There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
From: H. S. Teoh
2a. Re: UCSD to stream Conlang lecture on Klingon, Dothraki, Na'vi
From: Roger Mills
3.1. Re: Dieing Languages
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
4a. Is Esperanto Indo-European?
From: Leonardo Castro
4b. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
From: Matthew Boutilier
4c. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
From: Jim Henry
4d. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
From: Leonardo Castro
4e. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
From: Padraic Brown
4f. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
From: Herman Miller
4g. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
From: Dustfinger Batailleur
4h. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
From: Jim Henry
5a. [THEORY] What did proto-language speakers look like?
From: Leonardo Castro
5b. Re: [THEORY] What did proto-language speakers look like?
From: Wesley Parish
6a. What English text would maximally highlight accents?
From: Sai
6b. Re: What English text would maximally highlight accents?
From: James Kane
Messages
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1.1. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 8:01 am ((PDT))
On Mon, Jun 03, 2013 at 08:04:04PM -0700, Roger Mills wrote:
[...]
> For Indonesian, our textbook (and native speaker instructors) taught
> us Saudara [so'dara] as the polite generic 2d pers., (with barely a
> mention of kamu or enkau, the familiar forms). Saudara is a Sanskrit
> word, mng. 'brother'-- it may have been a holdover from the
> pinko-leftist days of Sukarno.
Hmm. I'm no Indonesian speaker, but in the sister language Malay
_saudara_ [saw'darV] (fem. _saudari_) means "cousin", so I was quite
surprised to hear from Indonesian speakers how _saudara_ is used on the
other side of the sea.
> Now when I look at Indonesian websites etc., Saudara is utterly
> absent, but I haven't been able to figure out what has taken its
> place. I certainly hope not "anda" (which I've seen on-line) but which
> always struck me as terribly mush-mouthed and officialese.
Malay uses _anda_ for the polite generic 2nd pers., and yes, it is very
officialese and impersonal. We use it e.g. in official announcements,
ads, posters, etc.. _kamu_ is slightly less impersonal, but still
rather formal. We say _awak_ for casual conversations among friends, and
_engkau_ for close friends / bantering or when talking down to someone
(with the shortened _kau_ for *really* informal occasions or when
insulting someone).
The 1st pers. pronouns also vary depending on politeness: _saya_ for
casual occasions, _aku_ for very informal occasions between intimate
friends (or if you're talking down to someone). I know there are one or
two others, but I've forgotten what they are.
... googling online ...
Hmm, according to this website, the situation is actually far more
complex than I had ever realized:
http://macvaysia.com/2006/11/30/nizars-list-of-malay-pronouns/
Who would've known pronouns can be this complicated??
T
--
Never trust an operating system you don't have source for! -- Martin Schulze
Messages in this topic (45)
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2a. Re: UCSD to stream Conlang lecture on Klingon, Dothraki, Na'vi
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 9:41 am ((PDT))
Delightful !! Thanks for posting......
--- On Mon, 6/3/13, John H. Chalmers <[email protected]> wrote:
From: John H. Chalmers <[email protected]>
Subject: UCSD to stream Conlang lecture on Klingon, Dothraki, Na'vi
To: [email protected]
Date: Monday, June 3, 2013, 12:07 PM
http://www.uctv.tv/shows/Language-Crafters-Klingon-Navi-and-Dothrak-25204
Messages in this topic (2)
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3.1. Re: Dieing Languages
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 12:26 pm ((PDT))
Yes, they suppose to sound different, even though they're spelled almost
identical. But I like doubling the vowels, though and just having the
symbols represent stand alone letters. Maybe doubling consonants would work
as well.
Mellissa Green
@GreenNovelist
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Padraic Brown
Sent: Tuesday, June 4, 2013 6:26 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Dieing Languages
--- On Thu, 5/30/13, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <[email protected]>
wrote:
> I think the first question was how do
> fever bite and frostbite match up,
> they don't match up. The Silknish speakers feel that trying
> to create
> medical roots or any other Silknish word root with a Yardish
> suffix will create an unmatched word like fever bite.
Okay. There are folks who likewise believe we oughtn'y mix Latin and
Greek or English and Greek roots in this way. This would be more of a
cultural issue than a strictly linguistic one.
> The symbols I used represent letters, and even thought both
> languages use
> them, Yardish doesn't use them in one word grouped like
> that. Yardish would
> be more likely to use a double symbol at the word's
> beginning, and a triple
> set at the end, so I made that world deliberately hard to
> read, as that's how a Silknish speaker would write it.
Well, I guess if your goal is to turn us away, then this might do!
> Example:
>
> Yardish:
>
> ~`Con/$%ers
>
> Silknish:
>
> ~~`C/##$%%*/er%s
No idea what any of that is supposed to mean, how they're supposed to
relate to each other, etc. I think at this point I'll just give up
asking...
About the only thing I can tell so far from your examples is that words
in both languages seem to have basically the same "letters", the same
basical shape. But one or the other adds a whole bunch of baggage. It's as
if two languages have the same "word": cronim, but one adds gratuitous
ephemera to the word:
cr[trill|long]o[ceraky.voice|tone.1|short]n[palatalisation]
i[breathy.voice|tone.3|extra.long]m[long] leaving one with something
that basically sounds like 'crow-nim' while the other basically sounds
like 'crrrrownyihmm'. Is that what you're doing?
Padraic
> Mellissa Green
Messages in this topic (36)
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4a. Is Esperanto Indo-European?
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 4:09 pm ((PDT))
Can a conlang be classified into the conventional natlang families?
Até mais!
Leonardo
Messages in this topic (8)
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4b. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 4:10 pm ((PDT))
if Esperanto is IE, English is Romance.
matt
On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 6:09 PM, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>wrote:
> Can a conlang be classified into the conventional natlang families?
>
> Até mais!
>
> Leonardo
>
Messages in this topic (8)
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4c. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 4:14 pm ((PDT))
On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 7:09 PM, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
> Can a conlang be classified into the conventional natlang families?
There's been some discussion of this here or on AUXLANG in the past.
The consensus seems to be that "Indo-European" is a *genetic* term,
and only languages *descended* from proto-IE are Indo-European in the
strict sense. Conlangs, however much vocabulary they borrow from a
given natlang or group of natlangs, aren't descended from it in the
way natural daughter languages are.
And just judging by resemblance to Indo-European languages, Esperanto
is IE in vocabulary, and to a large extent in syntax, but arguably not
so much in morphology.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org
Messages in this topic (8)
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4d. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 4:26 pm ((PDT))
2013/6/4 Jim Henry <[email protected]>:
> On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 7:09 PM, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>> Can a conlang be classified into the conventional natlang families?
>
> There's been some discussion of this here or on AUXLANG in the past.
> The consensus seems to be that "Indo-European" is a *genetic* term,
> and only languages *descended* from proto-IE are Indo-European in the
> strict sense. Conlangs, however much vocabulary they borrow from a
> given natlang or group of natlangs, aren't descended from it in the
> way natural daughter languages are.
Interesting! I have heard some people arguing that families are
defined by syntax solely, but I think the idea of genetic term is
better. I remember Richard Dawkins saying something similar while
discussing alternative proposals of Biological Taxonomy...
BTW, my new conlang have a lot of false cognates with natlangs:
"mont-" for "mount", "kiel-" for "language" (Finnish), "kamp" for
"field" and "huas-" for "house" (Quechua or English)...
But all of them are just coincidences... ;-) Isn't there a language in
a distant planet that is exactly the same as English by pure
coincidence?
> And just judging by resemblance to Indo-European languages, Esperanto
> is IE in vocabulary, and to a large extent in syntax, but arguably not
> so much in morphology.
>
> --
> Jim Henry
> http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
> http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org
Messages in this topic (8)
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4e. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 5:11 pm ((PDT))
--- On Tue, 6/4/13, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
> Can a conlang be classified into the conventional natlang families?
I know this question has been discussed as recently as the last six to nine
months -- the question of the validity of assigning devised languages to
genetic language families. As I recall, the consensus was "no" and the
issue hinged upon there being no actual continuity (be it temporal or
speakership) between natural and devised languages.
Thus, even though I can say Avantimannish is a constructed Germanic(ish)
language, I can't really honestly say it's simply a "Germanic
language just like English or Plattdeutsch" on account of there being a
large disconnect between the natural and the devised.
I think the best one can really say of a conlang like Av. is that it is a
"constructed language along the lines of an IE language". E-o may or may
not even really fit into that category. Would depend a lot on how well its
grammar matches up with how IE languages' grammars work.
All this said, I am certainly aware (and guilty of) classifying conlangs
into natural language categories *within the fictional framework of some
conculture or alt-history*. I therefore have no problem, in quoting from
a fictional work, saying that Avantimannish is a "Thietish (i.e., Germanic)
language of the Western Aryan (i.e., I.E.) family within the Puntish
(ah, something akin to midway between Nostratic and IE) super-grouping of
languages". This is different from actually calling Av. an actual IE
language cos the whole scheme is fictionalised.
Padraic
> Até mais!
>
> Leonardo
>
Messages in this topic (8)
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4f. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 6:12 pm ((PDT))
On 6/4/2013 7:26 PM, Leonardo Castro wrote:
> 2013/6/4 Jim Henry<[email protected]>:
>> On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 7:09 PM, Leonardo Castro<[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>> Can a conlang be classified into the conventional natlang families?
>>
>> There's been some discussion of this here or on AUXLANG in the past.
>> The consensus seems to be that "Indo-European" is a *genetic* term,
>> and only languages *descended* from proto-IE are Indo-European in the
>> strict sense. Conlangs, however much vocabulary they borrow from a
>> given natlang or group of natlangs, aren't descended from it in the
>> way natural daughter languages are.
>
> Interesting! I have heard some people arguing that families are
> defined by syntax solely, but I think the idea of genetic term is
> better. I remember Richard Dawkins saying something similar while
> discussing alternative proposals of Biological Taxonomy...
The problem with classifying languages is that any element, even syntax
or morphology, can be borrowed from other languages, so you can't always
figure out which languages are descended from a common ancestor. Two
species of animals or plants won't normally share genes with each other
(although bacteria do, which presumably is one reason they're so hard to
classify), so if you have a good enough set of genetic samples from a
group of animals or plants, you can get a pretty good idea of which ones
are related.
The question then comes up, is something like Basic English a descendant
of English? Is Latino Sine Flexione a descendant of Latin? I think you
could argue that they are (and thus Indo-European in origin). So, where
do you draw the line? I think that the problem is you can't assign
Esperanto to a specific branch of IE, with some vocabulary from
Germanic, some from Romance, and a few words from other sources like
"kaj" from Greek. With the grammar, there are certainly elements from IE
languages (like all the participles and compound tenses), but it's all
regularized to the point that there isn't much hint of its origin.
> BTW, my new conlang have a lot of false cognates with natlangs:
> "mont-" for "mount", "kiel-" for "language" (Finnish), "kamp" for
> "field" and "huas-" for "house" (Quechua or English)...
>
> But all of them are just coincidences... ;-) Isn't there a language in
> a distant planet that is exactly the same as English by pure
> coincidence?
Not likely, but it depends on how many distant planets there are...
It's actually rather common for a word to resemble an unrelated word in
another language by chance. The Mbabaram word "dog" was thought to have
been a borrowing from English until after figuring out the historical
sound changes, it turns out to be directly related to words for "dog" in
other Australian languages. In my own randomly generated vocabularies,
I've had words like "kiv" meaning "cave" and "ret" meaning "reptile".
Think of it as something along the lines of the birthday paradox. But
it's pretty unlikely for any specific word to be the same by chance
(much less an entire vocabulary).
Messages in this topic (8)
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4g. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
Posted by: "Dustfinger Batailleur" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 6:32 pm ((PDT))
Creoles and mixed languages pose a similar problem, it seems. They're
usually identified by language(s) used as the "bases" for the new language
(i.e. Portuguese-based creoles are lumped together despite having but the
Portuguese base in common (and the ever-prevalent creole features that seem
to occur independently of origin)). I would imagine that one can classify a
posteriori conlangs in the same manner.
If so, what are the specific languages that serve as bases for Esperanto?
On 4 June 2013 21:12, Herman Miller <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 6/4/2013 7:26 PM, Leonardo Castro wrote:
>
>> 2013/6/4 Jim Henry<[email protected]>:
>>
>>> On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 7:09 PM, Leonardo Castro<[email protected]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Can a conlang be classified into the conventional natlang families?
>>>>
>>>
>>> There's been some discussion of this here or on AUXLANG in the past.
>>> The consensus seems to be that "Indo-European" is a *genetic* term,
>>> and only languages *descended* from proto-IE are Indo-European in the
>>> strict sense. Conlangs, however much vocabulary they borrow from a
>>> given natlang or group of natlangs, aren't descended from it in the
>>> way natural daughter languages are.
>>>
>>
>> Interesting! I have heard some people arguing that families are
>> defined by syntax solely, but I think the idea of genetic term is
>> better. I remember Richard Dawkins saying something similar while
>> discussing alternative proposals of Biological Taxonomy...
>>
>
> The problem with classifying languages is that any element, even syntax or
> morphology, can be borrowed from other languages, so you can't always
> figure out which languages are descended from a common ancestor. Two
> species of animals or plants won't normally share genes with each other
> (although bacteria do, which presumably is one reason they're so hard to
> classify), so if you have a good enough set of genetic samples from a group
> of animals or plants, you can get a pretty good idea of which ones are
> related.
>
> The question then comes up, is something like Basic English a descendant
> of English? Is Latino Sine Flexione a descendant of Latin? I think you
> could argue that they are (and thus Indo-European in origin). So, where do
> you draw the line? I think that the problem is you can't assign Esperanto
> to a specific branch of IE, with some vocabulary from Germanic, some from
> Romance, and a few words from other sources like "kaj" from Greek. With the
> grammar, there are certainly elements from IE languages (like all the
> participles and compound tenses), but it's all regularized to the point
> that there isn't much hint of its origin.
>
>
> BTW, my new conlang have a lot of false cognates with natlangs:
>> "mont-" for "mount", "kiel-" for "language" (Finnish), "kamp" for
>> "field" and "huas-" for "house" (Quechua or English)...
>>
>> But all of them are just coincidences... ;-) Isn't there a language in
>> a distant planet that is exactly the same as English by pure
>> coincidence?
>>
>
> Not likely, but it depends on how many distant planets there are...
>
> It's actually rather common for a word to resemble an unrelated word in
> another language by chance. The Mbabaram word "dog" was thought to have
> been a borrowing from English until after figuring out the historical sound
> changes, it turns out to be directly related to words for "dog" in other
> Australian languages. In my own randomly generated vocabularies, I've had
> words like "kiv" meaning "cave" and "ret" meaning "reptile". Think of it as
> something along the lines of the birthday paradox. But it's pretty unlikely
> for any specific word to be the same by chance (much less an entire
> vocabulary).
>
Messages in this topic (8)
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4h. Re: Is Esperanto Indo-European?
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 6:38 pm ((PDT))
On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 9:32 PM, Dustfinger Batailleur
<[email protected]> wrote:
> If so, what are the specific languages that serve as bases for Esperanto?
IIRC, English, French, Italian, Russian, Polish, Greek, and German
were the original source languages. Some vocabulary has been borrowed
from other languages since then.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org
Messages in this topic (8)
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5a. [THEORY] What did proto-language speakers look like?
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 4:19 pm ((PDT))
Can we have any reliable idea of what the speakers of proto-languages
looked like physically?
According to Nicholas Ostler's book, Proto-Afro-Asiatic is probably
from Africa. Were its speakers black?
Were the speakers of Altaic languages Caucasian or Mongolic?
Do we have current languages that are descendants of Blonde languages?
Or ¿Finnish and Nordic languages are ultimately invasive Brunette
languages?
Até mais!
Leonardo
Messages in this topic (2)
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5b. Re: [THEORY] What did proto-language speakers look like?
Posted by: "Wesley Parish" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 4:44 pm ((PDT))
They were three-foot-high market analysts who fell out of the wormhole in
reality created by the Heart of Gold on its maiden voyage ... :) They were
green-skinned with pink polka dots and purple stripes ... :)
Speaking facetiously, I think they probably would've looked like the Semang
while in their initial, beach-comber phase c60 000ya until they set out to
explore their particular environments; I think the proto-Afro-Asiatic speakers
would've looked like the Ethiopians and Somalis.
There are some useful books on the human genetic journey from Out of Africa
stage to present day. can't recall them all offhand but they are what you're
looking for:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/399298.Out_Of_Eden
Wesley Parish
Quoting Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>:
> Can we have any reliable idea of what the speakers of proto-languages
> looked like physically?
>
> According to Nicholas Ostler's book, Proto-Afro-Asiatic is probably
> from Africa. Were its speakers black?
>
> Were the speakers of Altaic languages Caucasian or Mongolic?
>
> Do we have current languages that are descendants of Blonde languages?
> Or ¿Finnish and Nordic languages are ultimately invasive Brunette
> languages?
>
> Até mais!
>
> Leonardo
>
"Sharpened hands are happy hands.
"Brim the tinfall with mirthful bands"
- A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge
"I me. Shape middled me. I would come out into hot!"
I from the spicy that day was overcasked mockingly - it's a symbol of the
other horizon. - emacs : meta x dissociated-press
Messages in this topic (2)
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6a. What English text would maximally highlight accents?
Posted by: "Sai" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 6:04 pm ((PDT))
I would like to have a short piece of text that, when read verbatim,
would maximally highlight the speaker's accents / dialectical
differences â across *all* English speakers (L1 and L2).
Ideally this should be a single sentence, but in any case no more than
a paragraph. It shouldn't depend on vocabulary differences (I supply
the text). Really ideally, with just a recording of someone reading
this short text you should be able to determine where the person is
from (linguistically) and have very good data for a voiceprint (i..e
good enough to identify individuals).
Suggestions?
- Sai
Messages in this topic (2)
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6b. Re: What English text would maximally highlight accents?
Posted by: "James Kane" [email protected]
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 6:49 pm ((PDT))
Shouldn't this just be any phrase that contains the maximum number of
distinctive phonemes found across all dialects? So keep the fur/fir/fern
distinction, the hock/hawk distinction, the salary/celery distinction etc. as
you said you didn't want one based on vocab differences.
James
On 5/06/2013, at 1:04 PM, Sai <[email protected]> wrote:
> I would like to have a short piece of text that, when read verbatim,
> would maximally highlight the speaker's accents / dialectical
> differences â across *all* English speakers (L1 and L2).
>
> Ideally this should be a single sentence, but in any case no more than
> a paragraph. It shouldn't depend on vocabulary differences (I supply
> the text). Really ideally, with just a recording of someone reading
> this short text you should be able to determine where the person is
> from (linguistically) and have very good data for a voiceprint (i..e
> good enough to identify individuals).
>
> Suggestions?
>
> - Sai
Messages in this topic (2)
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