There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. New Year / Easter Greetings to All
From: Padraic Brown
1b. Re: New Year / Easter Greetings to All
From: Roger Mills
1c. Re: New Year / Easter Greetings to All
From: George Corley
1d. Re: New Year / Easter Greetings to All
From: C. Brickner
1e. Re: New Year / Easter Greetings to All
From: Dustfinger Batailleur
1f. Re: New Year / Easter Greetings to All
From: George Corley
1g. Re: New Year / Easter Greetings to All
From: Herman Miller
1h. Re: New Year / Easter Greetings to All
From: Logan Kearsley
2a. Re: Not enough difference?
From: MorphemeAddict
2b. Re: Not enough difference?
From: Alex Fink
2c. Re: Not enough difference?
From: George Corley
3.1. Re: Tsk tsk (was: More from the Popular Linguistics Front)
From: Sam Stutter
3.2. Re: Tsk tsk (was: More from the Popular Linguistics Front)
From: George Corley
4a. Chomskybot
From: Dustfinger Batailleur
4b. Re: Chomskybot
From: BPJ
Messages
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1a. New Year / Easter Greetings to All
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 31, 2013 6:43 am ((PDT))
First, I'd like to wish everyone a happy Easter! And also a happy new year,
for those whose new year is 25 March!
In the Eastlands of the World, last Tuesday was the 25th of Yastermath, and
is the first day of the year. A busy feast day in almost every quarter, it
is also the feast of the Annunciation of the Kristotokos, the feast of the
Incarnation and, in Auntimoany, Lady Day. Every neighbourhood in the City
is decorated and one can find some sort of religious or secular parade
going down any street, though to be quite honest, I'm not sure how one can
tell the difference between these festal parades and the usually bizarre
array of street theatre that processes along the thoroughfares on a daily
basis...
In Teleran, last Thursday was the first Bishop's Dance of the year. Four
times a year, the bishops and the people engage in a bit of merry making
together: "At the March Quarter (the first quarter), the theme of the
Dance is one of hope for the New Year and of looking forward. The
festivities are marked by the Mummers’ Parade (a festival in and of
itself), various games, the bishop’s dance itself and the feast held
afterward. The bishop blesses the mummers and the people in general for a
prosperous new year. Three accolytes (in green) hold the bishop's mitre,
staff and gloves. A fourth holds the bishop's book. The dance at this
quarter is of a merry character and the music is provided by reedpipes and
the characteristic bagpipe known as the "Telerani organ". The reedpipes
are small shawms that are always played in pairs; the very large bagpipe
is played by two stout men, so large are they. One man carries the bag,
usually made from a whole hide, and also blows into the bag to keep it
inflated. The second man plays upon the various and quite long chanters,
the longer being nearly four feet long, the shorter about three. Two in
number and capable of playing simple harmonies all by themselves, these
chanters along with the two or three drones make for a nice accompaniment
to the higher pitched shawms. In some places, a rather smaller bagpipe,
whose longer chanter rarely exceeds three feet in length, is played by a
single man, though still always in the company of two shawms."
During the feasting, they will enjoy rich pastries, often stuffed with
nuts, meat paste or cheese, there might be sausage logs, nut rolls, and
lots of toasted bread with jellies.
Around now, the various Daine lands of the East (except for Westmarche)
will be readying for the Spring Dance. This is an ancient spring festival
with all sorts of feasting, sporting competitions, artistic competitions
(singing and instrumental work, mostly), dramatic performance, all kinds
of food, and, when the sun goes down, a chance for a bit of a roll in
the heather. They hold that children born six months hence are particularly
lucky. In any event, they often as not don't look much like their fathers!
Padraic
Messages in this topic (8)
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1b. Re: New Year / Easter Greetings to All
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 31, 2013 9:09 am ((PDT))
--- On Sun, 3/31/13, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
First, I'd like to wish everyone a happy Easter! And also a happy new year,
for those whose new year is 25 March!
=====================================
You beat me to it !!!
(snip, sadly, the usual fascinating explanations)
This past season I've been considering trying to introduce a Christ-like
analogue into Kash, Gwr, or maybe Lañ-lañ culture. The problem with it being
Kash, is that, since everyone is telepathic to some extent, the High Priests
who do the psychic probing/examining could well find that someone claiming to
be the Son, or even an Emissary, of the Primum Mobile, was simply starkers. So
it's probably going to be one of the other cultures, who don't have the
Ability. We shall see.
Messages in this topic (8)
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1c. Re: New Year / Easter Greetings to All
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 31, 2013 9:51 am ((PDT))
On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 11:09 AM, Roger Mills <[email protected]> wrote:
> --- On Sun, 3/31/13, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> First, I'd like to wish everyone a happy Easter! And also a happy new year,
> for those whose new year is 25 March!
> =====================================
>
> You beat me to it !!!
>
> (snip, sadly, the usual fascinating explanations)
>
> This past season I've been considering trying to introduce a Christ-like
> analogue into Kash, Gwr, or maybe Lañ-lañ culture. The problem with it
> being Kash, is that, since everyone is telepathic to some extent, the High
> Priests who do the psychic probing/examining could well find that someone
> claiming to be the Son, or even an Emissary, of the Primum Mobile, was
> simply starkers. So it's probably going to be one of the other cultures,
> who don't have the Ability. We shall see.
>
Um, it's a fairly common theory among Biblical scholars that "Son of God"
was a very common title for spiritual teachers at the time, and it just
happened to be co-opted into a larger mythos as the stories of Jesus took
on virgin birth, resurrection, and miracle-performing elements from other
mythical traditions.
More basically -- myths and legends evolved over time. People don't even
need to be "fooled" at the time -- subsequent generations will almost
certainly have imperfect information and will even deliberately embellish
stories for a variety of reasons.
Messages in this topic (8)
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1d. Re: New Year / Easter Greetings to All
Posted by: "C. Brickner" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 31, 2013 10:21 am ((PDT))
Dangerously close to NCNC to claim that virgin birth, etc., are co-opted from
other mythical traditions implying that they didn't really happen in the life
of Jesus.
That myths and legends evolved over time I do not doubt. That this is the case
with respect to Jesus I deny.
Charles
----- Original Message -----
On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 11:09 AM, Roger Mills <[email protected]> wrote:
Um, it's a fairly common theory among Biblical scholars that "Son of God"
was a very common title for spiritual teachers at the time, and it just
happened to be co-opted into a larger mythos as the stories of Jesus took
on virgin birth, resurrection, and miracle-performing elements from other
mythical traditions.
More basically -- myths and legends evolved over time. People don't even
need to be "fooled" at the time -- subsequent generations will almost
certainly have imperfect information and will even deliberately embellish
stories for a variety of reasons.
Messages in this topic (8)
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1e. Re: New Year / Easter Greetings to All
Posted by: "Dustfinger Batailleur" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 31, 2013 10:27 am ((PDT))
Council of Nicea?
On 31 March 2013 13:21, C. Brickner <[email protected]> wrote:
> Dangerously close to NCNC to claim that virgin birth, etc., are co-opted
> from other mythical traditions implying that they didn't really happen in
> the life of Jesus.
>
> That myths and legends evolved over time I do not doubt. That this is the
> case with respect to Jesus I deny.
>
> Charles
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 11:09 AM, Roger Mills <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> Um, it's a fairly common theory among Biblical scholars that "Son of God"
> was a very common title for spiritual teachers at the time, and it just
> happened to be co-opted into a larger mythos as the stories of Jesus took
> on virgin birth, resurrection, and miracle-performing elements from other
> mythical traditions.
>
> More basically -- myths and legends evolved over time. People don't even
> need to be "fooled" at the time -- subsequent generations will almost
> certainly have imperfect information and will even deliberately embellish
> stories for a variety of reasons.
>
Messages in this topic (8)
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1f. Re: New Year / Easter Greetings to All
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 31, 2013 10:30 am ((PDT))
On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 12:21 PM, C. Brickner <[email protected]>wrote:
> Dangerously close to NCNC to claim that virgin birth, etc., are co-opted
> from other mythical traditions implying that they didn't really happen in
> the life of Jesus.
>
> That myths and legends evolved over time I do not doubt. That this is the
> case with respect to Jesus I deny.
That is why I said "it is a very common theory" and didn't take a specific
position on the issue. When conworlding, it's not as important to declare
what *is* as it is to declare what is *possible* or *probable*. Please do
not drag an attempt at a relevant real-world example into an actual NCNC
fight.
Messages in this topic (8)
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1g. Re: New Year / Easter Greetings to All
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 31, 2013 10:43 am ((PDT))
On 3/31/2013 9:43 AM, Padraic Brown wrote:
> First, I'd like to wish everyone a happy Easter! And also a happy new year,
> for those whose new year is 25 March!
Happy Shakespeare Day to everyone!
Vôṛ śêgspiṛ-ṛêļma ślŭṛŏl!
(literally "found egg day makes everyone happy")
"Shakespeare Day" is a pun on the Jarda name "śêgspiṛ-ṛêļ", which means
"found egg day". In the original tradition, when Jarda was a personal
language, it was customary to read some Shakespeare in the original
Klingon. Since the current Sangari speakers of Jarda won't have heard of
Shakespeare or Klingons, they need a new tradition. In the spirit of
searching and finding things, I've decided that the new tradition
involves listening to music and trying to hear details hidden in the
mix. Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" is a good one for this because
it's spring-related, no ordinary human listener can possibly hear all
the intricate things going on there, and it's the 100th anniversary of
its first performance this year. But if you can find some actual Sangari
spring-related music that would be even better!
Messages in this topic (8)
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1h. Re: New Year / Easter Greetings to All
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 31, 2013 3:32 pm ((PDT))
On 31 March 2013 10:09, Roger Mills <[email protected]> wrote:
> --- On Sun, 3/31/13, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> First, I'd like to wish everyone a happy Easter! And also a happy new year,
> for those whose new year is 25 March!
> =====================================
>
> You beat me to it !!!
>
> (snip, sadly, the usual fascinating explanations)
>
> This past season I've been considering trying to introduce a Christ-like
> analogue into Kash, Gwr, or maybe Lañ-lañ culture. The problem with it being
> Kash, is that, since everyone is telepathic to some extent, the High Priests
> who do the psychic probing/examining could well find that someone claiming to
> be the Son, or even an Emissary, of the Primum Mobile, was simply starkers.
> So it's probably going to be one of the other cultures, who don't have the
> Ability. We shall see.
It is entirely possible to have a Christ-like figure who is not
required to actually be the Son or even Emissary of God, if you want
to avoid making the supernatural officially "real" in your universe.
One option is simply to have him be in the future- if he hasn't been
born yet, nobody can verify whether or not he's starkers. People are
free to believe that such a supernatural being will appear at some
time in the future effectively indefinitely. Another option is that
the Christ-figure isn't even believed to be supernatural at all, by
himself or his followers, and is just a totally secular guy who
nevertheless pulls of some darn amazing stuff, like raising his
oppressed chosen people to political superpower status, and/or
founding a new world-spanning religion / ethical system or some other
equally momentous thing.
-l.
Messages in this topic (8)
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2a. Re: Not enough difference?
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 31, 2013 8:07 am ((PDT))
I had no idea
On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 2:28 PM, H. S. Teoh <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 12:56:17PM -0500, George Corley wrote:
> > Something that has been bugging me while working on Pahran -- I feel
> > like a lot of roots are coming through my sound changes untouched. Of
> > 68 words I have created so far (yes, I am slow with lexical
> > development)
>
> Aren't we all? :)
>
>
> > 15 are entirely unchanged, and many others have only developed in ways
> > that are clearly just allophonic variation.
> >
> > Keep in mind that Pahran's sound changes are supposed to span
> > 1000-2000 years.
>
> Maybe you want to break that up into periods of, say, 250 years or so
> each, and at each stage, apply yet another stage of sound changes?
>
>
> > I haven't really been thinking about how syntax and morphology are
> > changing, either. Being a high-class, somewhat literary dialect, the
> > variant of Pahran I'm working on may well make sense to be a little
> > conservative, but it seems a bit TOO conservative at the moment.
>
> It seems that what happens with literary dialects much of the time is
> that the vernacular has moved on in radical ways, but the literary
> dialect (tries to) retain its original form. However, it's not truly
> independent from the vernacular either; pronunciation for one thing will
> change no matter what. What people try to do is to try to compensate for
> it by developing a "literary pronunciation system" which is different
> from the vernacular, but of course, that also tends to erode over time,
> and sometimes people over-compensate, introducing supposedly
> "conservative" forms that are actually not present in the original
> literary language. The vernacular will influence this in both ways:
> sometimes a colloquialism is imported into the literary language (though
> this isn't too common), sometimes the literary language acquires new
> anachronisms from over-compensation away from the vernacular.
>
> As for syntax/morphology changes, if the language is actually being used
> actively (as opposed to being, say, a liturgical language), then it will
> definitely experience change. The most common phrases / segments will
> tend to shorten, contract, merge, etc.: people don't like pronouncing
> every last syllable if everyone already knows what the entire phrase is
> going to be anyway. Once enough has been said that determines the rest,
> you can pretty much bet on the rest just melting into a quick slur,
> which over time will calcify into actual word endings, for example.
> Sometimes the same word can split into a full form and a slurred form
> due to context-dependent simplification: e.g., the -ся passive ending of
> Russian verbs developed from себя (oneself) in the ancestral language,
> but себя is still used in its original sense (and without contraction to
> *ся) today. So you can see how the original construction of verb + себя
> came to be regarded as a unit, and over time contracted into verb + ся
> (and even just -сь /s_j/ in some contexts), but outside of this context,
> себя didn't erode at all.
>
> Another Russian example: спасибо ("thanks") is a contraction of спаси
> Бог ("God save"), yet both standalone words still exist unmodified
> today. (Well, "unmodified" is not quite accurate, perhaps, the
> pronunciation *has* shifted over time, but nowhere near as much as the
> contracted form спасибо did. IOW, the same word/phrase can undergo
> different rates of "erosion", depending on the context! More generally,
> different words may undergo different rates of change over time, such
> that after a lengthy period of time, like your 1000+ years, some words
> may be very close to the original but others have mutated beyond all
> recognition. I'm sure you can think of all sorts of cases where this
> could happen in your lang, creating new words or new morphemes from the
> same original roots, and all sorts of fun stuff like that.)
>
> (Marginally-related note: my favorite example of mutation beyond all
> recognition is the fact that the Russian "язык" /yazi\"k/ is cognate
> with the English "language" /lE"NguIdZ/ (!). Now imagine if something
> like this happened in the *same* language due to different changes being
> applied in different contexts. Wouldn't that be cool?!?!)
>
"Tongue" is also the same word.
stevo
>
>
> T
>
> --
> What do you get if you drop a piano down a mineshaft? A flat minor.
>
Messages in this topic (10)
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2b. Re: Not enough difference?
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 31, 2013 1:43 pm ((PDT))
On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 22:59:07 -0500, George Corley <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 10:28 PM, Alex Fink <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 15:57:36 -0500, George Corley <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >> What sound changes have you got so far?
>>
>> [*snip*]
>>
>> Yeah, that feels scant to me for a millennium, though I guess the vowel
>> changes could bulk it up.
>
>Damn. That's unfortunate. I really hate to add more changes after having
>coined words. I guess I could pin down what I have as an earlier stage in
>the language and then develop further.
That's what seems easiest to me; this could make a fine half-millennium or a
bit more. At any rate, if down the line you do the sort of morphological
change I was talking about, with affixes becoming bleached and accreting on
stems and so on, you'll need to change some words on that account as well.
>Now I need to do even _more_
>freaking derivations. (I'm deriving words by hand, because I can't find
>single damn sound change applier that can handle the kinds of sound changes
>I want, and the one I had used required too many ridiculous workaround
>rules.)
Eh, by hand is how I do it. I dunno how unusual this is, but myself I find
holding a set of sound changes in mind and carrying them out easy enough,
certainly less work than creating the lexicon to run through them in the first
place, or deciding what the semantic or analogical changes will be. Hardly
worth automating; probably more trouble to debug it than the work it saves.
>Initial vowels are /i a u/, expanding to a much larger nine
>vowel system through [front] and [high] harmony (once vowel harmony kicks
>in, /a/ becomes one of those odd transparent vowels.
Funky. Normally, in the frontness harmony systems I'm familiar with, front is
a dominant category, but I guess you've got both [i...u] > [M] and [u...i] >
[y] sort of things going at once?
>True. I will add that this language is for a fantasy world that as at a
>stage of social development where literacy isn't terribly common. As such,
>it would probably make sense for spellings to be somewhat in flux, with no
>really effective way to standardize. This society may or may not have an
>early printing press, but if they do it is a very new and very limited
>phenomenon.
Ah, fair enough. Maybe an important question is then whether texts written in
old Pahran continuously remained canon to the small literate segment and the
development of the standard was moored to it, with imitation of the exemplars
serving the sort of function the printing press might, or whether they were
lost contact with (and possibly later rediscovered).
Alex
Messages in this topic (10)
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2c. Re: Not enough difference?
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 31, 2013 1:57 pm ((PDT))
On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 3:43 PM, Alex Fink <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 22:59:07 -0500, George Corley <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >Initial vowels are /i a u/, expanding to a much larger nine
> >vowel system through [front] and [high] harmony (once vowel harmony kicks
> >in, /a/ becomes one of those odd transparent vowels.
>
> Funky. Normally, in the frontness harmony systems I'm familiar with,
> front is a dominant category, but I guess you've got both [i...u] > [M] and
> [u...i] > [y] sort of things going at once?
Yes, that's how I got to it. My plan is to have underspecified vowels that
specify [round], plus another set that is explicitly [-high] to account for
cases that would otherwise break height harmony. I wasn't aware that front
vowels tended to be dominant -- I was thinking of Turkish as a model for
front-back harmony.
> >True. I will add that this language is for a fantasy world that as at a
> >stage of social development where literacy isn't terribly common. As
> such,
> >it would probably make sense for spellings to be somewhat in flux, with no
> >really effective way to standardize. This society may or may not have an
> >early printing press, but if they do it is a very new and very limited
> >phenomenon.
>
> Ah, fair enough. Maybe an important question is then whether texts
> written in old Pahran continuously remained canon to the small literate
> segment and the development of the standard was moored to it, with
> imitation of the exemplars serving the sort of function the printing press
> might, or whether they were lost contact with (and possibly later
> rediscovered).
In light of all this, I may need to have my Pahran alphabet developed
somewhat later -- perhaps even after vowel harmony -- or perhaps move vowel
harmony changes to the next stage of the language (and flesh them out
more), so it's hard to say whether this particular stage of the language
will have all that much written documentation. It will certainly be there
in later stages, though.
Messages in this topic (10)
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3.1. Re: Tsk tsk (was: More from the Popular Linguistics Front)
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 31, 2013 8:43 am ((PDT))
"Tisk tisk", for me is always pronounced how its spelt - in a sort of Mary
Poppins dismay. The dental click is "tut" - hence the verb "to tut" and the
derived nouns "tut" and "tutting".
Sam Stutter
[email protected]
"No e na'l cu barri"
On 31 Mar 2013, at 03:32, Roger Mills <[email protected]> wrote:
> BTW I've seen it written "tch tch" ( I think).
>
> --- On Sat, 3/30/13, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> From: Padraic Brown <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: More from the Popular Linguistics Front
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Saturday, March 30, 2013, 9:18 PM
>
> --- On Sat, 3/30/13, George Corley <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>>> Not sure. The audio, hilariously, only has the spelling
>>>> pronunciation /tIsk/.
>>
>>> This is more real than you might think. My wife insists that "tsk" is
>>> pronounced /tIsk/. She has never made the connection with a dental
>>> click, and was genuinely incredulous when I explained it to h
>
> Well, your wife isn't wrong by a long shot -- there are two words in play
> here. One is pronounced with the click (don't know how to "spell" it in
> IPA) and the other is pronounced /tIsk/.
>
> I hear both, and though I agree with George that these words are low
> frequency in the grand scheme of things, I don't think either one is in
> any real danger of disappearing. They operate in different domains, as far
> as I've seen them used. In my experience (personal use and how I've heard
> them used by others -- all anecdotal), the click is used when literally an
> "exclamation of disapproval of a situation or action", as if to say "what
> a shame that is; what a waste". It's usually reduplicated (or less often
> quintuplicated) and is uttered "straight". The "spelling pronunciation"
> variety, /tIsk/, I hear and use in a much more disparaging way, usually as
> part of the phrase "well, tisk tisk!" enunciated almost with a sense of
> exasperation when someone makes a little mole hill into a big mountain, or
> when their perceived problem is something I don't see as an issue at all.
>
>> It will probably be replaced. Granted, I haven't done a study, but I
>> rarely hear the click much any more. It's very low frequency, anyway.
>
> Padraic
Messages in this topic (37)
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3.2. Re: Tsk tsk (was: More from the Popular Linguistics Front)
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 31, 2013 8:46 am ((PDT))
On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 10:43 AM, Sam Stutter <[email protected]> wrote:
> "Tisk tisk", for me is always pronounced how its spelt - in a sort of Mary
> Poppins dismay. The dental click is "tut" - hence the verb "to tut" and the
> derived nouns "tut" and "tutting".
>
"Tut" calls to mind Christopher Robin in the Winnie the Pooh movies --
where he always pronounced it as spelled.
Messages in this topic (37)
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4a. Chomskybot
Posted by: "Dustfinger Batailleur" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 31, 2013 2:15 pm ((PDT))
This is actually amazing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomskybot
Messages in this topic (2)
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4b. Re: Chomskybot
Posted by: "BPJ" [email protected]
Date: Sun Mar 31, 2013 3:41 pm ((PDT))
On 2013-03-31 23:15, Dustfinger Batailleur wrote:
> This is actually amazing.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomskybot
>
Perfectly indistinguishable from the original! ;-)
/bpj
Messages in this topic (2)
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