There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
From: James Kane
1b. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
From: Matthew Boutilier
1c. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
From: James Kane
1d. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
From: Roman Rausch
2a. Re: Is this a good place to present Ehenív?
From: Herman Miller
3.1. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
From: James Kane
4.1. Re: Dieing Languages
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
4.2. Re: Dieing Languages
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
4.3. Re: Dieing Languages
From: Padraic Brown
5a. Time Travel and Language: or Historical Linguistics
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
5b. Re: Time Travel and Language: or Historical Linguistics
From: kechpaja
5c. Re: Time Travel and Language: or Historical Linguistics
From: yuri
5d. Re: Time Travel and Language: or Historical Linguistics
From: Elena ``of Valhalla''
5e. Re: Time Travel and Language: or Historical Linguistics
From: Sam Stutter
6a. Re: Why does the glottal stop often replace /t/ in English?
From: Roman Rausch
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
Posted by: "James Kane" kane...@gmail.com
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 8:09 pm ((PDT))
>> There is a distinction between 'how do you say X in LANGUAGE' and 'what
>> does this word mean'. It looks like you are asking for the latter. The
>> former would be expressed in French by (I think) 'comment se dit X' as in
>> 'comment se dit 'refrigerator' en français?' rather than 'qu'est-ce que le
>> mot 'frigo' veut dire en anglais?'.
> Quick correction: "How do you say X in LANGUAGE?" in French would be
> "Comment est-ce qu'on dit X en LANGUE ?", with the impersonal "on" rather
> than a reflexive. The reflexive sounds nearly like X is trying to say
> itself!
I have always been taught 'comment se dit X'. I think Spanish also uses a
reflexive construction, 'como se dice'. Your way sounds quite formal, although
I'm not fluent though so I am probably wrong.
Come to think of, 'qu'est-ce que le mot X veut dire en LANGUE' sounds a bit
formal as well, maybe 'que veut dire X en LANGUE' might be more conversational.
James
> On 30 May 2013 23:17, Jyri Lehtinen <lehtinen.j...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> These are all different case forms of the language name, but you can add
>> adpositional examples to the list equally as well. For example "in English"
>> and "auf Deutsch" are similar but not completely identical to each other.
> French uses the preposition "en": "en français". Interestingly, "en" has an
> instrumental meaning when used with vehicles: "en vélo": "by bike", "en
> voiture": "by car".
>
> Dutch is somewhat weird, in that it simply uses the preposition "in", as in
> English, but requires the neuter article in front of the language name: "in
> het Nederlands".
>
>
>> You didn't ask it but an interesting side point is how to deal with
>> language names in the sentence "I speak X", where it's semantically an
>> object rather than an adverbial. Both Finnic and Saamic treat the language
>> name as a regular direct object (as does English).
>
>
> And French.
>
>
>> This means that in North
>> Saami you use the accusative case ("Mun human sámegiela", "giela" =
>> language.ACC) and in Finnish and Estonian the partitive case ("Puhun
>> suomea", "suome-a" = Finnish-PART / "Ma räägin eesti keelt", "keel-t" =
>> language-PART). In the Permic languages, however, you keep the language
>> name in the instrumental case even though it acts as a direct object of the
>> verb (Komi: "Сёрнита комиӧн", "коми-ӧн" = Komi-INSTR). Mari works the same
>> way but quite unusually uses its so called comparative case ("Марла попем",
>> "мар-ла" = Mari-COMPA). The basic use of this case is to indicate
>> similarity of action or state.
> Be careful however not to claim that "I speak X" is semantically transitive
> in *all* languages. In Basque for instance, the equivalent of "to speak" is
> the expression "hitz egin": "to make word". Since the object slot is
> already taken by "hitz", the resulting expression has to be semantically
> intransitive. And indeed, the language spoken in such a sentence is once
> again in the instrumental: "euskaraz hitz egin dut": "I speak Basque"
> (literally: "I make word in Basque").
>
> ObConlang: in my Moten, the equivalent of "to speak" is the verb _igebezi_,
> which is strictly intransitive (Moten verbs are strict when it comes to
> transitivity, and cannot change willy-nilly like English verbs). As in
> Basque, the expression "I speak X" requires the instrumental form of the
> language name: _komotenku|leju igebezi ito_: "(I) speak Moten".
> --
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (16)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" bvticvlar...@gmail.com
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 8:24 pm ((PDT))
i am the last person who should be giving authoritative information about
french, but i always heard "comment dit-on 'X'?" which sounds like a
shortened (and possibly equally legitimate) version of Christophe's.
in turkish it's "'X' [Türkçe] ne demek?" = "X (is) to say what in Turkish?"
(lit. "X [in.Turkish] what say-INF")
in arabic it's not very interesting, the general way just means "how (do)
you say X in-the-Arabic?"
in german you can say "Wie sagt man X (auf Deutsch)?" = "how says one X in
German?" but i've also heard "wie/was heißt X?" ("how/what is X called?) to
ask how something should be translated.
in dutch, "hoe zeg je X?" = "how say you X?"
and as my examples get less and less interesting, i will cease, and ponder
how to do it in my emergent proto-lang, which is probably what people are
more interested in (myself included).
matt
On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 10:09 PM, James Kane <kane...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> There is a distinction between 'how do you say X in LANGUAGE' and 'what
> >> does this word mean'. It looks like you are asking for the latter. The
> >> former would be expressed in French by (I think) 'comment se dit X' as
> in
> >> 'comment se dit 'refrigerator' en français?' rather than 'qu'est-ce que
> le
> >> mot 'frigo' veut dire en anglais?'.
> > Quick correction: "How do you say X in LANGUAGE?" in French would be
> > "Comment est-ce qu'on dit X en LANGUE ?", with the impersonal "on" rather
> > than a reflexive. The reflexive sounds nearly like X is trying to say
> > itself!
>
> I have always been taught 'comment se dit X'. I think Spanish also uses a
> reflexive construction, 'como se dice'. Your way sounds quite formal,
> although I'm not fluent though so I am probably wrong.
>
> Come to think of, 'qu'est-ce que le mot X veut dire en LANGUE' sounds a
> bit formal as well, maybe 'que veut dire X en LANGUE' might be more
> conversational.
>
>
> James
>
> > On 30 May 2013 23:17, Jyri Lehtinen <lehtinen.j...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> These are all different case forms of the language name, but you can add
> >> adpositional examples to the list equally as well. For example "in
> English"
> >> and "auf Deutsch" are similar but not completely identical to each
> other.
> > French uses the preposition "en": "en français". Interestingly, "en" has
> an
> > instrumental meaning when used with vehicles: "en vélo": "by bike", "en
> > voiture": "by car".
> >
> > Dutch is somewhat weird, in that it simply uses the preposition "in", as
> in
> > English, but requires the neuter article in front of the language name:
> "in
> > het Nederlands".
> >
> >
> >> You didn't ask it but an interesting side point is how to deal with
> >> language names in the sentence "I speak X", where it's semantically an
> >> object rather than an adverbial. Both Finnic and Saamic treat the
> language
> >> name as a regular direct object (as does English).
> >
> >
> > And French.
> >
> >
> >> This means that in North
> >> Saami you use the accusative case ("Mun human sámegiela", "giela" =
> >> language.ACC) and in Finnish and Estonian the partitive case ("Puhun
> >> suomea", "suome-a" = Finnish-PART / "Ma räägin eesti keelt", "keel-t" =
> >> language-PART). In the Permic languages, however, you keep the language
> >> name in the instrumental case even though it acts as a direct object of
> the
> >> verb (Komi: "Сёрнита комиӧн", "коми-ӧн" = Komi-INSTR). Mari works the
> same
> >> way but quite unusually uses its so called comparative case ("Марла
> попем",
> >> "мар-ла" = Mari-COMPA). The basic use of this case is to indicate
> >> similarity of action or state.
> > Be careful however not to claim that "I speak X" is semantically
> transitive
> > in *all* languages. In Basque for instance, the equivalent of "to speak"
> is
> > the expression "hitz egin": "to make word". Since the object slot is
> > already taken by "hitz", the resulting expression has to be semantically
> > intransitive. And indeed, the language spoken in such a sentence is once
> > again in the instrumental: "euskaraz hitz egin dut": "I speak Basque"
> > (literally: "I make word in Basque").
> >
> > ObConlang: in my Moten, the equivalent of "to speak" is the verb
> _igebezi_,
> > which is strictly intransitive (Moten verbs are strict when it comes to
> > transitivity, and cannot change willy-nilly like English verbs). As in
> > Basque, the expression "I speak X" requires the instrumental form of the
> > language name: _komotenku|leju igebezi ito_: "(I) speak Moten".
> > --
> > Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
> >
> > http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
> > http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
>
Messages in this topic (16)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
Posted by: "James Kane" kane...@gmail.com
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 8:45 pm ((PDT))
Hmmm, looking it up it seams that 'comment dit-on X' is more common, although
'comment se dit X' is used but with a more passive meaning, à la 'how is X is
said'.
James
Sent from my iPhone
On 31/05/2013, at 3:24 PM, Matthew Boutilier <bvticvlar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> i am the last person who should be giving authoritative information about
> french, but i always heard "comment dit-on 'X'?" which sounds like a
> shortened (and possibly equally legitimate) version of Christophe's.
>
> in turkish it's "'X' [Türkçe] ne demek?" = "X (is) to say what in Turkish?"
> (lit. "X [in.Turkish] what say-INF")
>
> in arabic it's not very interesting, the general way just means "how (do)
> you say X in-the-Arabic?"
>
> in german you can say "Wie sagt man X (auf Deutsch)?" = "how says one X in
> German?" but i've also heard "wie/was heißt X?" ("how/what is X called?) to
> ask how something should be translated.
>
> in dutch, "hoe zeg je X?" = "how say you X?"
>
> and as my examples get less and less interesting, i will cease, and ponder
> how to do it in my emergent proto-lang, which is probably what people are
> more interested in (myself included).
>
> matt
>
>
> On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 10:09 PM, James Kane <kane...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>> There is a distinction between 'how do you say X in LANGUAGE' and 'what
>>>> does this word mean'. It looks like you are asking for the latter. The
>>>> former would be expressed in French by (I think) 'comment se dit X' as
>> in
>>>> 'comment se dit 'refrigerator' en français?' rather than 'qu'est-ce que
>> le
>>>> mot 'frigo' veut dire en anglais?'.
>>> Quick correction: "How do you say X in LANGUAGE?" in French would be
>>> "Comment est-ce qu'on dit X en LANGUE ?", with the impersonal "on" rather
>>> than a reflexive. The reflexive sounds nearly like X is trying to say
>>> itself!
>>
>> I have always been taught 'comment se dit X'. I think Spanish also uses a
>> reflexive construction, 'como se dice'. Your way sounds quite formal,
>> although I'm not fluent though so I am probably wrong.
>>
>> Come to think of, 'qu'est-ce que le mot X veut dire en LANGUE' sounds a
>> bit formal as well, maybe 'que veut dire X en LANGUE' might be more
>> conversational.
>>
>>
>> James
>>
>>> On 30 May 2013 23:17, Jyri Lehtinen <lehtinen.j...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> These are all different case forms of the language name, but you can add
>>>> adpositional examples to the list equally as well. For example "in
>> English"
>>>> and "auf Deutsch" are similar but not completely identical to each
>> other.
>>> French uses the preposition "en": "en français". Interestingly, "en" has
>> an
>>> instrumental meaning when used with vehicles: "en vélo": "by bike", "en
>>> voiture": "by car".
>>>
>>> Dutch is somewhat weird, in that it simply uses the preposition "in", as
>> in
>>> English, but requires the neuter article in front of the language name:
>> "in
>>> het Nederlands".
>>>
>>>
>>>> You didn't ask it but an interesting side point is how to deal with
>>>> language names in the sentence "I speak X", where it's semantically an
>>>> object rather than an adverbial. Both Finnic and Saamic treat the
>> language
>>>> name as a regular direct object (as does English).
>>>
>>>
>>> And French.
>>>
>>>
>>>> This means that in North
>>>> Saami you use the accusative case ("Mun human sámegiela", "giela" =
>>>> language.ACC) and in Finnish and Estonian the partitive case ("Puhun
>>>> suomea", "suome-a" = Finnish-PART / "Ma räägin eesti keelt", "keel-t" =
>>>> language-PART). In the Permic languages, however, you keep the language
>>>> name in the instrumental case even though it acts as a direct object of
>> the
>>>> verb (Komi: "Сёрнита комиӧн", "коми-ӧн" = Komi-INSTR). Mari works the
>> same
>>>> way but quite unusually uses its so called comparative case ("Марла
>> попем",
>>>> "мар-ла" = Mari-COMPA). The basic use of this case is to indicate
>>>> similarity of action or state.
>>> Be careful however not to claim that "I speak X" is semantically
>> transitive
>>> in *all* languages. In Basque for instance, the equivalent of "to speak"
>> is
>>> the expression "hitz egin": "to make word". Since the object slot is
>>> already taken by "hitz", the resulting expression has to be semantically
>>> intransitive. And indeed, the language spoken in such a sentence is once
>>> again in the instrumental: "euskaraz hitz egin dut": "I speak Basque"
>>> (literally: "I make word in Basque").
>>>
>>> ObConlang: in my Moten, the equivalent of "to speak" is the verb
>> _igebezi_,
>>> which is strictly intransitive (Moten verbs are strict when it comes to
>>> transitivity, and cannot change willy-nilly like English verbs). As in
>>> Basque, the expression "I speak X" requires the instrumental form of the
>>> language name: _komotenku|leju igebezi ito_: "(I) speak Moten".
>>> --
>>> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>>>
>>> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
>>> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
>>
Messages in this topic (16)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
Posted by: "Roman Rausch" ara...@mail.ru
Date: Fri May 31, 2013 5:08 am ((PDT))
>In the past, I have tended to use an instrumental for this meaning,
>but I'm not sure if this occurs in natural languages
Indo-European at least seems to tend towards a metaphor where the language is a
path or a location rather than an instrument. Russian, despite having an
instrumental case, uses _на русском_ lit. 'on Russian', or more commonly
_по-русски_ where _по_ is an adverbalizer which can be translated as 'in the
way/manner of' and also seems ultimately derived from location on a surface.
Note also that Japanese _de_ is used for both instruments and places of action
(as opposed to a static locations): _koko de hanasu_ 'speak here' and _Nihongo
de hanasu_ 'speak in Japanese' are completely parallel.
Since I dislike the metaphor of treating language like an instrument to hammer
nails with, I use the locational metaphor in Talmit, where language is the
end-point of a path:
_Tálmit-nópparus táplun_ 'Talmit-on.top say' = 'say in Talmit (fluently)'
Replacing _nópparus_ 'on' by _tarúma_ 'into' gives imperfect speaking:
_Tálmit-tarúma táplun_ 'Talmit-into say' = 'say in broken Talmit'
"What does X mean?" would be probably expressed as:
_X-mo tálmoka-ejár nwántal-nójo so?_
X-GEN meaning-NOM.STAT-TOP what.word-STAT PTCL
lit. 'Which word-state is the meaning of X in?'
(In addition, _tálmoka_ 'meaning' decomposes as _tal_ 'word', _mo_: GEN, _ka_
'base, foundation'.)
Messages in this topic (16)
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________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Is this a good place to present Ehenív?
Posted by: "Herman Miller" hmil...@prismnet.com
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 8:15 pm ((PDT))
On 5/30/2013 4:50 PM, C. Brickner wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> --- On Wed, 5/29/13, p...@phillipdriscoll.com<p...@phillipdriscoll.com>
> wrote:
>
>> How would you say, "My neighbor painted the house of the man who
>> robbed the bank where I keep my money." ?
>
> In Senjecas:
>
> mús ȝovɱe̋e̋sus—nu—nu íðu mús pı̋sdom a̋rĸa—nesde̋mom e-ĸa̋da—ɱirűs ɱe̋e̋som
> e-cı̋ɱa:
>
> my neighbor—that—that there my money keep—bank robbed—man’s house painted.
>
> Charlie
Tirelat (new spelling!):
Su luužidin jĕnretamin u łan my ruuba u taala ni jĕtłakalin u khyza ni
taka lĕkhaftanez lĕreem.
su lĕ-uuži-din jĕ-nreta-mi-n u łan
NOM 1s-near-person 3s-coat-PAST-PF GEN paint
my ruuba u taala
ACC house GEN man
ni jĕ-tłaka-li-n u khyza
that 3s-steal-PAST-PF GEN bank
ni taka lĕ-khafta-ne-z lĕ-reem
that there 1s-keep-PRES-IMPF 1s-money
Normally "the house of the man" or "the man's house" would be "taala
jĕruuba", but this context seems to require putting "taala" next to the
phrase that modifies it.
Messages in this topic (18)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3.1. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
Posted by: "James Kane" kane...@gmail.com
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 8:37 pm ((PDT))
To me, Turkish and Mongolian are very cool-sounding (I'm not sure about
beautiful, all languages sound nice but only a few sound cool). I like
Turkish's lack of diphthongs and first-syllable stress and Mongolian voiced
lateral fricative and murmured quality. Coming in next is French, Welsh
(although I hate the Welsh accent in English, it sounds cool in Welsh) and
Polynesian languages. While I find Chinese very interesting morphologically and
I love the tones, I don't think it sounds that amazing.
James
On 31/05/2013, at 1:28 PM, Ian Spolarich <mouton9...@gmail.com> wrote:
> For whatever reason, modern Hebrew is to me one of the most "beautiful"
> languages... But then again, I don't find many languages *un*-appealing,
> such as Russian and Hungarian, which are usually sited as rather
> unpleasant. I also *love* German, perhaps because I am actively trying to
> learning it.
>
> As for my conlang, I am trying to make it a bit more sonorous than usual,
> and hopefully I'll be able to incorporate interesting rhythm/prosody into
> it, which I think certainly enhances the beauty of a language, like in
> Finnish or Japanese.
>
>
> On 30 May 2013 14:00, Krista D. Casada <kcas...@uark.edu> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> (With various bits snipped): Lao certainly overlaps these two uses of tone
>> mentioned below, and my inquiries about how singing in harmony
>> (part-singing) affects tone and/or meaning tend to get answers like, "We
>> don't know. There are experts for stuff like that, and we're not them."
>>
>> Also, it's slightly OT, but it's fun to watch changing trends in foreign
>> language use in popular romance writing in the US. This certainly reflects
>> changing beliefs about language attractiveness for a particular population
>> group! While Italian is probably the all-time favorite for heroes from the
>> last twenty years or so, it has been closely followed by Greek, then
>> Spanish and French, with Russian, Irish, and Arabic having strong
>> followings. My friend Aimee Thurlo and her husband David have kept Navajo
>> pretty much front and center for the Native American languages, and
>> Harlequin and other publishers have recently released more novels
>> containing Asian and Asian American characters than ever before.
>> Interestingly, I think one factor that adds to the perception of Italian as
>> an "attractive" language is the popular notion that Italian speakers
>> maintain strong traditional ideas about family and loyalty.
>>
>> Plus, my favorite languages sound-wise include Basque and Cornish, and I
>> hadn't seen much said about them yet.
>>
>> Krista C.
>> ________________________________________
>> From: Constructed Languages List [conl...@listserv.brown.edu] on behalf
>> of Leonardo Castro [leolucas1...@gmail.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2013 6:59 AM
>> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
>> Subject: Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
>>
>>
>>
>> 2013/5/28 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>:
>>> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 07:36:01PM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
>>> [...]
>>>> OTOH, I guess that I don't know how to appreciate tonal languages,
>>>> maybe because I feel that the tones are in the wrong places (for
>>>> instance, I feel that the Chinese interrogtive particle "ma" should
>>>> have a rising tone).
>>> [...]
>>>
>>> Hmm. I think you still haven't "gotten" the idea of tones yet. Not your
>>> fault, of course -- I observe that it is very difficult for native
>>> speakers of European languages, where pitch contour is very much a part
>>> of prosody and for conveying mood, to be truly free of that L1 bias to
>>> interpret pitch/tone in that way.
>>
>> I have already read that tonal languages overlap phonemic and prosody
>> tones. More interesting than that is how Mandarin and Cantonese
>> differently deal with word tones in music, according to this site:
>>
>> http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2010/12/06/tones-in-chinese-songs
>>
>> http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/3309/how-do-tones-work-in-music-sung-in-tonal-languages-such-as-cantonese-or-mandari
>>
>> So, I simply "feel" that phonemic tones mess up my parameters of
>> language appreciation. Searching for "beautiful chinese music",
>> there's a series of very beautiful songs beautifully sung by beautiful
>> women, but I guess that phonemic tones are lost there. Besides, with
>> such voices, maybe the songs would be equally beautiful in any
>> language:
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuHMCFYIC9E
>>
>> ---
>>
>>
>> Até mais!
>>
>> Leonardo
>>
Messages in this topic (29)
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________________________________________________________________________
4.1. Re: Dieing Languages
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" goldyemo...@gmail.com
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 9:07 pm ((PDT))
The characters represent sounds by themselves, but when connected to words,
make the consonant long or short. Slashes make the next consonant long, the
star makes the next consonant short. When connected to a vowel, they make
give the vowel strong emphasis to it.
The percent and dollar sign next to a vowel means the weak emphasis.
The elders of the Silknish want the pure language, but the younger
generation want to pass the knowledge along.
Mellissa Green
@GreenNovelist
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:conl...@listserv.brown.edu] On
Behalf Of Padraic Brown
Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2013 11:19 AM
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Subject: Re: Dieing Languages
--- On Tue, 5/28/13, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <goldyemo...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> What does it mean, you mean? I'm confused by your question.
Well, then, I guess that now makes four of us who are confused about this
same point!
> The last descendants want Silknish to become a living language to
If there is already a speaking community (or network, or whatever), then
the language is in fact a living language already.
> increase the current vocabulary, so that unnamed items, like an unknown
> disease can use Silknish root forms, as the diseases and medical terms
> have
> those, and they feel that giving a new diseas or medical
> term or instrument has a Yardish root form, it would change
> the meaning.
Huh? How so? Why would they change the meaning, if the meaning is some
medical term? For example, we got croup from Scots (or leastways, we
borrowed the word "croup" from Scots, dunno if we got the disease from
them or not!). When we borrowed this word, we seem to have only taken
the medical term -- an infectious disease of the larynx which causes
difficulty in beathing. We didn't take the other throaty meanings of
"croop" in Scots, such as croak or speak hoarsely or murmur.
I should think that if Silknish is down to a small handful of speakers,
they would have more problems on their hands than creating words for
rare diseases or bizarre surgical instruments. Unless of course, all the
speakers of Silknish work in the same hospital, and then it might be
a nice idea for them to coin a Silknish word for "Bogdaz carapace spreader"
where there is none now.
> For examplele, the root form `t#c%%h$e which means frost, as in
> frostbite, would change to fever is spelled tche, which wouldn't work
> with bite.
We still don't know what all those characters boil down to...
Padraic
> Mellissa Green
Messages in this topic (31)
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4.2. Re: Dieing Languages
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" goldyemo...@gmail.com
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 9:08 pm ((PDT))
Ah.
The Silknish speakers speak Yardish in public, and Silknish at home. It's a
bit difficult to switch back, and sometimes the languages cross-over.
Mellissa Green
@GreenNovelist
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:conl...@listserv.brown.edu] On
Behalf Of Garth Wallace
Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2013 12:06 AM
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Subject: Re: Dieing Languages
On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 2:07 AM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
<goldyemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Humm, that's why I love this list, you all make me think.
>
> Thanks.I like burn and th last one, a bug that gives a fever.
> I'm thinking to borrow medical terms from Silknish. What's code switching?
> Would that be borrowing from Yardish to Silknishz?
Code-switching is when a bilingual speaker switches from speaking in
one language to speaking in another. Like a kid who is fluent in both
English and Spanish speaking English in class and then chatting with
their friends in Spanish.
Messages in this topic (31)
________________________________________________________________________
4.3. Re: Dieing Languages
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Fri May 31, 2013 6:13 am ((PDT))
--- On Fri, 5/31/13, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <goldyemo...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> The characters represent sounds by themselves, but when connected to
> words, make the consonant long or short. Slashes make the next
> consonant long, the star makes the next consonant short. When connected
> to a vowel, they make give the vowel strong emphasis to it.
> The percent and dollar sign next to a vowel means the weak emphasis.
Okay. This is a start!
I would suggest using more standardised diacritics, though. There are
already well established characters that indicate shortness or length of
sound and so forth. Even doing something simple like doubling a letter
to indicate length will make your words much easier to read:
/ta*m/ang becomes ttamANG
Not very pretty, perhaps, but easier than trying to remember which symbol
does what where with whom and how. For example, the symbols and rules you
explained above are complex, but they still don't help me read `t#c%%h$e !
I realise the usual diacritics may be a little harder for you to deal
with, but your readers will certainly thank you for it!
> The elders of the Silknish want the pure language, but the younger
> generation want to pass the knowledge along.
Not really sure what this means...
Padraic
>
>
> Mellissa Green
>
>
> @GreenNovelist
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:conl...@listserv.brown.edu]
> On
> Behalf Of Padraic Brown
> Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2013 11:19 AM
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> Subject: Re: Dieing Languages
>
> --- On Tue, 5/28/13, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <goldyemo...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > What does it mean, you mean? I'm confused by your
> question.
>
> Well, then, I guess that now makes four of us who are
> confused about this
> same point!
>
> > The last descendants want Silknish to become a living
> language to
>
> If there is already a speaking community (or network, or
> whatever), then
> the language is in fact a living language already.
>
> > increase the current vocabulary, so that unnamed items,
> like an unknown
> > disease can use Silknish root forms, as the diseases
> and medical terms
> > have
> > those, and they feel that giving a new diseas or
> medical
> > term or instrument has a Yardish root form, it would
> change
> > the meaning.
>
> Huh? How so? Why would they change the meaning, if the
> meaning is some
> medical term? For example, we got croup from Scots (or
> leastways, we
> borrowed the word "croup" from Scots, dunno if we got the
> disease from
> them or not!). When we borrowed this word, we seem to have
> only taken
> the medical term -- an infectious disease of the larynx
> which causes
> difficulty in beathing. We didn't take the other throaty
> meanings of
> "croop" in Scots, such as croak or speak hoarsely or
> murmur.
>
> I should think that if Silknish is down to a small handful
> of speakers,
> they would have more problems on their hands than creating
> words for
> rare diseases or bizarre surgical instruments. Unless of
> course, all the
> speakers of Silknish work in the same hospital, and then it
> might be
> a nice idea for them to coin a Silknish word for "Bogdaz
> carapace spreader"
> where there is none now.
>
> > For examplele, the root form `t#c%%h$e which means
> frost, as in
> > frostbite, would change to fever is spelled tche, which
> wouldn't work
> > with bite.
>
> We still don't know what all those characters boil down
> to...
>
> Padraic
>
> > Mellissa Green
>
Messages in this topic (31)
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________________________________________________________________________
5a. Time Travel and Language: or Historical Linguistics
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" goldyemo...@gmail.com
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 11:37 pm ((PDT))
This is probably the wrong list for this, but if someone were to go bac to
the 1210 England, would they need a translator?
Also, if Modern Yemorans go back in time, which I actually plan to have
happen, would they need a translator? How would that work, Yardish and
Silknish are the only languages spoken. I know Beginning Yardish needs to be
different that Middle or even End Yardish, but do they have to be so
different that it sounds like babbling?
Mellissa Green
@GreenNovelist
Messages in this topic (5)
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5b. Re: Time Travel and Language: or Historical Linguistics
Posted by: "kechpaja" kechp...@comcast.net
Date: Fri May 31, 2013 1:18 am ((PDT))
As for the first question, the answer is probably "yes". I don't know enough
Old English to give examples, but the English language has changed a lot in the
last millenium (I'm not sure of the exact dates, so I could be off by a few
centuries). At the very least, there would be significant differences in
pronunciation.
With regards to the Yemorans: that depends on how far back in time they go, and
how much the language has changed over that period. Language change doesn't
necessarily happen at a steady pace; instead there are big changes with lulls
in between. In terms of safe bets, if they went back as far as with the English
example, they would most likely need an interpreter or at least to study the
changes that had occurred during those centuries; if they went back 2000 years
they wouldn't have a chance without a translator.
Of course, I may be totally wrong about something here; hopefully someone else
on the list will see it if I am.
-Kelvin
On Fri, 31 May 2013 02:37:21 -0700
Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <goldyemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This is probably the wrong list for this, but if someone were to go bac to
> the 1210 England, would they need a translator?
>
> Also, if Modern Yemorans go back in time, which I actually plan to have
> happen, would they need a translator? How would that work, Yardish and
> Silknish are the only languages spoken. I know Beginning Yardish needs to be
> different that Middle or even End Yardish, but do they have to be so
> different that it sounds like babbling?
>
>
>
> Mellissa Green
>
>
>
>
>
> @GreenNovelist
>
>
--
kechpaja <kechp...@comcast.net>
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
5c. Re: Time Travel and Language: or Historical Linguistics
Posted by: "yuri" yur...@gmail.com
Date: Fri May 31, 2013 2:48 am ((PDT))
On 31 May 2013 21:37, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews wrote:
> This is probably the wrong list for this, but if someone were to go bac to
> the 1210 England, would they need a translator?
I can read most of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" without referring to
the glossary at the back of the book, because I also understand Dutch
and many of the differences between Chaucer's English and our English
are Germanic words that have been displaced by French, Latin or Greek
borrowings, but the equivalent still exists in Dutch.
However, that's just me. The fact that the publisher includes a
glossary indicates that some translation is deemed necessary.
Yuri
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
5d. Re: Time Travel and Language: or Historical Linguistics
Posted by: "Elena ``of Valhalla''" elena.valha...@gmail.com
Date: Fri May 31, 2013 3:17 am ((PDT))
On 2013-05-31 at 02:37:21 -0700, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews wrote:
> This is probably the wrong list for this, but if someone were to go bac to
> the 1210 England, would they need a translator?
>
> Also, if Modern Yemorans go back in time, which I actually plan to have
> happen, would they need a translator? How would that work, Yardish and
> Silknish are the only languages spoken. I know Beginning Yardish needs to be
> different that Middle or even End Yardish, but do they have to be so
> different that it sounds like babbling?
It also depends on the culture: an european learned man from a couple
centuries ago dropped in 1st century BCE Rome would have probably
been able to communicate with little problems, at least in writing.
(but I believe that sound changes between classical Latin
and church Latin were smaller than e.g what happened to most
german languages, so they could learn to cope with them)
The same learned man, say from Germany, dropped in a 1st century
germanic tribe should probably look for a local latin interpreter.
If on the other hand your culture claims that your language is perfect
and doesn't change, the first time travellers are in for quite
a big shock. (Was it Yemorans or somebody elses' conculture who did?
I don't remember.)
--
Elena ``of Valhalla''
Messages in this topic (5)
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5e. Re: Time Travel and Language: or Historical Linguistics
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" samjj...@gmail.com
Date: Fri May 31, 2013 5:21 am ((PDT))
Also, with England at that time (as with any society with that level of
development), intelligibility would vary massively between where in thirteenth
century England you landed, given the enormous differences in dialect. Yuri
could probably do alright in south-east England - given the strong influence of
the French and the Dutch, and the fact that modern English is largely derived
from Chaucer's variety of Middle English. Chaucer worked in government and the
South East is the centre of English power.
As soon as Yuri were to head north or west, however, he'd start to find things
a lot more difficult. Consider the differences between Chaucer's "Canterbury
Tales" and "Gawain and the Green Knight" which originates from the north west
(probably Cheshire or Staffordshire). You're going to have very strong
influences of the Cornish language in the south west (with many people probably
only speaking Cornish and no English) and there will be small remnants of other
celtic languages, possibly Cumbric. The border areas with Wales and Scotland
are also likely to be extremely difficult, given that Welsh and Gaelic will be
widespread. Even if speakers use Middle English (and the majority of people
living in England did), their dialect will be so vastly different given the low
level of communication between regions (even on a church parish level) that a
knowledge of Middle English as spoken in the south-east will become gradually
more useless as you head north and west. The influences of Norse will probably
be very strongly felt across a swathe of northern England.
Middle English won't sound like babbling any more than modern Danish sounds
like babbling to a speaker of modern English - babbling is nonsense and the
human brain has a way of detecting what has meaning and what doesn't. Using
Danish as an example, many of the words may well be recognisable (the Danish
"hus", "mand" and "træ" could probably be guessed as "house", "man" and "tree")
and a good deal of meaning can be interpreted from context - unlike something
like Cantonese where an English speaker is going to have a lot more difficulty
understanding people.
But stuff like grammar, syntax, so called "false-friend" words, a bundle of
disparate words which modern English no longer possesses or has replaced with
words of French origin, etc, etc, your average English speaker - or, in fact,
the majority of even very highly educated English speakers - will find English
in the thirteenth century very difficult to get a hold on.
So, in answer to your questions: yes, if they were holidaying there for any
length of time. Yes, for the same reason. No, it wouldn't sound like babbling
because babbling is nonsense. It would sound like a (close) foreign language.
Sam Stutter
samjj...@gmail.com
"No e na'l cu barri"
On 31 May 2013, at 11:17, "Elena ``of Valhalla''" <elena.valha...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> On 2013-05-31 at 02:37:21 -0700, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews wrote:
>> This is probably the wrong list for this, but if someone were to go bac to
>> the 1210 England, would they need a translator?
>>
>> Also, if Modern Yemorans go back in time, which I actually plan to have
>> happen, would they need a translator? How would that work, Yardish and
>> Silknish are the only languages spoken. I know Beginning Yardish needs to be
>> different that Middle or even End Yardish, but do they have to be so
>> different that it sounds like babbling?
>
> It also depends on the culture: an european learned man from a couple
> centuries ago dropped in 1st century BCE Rome would have probably
> been able to communicate with little problems, at least in writing.
> (but I believe that sound changes between classical Latin
> and church Latin were smaller than e.g what happened to most
> german languages, so they could learn to cope with them)
>
> The same learned man, say from Germany, dropped in a 1st century
> germanic tribe should probably look for a local latin interpreter.
>
> If on the other hand your culture claims that your language is perfect
> and doesn't change, the first time travellers are in for quite
> a big shock. (Was it Yemorans or somebody elses' conculture who did?
> I don't remember.)
>
> --
> Elena ``of Valhalla''
Messages in this topic (5)
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________________________________________________________________________
6a. Re: Why does the glottal stop often replace /t/ in English?
Posted by: "Roman Rausch" ara...@mail.ru
Date: Fri May 31, 2013 5:14 am ((PDT))
>I don't quite grasp why it so often substitutes for the /t/ sound, though.
>Why the sound change?
Perhaps because it requires less energy - you don't have to move your tongue up
and down.
Messages in this topic (3)
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