaggeration does not help one's
argument one bit IMO.
I assume the writer of the sentence A.M. da Mak quotes meant
that it's a development of the post-Medieval rise of
European nationalism. I would agree.
[snip]
>
> An important question here is whether these "official"
> languages were as heavily institutionalized as modern
> languages. The Roman elite were mostly native Latin
> speakers, but also held Greek in high prestige,
Yep - in the "high Classical" period, i.e. 1st centuries BC
and AD, the Roman elite were more or less bilingual in both
Greek & Latin.
> but were there any laws and decrees establishing either
> language as official laws of state? I honestly don't
> know the facts here, so I'll let the more classically
> oriented among us answer that.
No, there weren't. Nor was there any nonsense of flags,
which is what this thread was about.
Administration was carried on in the language of the
conquerors for no other reason than convenience. It is
somewhat noticeable that they are no instances of
nationalist movements in the Empire, no record of flag
waving etc.
The Empire was, of course, both multilingual and
multi-ethnic. When Pompeii was covered in volcanic ash in 79
AD, the ash buried graffiti in Latin, Greek and Oscan.
Thinks: I don't recall any Oscan nationalist movement.
Scratches head: Now what was the Oscan flag?
People visiting London often joke about coming across the
odd person speaking English. An exaggeration, of course -
but it is a very multilingual city. I have not the
slightest doubt that if one could travel back to Classical
Rome one would have heard the same sort of variety of
languages being spoken there.
[snip]
>
> Where are these places, if I may ask? Much of the world
> is quite multilingual and multiethnic. I'm not sure I
> know of any political unit that has continuously been
> what we think of as a "nation" for thousands of years.
Nor I - though I can, alas, think of such a claim because
I've had abusive emails from those that hold it. But these
were not concerned with conlangs, and I would prefer to say
no more other than that the claim, of course, is false.
[snip]
>
> I would feel better if you dropped this argument, as you
> seem to be arguing against the idea that nation states
> are recent by associating it with conspiracy theories and
> beliefs that you find to be either incorrect or overly
> moralistic.
Amen! Amen!
Yes, I felt very uncomfortable, reading da Mak's email.
While I have no problem with Welsh anglophones and
bilinguals heartily singing "Mae hen wlad fy nhadau" and
waving flags at Rugby internationals, in my 74+ years I have
seen too many examples of 'ethnic cleansing' and genocide in
the name of "one nation, one flag, one language."
Can we drop this, please?
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"language
began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
for individual beings and events."
[Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
Messages in this topic (17)
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4.1. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
Posted by: "Isaac A. Penziev" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 2:25 pm ((PDT))
21.03.2013 19:07, Dustfinger Batailleur пиÑеÑ:
> Russian uses aspect prefixes often to distinguish these. However, ÑÑиÑÑ
> is
> the verb for "teach", and with the reflexive suffix -ÑÑ it becomes "learn"
> (i.e. teach yourself).
>
Hi.
A bit more of confusion.
"УÑиÑÑ" may mean both "teach"and "learn". "УÑиÑÑÑÑ" (with reflexive
suffix) means only "learn", but only as an intransitive verb. A
transitive equivalent ('learn / study smth") would be "изÑÑаÑÑ". A
nonambiguous "teach" is "обÑÑаÑÑ".
Russian relies heavily on prefixes, you see. By prefixes, for example,
you can expressmuch more nuances in the verbs of motion than mere "go"
vs. "come".
P.S. Yes, I'm back.
Yitzik
Messages in this topic (38)
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4.2. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 2:29 pm ((PDT))
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 11:25:57PM +0200, Isaac A. Penziev wrote:
> 21.03.2013 19:07, Dustfinger Batailleur пиÑеÑ:
> >Russian uses aspect prefixes often to distinguish these. However,
> >ÑÑиÑÑ is the verb for "teach", and with the reflexive suffix -ÑÑ it
> >becomes "learn" (i.e. teach yourself).
> >
> Hi.
> A bit more of confusion.
> "УÑиÑÑ" may mean both "teach"and "learn".
Ah, yes, that's the one I had in mind.
> "УÑиÑÑÑÑ" (with reflexive suffix) means only "learn", but only as an
> intransitive verb. A transitive equivalent ('learn / study smth")
> would be "изÑÑаÑÑ". A nonambiguous "teach" is "обÑÑаÑÑ".
> Russian
> relies heavily on prefixes, you see. By prefixes, for example, you can
> expressmuch more nuances in the verbs of motion than mere "go" vs.
> "come".
[...]
True, but AFAIK, there isn't a direct 1-word equivalent of "go" or
"come" in Russian... is there? (Then again, I trip up on verbs of motion
all the time, so maybe I'm dead wrong.)
T
--
What do you mean the Internet isn't filled with subliminal messages?
What about all those buttons marked "submit"??
Messages in this topic (38)
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4.3. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
Posted by: "Adam Walker" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 6:29 pm ((PDT))
Hey Yitzik!! It's great to see you back again!
Adam
On 3/21/13, Isaac A. Penziev <[email protected]> wrote:
> 21.03.2013 19:07, Dustfinger Batailleur ÐÉÛÅÔ:
>> Russian uses aspect prefixes often to distinguish these. However, ÕÞÉÔØ
>> is
>> the verb for "teach", and with the reflexive suffix -ÓÑ it becomes
>> "learn"
>> (i.e. teach yourself).
>>
> Hi.
> A bit more of confusion.
> "õÞÉÔØ" may mean both "teach"and "learn". "õÞÉÔØÓÑ" (with reflexive
> suffix) means only "learn", but only as an intransitive verb. A
> transitive equivalent ('learn / study smth") would be "ÉÚÕÞÁÔØ". A
> nonambiguous "teach" is "ÏÂÕÞÁÔØ".
> Russian relies heavily on prefixes, you see. By prefixes, for example,
> you can expressmuch more nuances in the verbs of motion than mere "go"
> vs. "come".
>
> P.S. Yes, I'm back.
> Yitzik
>
Messages in this topic (38)
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4.4. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 6:41 pm ((PDT))
On 3/21/2013 12:17 PM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:
> In Moten, _ivajagi_ means both "to learn, to study" and "to teach" (in both
> cases, the object is the subject taught or studied). The distinction
> between those two senses surfaces mostly in actor nouns derived from this
> verb: a student is _vajagzif_, literally "learner", while a teacher is
> _vajagnon_, literally "teaching artist/craftsman" (in Moten, teaching is
> considered a _bel_, i.e. an art or craft).
Jarda similarly has a range of derived nouns, e.g. from "siv":
sivÅl "teacher"
sivun "student, learner"
sivis "education"
sivag "subject of learning, field of study"
("Student" may also be "nünÅl", from the unrelated word "nün" meaning
"to study").
Messages in this topic (38)
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4.5. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 10:49 pm ((PDT))
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 5:27 PM, H. S. Teoh <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 11:25:57PM +0200, Isaac A. Penziev wrote:
> > 21.03.2013 19:07, Dustfinger Batailleur пиÑеÑ:
> > >Russian uses aspect prefixes often to distinguish these. However,
> > >ÑÑиÑÑ is the verb for "teach", and with the reflexive suffix -ÑÑ it
> > >becomes "learn" (i.e. teach yourself).
> > >
> > Hi.
> > A bit more of confusion.
> > "УÑиÑÑ" may mean both "teach"and "learn".
>
> Ah, yes, that's the one I had in mind.
>
>
> > "УÑиÑÑÑÑ" (with reflexive suffix) means only "learn", but only as an
> > intransitive verb. A transitive equivalent ('learn / study smth")
> > would be "изÑÑаÑÑ". A nonambiguous "teach" is "обÑÑаÑÑ".
> > Russian
> > relies heavily on prefixes, you see. By prefixes, for example, you can
> > expressmuch more nuances in the verbs of motion than mere "go" vs.
> > "come".
> [...]
>
> True, but AFAIK, there isn't a direct 1-word equivalent of "go" or
> "come" in Russian... is there? (Then again, I trip up on verbs of motion
> all the time, so maybe I'm dead wrong.)
>
Of course, Lojban "klama" is both 'come' and 'go'. The arguments that go
with it determine which is meant.
stevo
>
>
> T
>
> --
> What do you mean the Internet isn't filled with subliminal messages?
> What about all those buttons marked "submit"??
>
Messages in this topic (38)
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5a. Re: "English has the most words of any language"
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 6:35 pm ((PDT))
--- On Wed, 3/20/13, George Corley <[email protected]> wrote:
> From: George Corley <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [CONLANG] "English has the most words of any language"
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Wednesday, March 20, 2013, 1:32 PM
> On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 12:06 PM,
> Padraic Brown <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> > --- On Wed, 3/20/13, Mechthild Czapp <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >
> > > Through the Language Glass opines that
> undocumented
> > > languages have fewer words than those with a
> literary
> > > tradition since said tradition prevents deprecated
> words
> > > from falling out of use. If you consider that, the
> size of
> > > the language is not a benefit, but a curse: a load
> of
> > > obsolete, deprecated and vintage words, which take
> up space
> > > in the human mind and to a point become elevated
> to metrics
> > > of not just education but intelligence.
> >
> > Heaven forbid our minds should become cluttered with
> obsolete words, rather
> > than truly useful information like World Series stats
> for the last hundred
> > years or Brittany Spears lyrics or how to navigate
> through World of
> > Warcraft!
>
>
> Oh, yes, it's such a wonderful argument to assume that the
> the things
> someone would rather spend resources on are actually banal
> and worthless.
> Unless your point is that we spend resources on plenty of
> things "just for
> fun" -- in which case, the point is taken.
No, just a general comment on the idea that it's a "curse" to retain
old vocabulary (of course, we keep all sorts of old, vintage and otherwise
ancient words around anyways). And also a comment on the general state of
society at large and the sort of things that would fill all the space
vacated by the exit of such words.
Padraic
Messages in this topic (25)
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