There are 16 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Equivalent to Grand Master Plans in Proper Linguistics? From: Padraic Brown 1b. Re: Equivalent to Grand Master Plans in Proper Linguistics? From: Roger Mills 1c. Re: Equivalent to Grand Master Plans in Proper Linguistics? From: David McCann 1d. Re: Equivalent to Grand Master Plans in Proper Linguistics? From: Dirk Elzinga 1e. Re: Equivalent to Grand Master Plans in Proper Linguistics? From: Robert Marshall Murphy 2a. Re: Nominal and Adjectival Predicates From: Adam Walker 3. New language in OZ From: Paul Schleitwiler, FCM 4a. Re: writing (almost) entirely in lower-case letters From: G. van der Vegt 5a. What do you call the damn thing! From: Jim T 5b. Re: What do you call the damn thing! From: Mechthild Czapp 5c. Re: What do you call the damn thing! From: R A Brown 5d. Re: What do you call the damn thing! From: George Corley 5e. Re: What do you call the damn thing! From: Jim Henry 5f. Re: What do you call the damn thing! From: C. Brickner 5g. Re: What do you call the damn thing! From: Roger Mills 5h. Re: What do you call the damn thing! From: MorphemeAddict Messages ________________________________________________________________________ 1a. Re: Equivalent to Grand Master Plans in Proper Linguistics? Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com Date: Wed Jun 19, 2013 6:56 am ((PDT)) >From: Arnt Richard Johansen <a...@nvg.org> >Sent: Wednesday, 19 June 2013, 4:36 > > Throughout my undergraduate linguistics studies, I have been exposed to the > Neogrammarian hypothesis, that is, > the idea that historical sound change can be described as an ordered sequence > of phonological rules that operate > on a protolanguage to create a daughter language. > > When conlangers describe fictional diachronic languages, this set of rules is > called a Grand Master Plan, and is > sometimes specified to such a precision that it exists as a machine-readable > file that can be used by a sound change > applier. > > In my textbooks I sometimes saw examples of one or two sound change rules, > but I have never seen a set of sound > change rules between a proto-language and a daughter language, say Latin and > French, that was claimed to be > reasonably complete. > > So, my question is this: are there any examples of scholars in historical > linguistics having collected a complete set of > sound change rules from some pair of language and proto-language? Sure. One well known hereabouts is "From Latin to Romance in Sound Charts" by Peter Boyd-Bowman. I think it is more or less this particular work that is ultimately the prototype of all the GMPs used by various GMP using conlangers. Most of the older grammars (Wright, especially) contain this sort of information (for example, sound changes that occur between Primitive Germanic and Gothic), but it's often densely packed and a bit tedious to sort out. B-B takes away all the grammar and all the historical information and leaves you with a number of "rules" and examples of their application across the Romance speaking world (though I don't think he makes use of Romanian). Frankly, I'd like to see just this kind of book for Germanic. I freely admit to having used B-B in working on Kerno, though by no means to the point where the resulting sound chart becomes a "machine readable" file! Generally speaking, I don't like such microscopically planned conlanging. It's a little unnatural, all that exactly-and-precisely-one-to-one correspondence. > I would like to play with one of those. For example, to see what would happen > if language X had retained the word Y > from its protolanguage, instead of losing it and extending the sense of a > different word. Or to see what would happen if > language X went through the same sequence of changes that happened between > proto-language Y and language Z. That I think you could certainly do with a work like B-B's and any VL word you like that didn't make it into French or Spanish or Italian. Just apply the rules and presto changeo! There's your newly minted, never before existed, honest to goodness real Spanish word! After all, if I can use an altered set of rules to devise a conlang's word for VL vetulu, why not apply the real rules to devise a word that is wanting in a modern Romance language? The test then would be to pepper one's conversation among native speakers with these devised words and see what their reactions are... > If on the other hand academic linguists do not build such complete sets of > sound changes, how can they make strong claims > of exceptionlessness? I couldn't really comment, not being a linguistician, but I think it's fairly clear that in order for them to make claims of exceptionlessness, they would have to have made some kind of similar tool to that proposed in the book, and would also have had to test it. Padraic >Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/ Messages in this topic (6) ________________________________________________________________________ 1b. Re: Equivalent to Grand Master Plans in Proper Linguistics? Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com Date: Wed Jun 19, 2013 6:56 am ((PDT)) --- On Wed, 6/19/13, Arnt Richard Johansen <a...@nvg.org> wrote: Throughout my undergraduate linguistics studies, I have been exposed to the Neogrammarian hypothesis, that is, the idea that historical sound change can be described as an ordered sequence of phonological rules that operate on a protolanguage to create a daughter language. RM: Hist/Comp. Linguistics (Austronesian langs.) is my area, though I'm rather inactive these days (long retired).. I'm not sure the neogrammarians thought of it that way, but with the development of generative phonology, it has become feasible. I think there's an early paper by Paul Kiparsky on the subject. I don't know if anyone has actually created a GMP for any language family, but I've certainly seen similar work for developments within subgroups. Clearly, as one works one's way from Proto-state X to modern lang. Y, one encounters questions of rule ordering. ------------------------------ When conlangers describe fictional diachronic languages, this set of rules is called a Grand Master Plan, and is sometimes specified to such a precision that it exists as a machine-readable file that can be used by a sound change applier. RM I wrote up a series of generative rules for Proto-Bau Da Gwr > Modern B.D. Gwr, that, to the best of my ability and knowlege, is ordered, and AFAICT, works :-))) If you're interested, it's here: http://cinduworld.tripod.com/gwr_rules.pdf. I'm not competent with the computer to know whether it would work in that way.,..... I've got lots of notes for the development of Proto-Kash > modern langs., but nothing concrete yet. I've done a lot of work (in the old-fashioned way) on a small lang. family in Eastern Indonesia (now called Proto-Luangic-Kisaric); it could probably be reduced to a set of (for the most part) ordered rules. ------------------------------ In my textbooks I sometimes saw examples of one or two sound change rules, but I have never seen a set of sound change rules between a proto-language and a daughter language, say Latin and French, that was claimed to be reasonably complete. RM I'm not sure I've seen such things either, but then, I don't keep up with the literature much anymore. But it should be possible. (IIRC a man named Sanford Schane, back in the 70s, did some work of this sort on French.) The problem in the Romance field is that the actual proto-lang. (Vulgar Latin) is not well-attested, and Classical Latin isn't it. And so many other factors enter into it-- analogical levelling, borrowing, "substrate" (a bad word amongst linguists!), etc. I'm not familiar with anything specific in the Austronesian field, but a lot of things are implicit in various papers/books dealing with individual languages or subgroups. ---------------------------------------------------- So, my question is this: are there any examples of scholars in historical linguistics having collected a complete set of sound change rules from some pair of language and proto-language? Do they use computerized tools to test those rule sets? RM Maybe some younger scholars are able to computerize their work, but us old fogeys are at a disadvantage there :-(((( ----------------------------------------------------------------------- If so, what do they call their equivalent of the sound change applier, and what do they call their Grand Master Plans? I would like to play with one of those. For example, to see what would happen if language X had retained the word Y from its protolanguage, instead of losing it and extending the sense of a different word. Or to see what would happen if language X went through the same sequence of changes that happened between proto-language Y and language Z. If on the other hand academic linguists do not build such complete sets of sound changes, how can they make strong claims of exceptionlessness? RM These days, I think, almost everyone accepts the idea that there indeed _are_ exceptions, or at least " unexplained" phenomena.... In my 1975 diss. on the langs. of South Sulawesi, I encountered lots of double (or more) reflexes of ceertain proto-sounds, e.g. in Buginese, I found both /b/ and /w/ > *b, /d/ and /r/ < *d, /k/ or 0 < *k, among others, for which there were hints of an explanation, but nothing certain. Not to mention a fair number of obvious loan words from other Sulawesi langs. chiefly distinguished by either 1.complete loss of final C or 2. /o/ < *schwa, which were NOT typical changes in the S.Sul group. It can be, as someone once said, a puzzlement :-)))) Messages in this topic (6) ________________________________________________________________________ 1c. Re: Equivalent to Grand Master Plans in Proper Linguistics? Posted by: "David McCann" da...@polymathy.plus.com Date: Wed Jun 19, 2013 8:18 am ((PDT)) On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:36:10 +0200 Arnt Richard Johansen <a...@nvg.org> wrote: > In my textbooks I sometimes saw examples of one or two sound change > rules, but I have never seen a set of sound change rules between a > proto-language and a daughter language, say Latin and French, that > was claimed to be reasonably complete. A very good example is Ringe's "From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic". The sound changes are listed with many examples, and he also works out the order in which they occurred, with a nice flowchart. It's also a good source for the latest thinking on PIE phonology and grammar. On a rather different tack, I'm currently studying "Evolutionary phonology", by Blevins. She avoids all the theoretical posturing of recent linguistics and goes back to the reality of speakers and listeners, to explain sound changes and patterns in terms of the listener's (especially children's) analysis of what they hear. Messages in this topic (6) ________________________________________________________________________ 1d. Re: Equivalent to Grand Master Plans in Proper Linguistics? Posted by: "Dirk Elzinga" dirk.elzi...@gmail.com Date: Wed Jun 19, 2013 8:39 am ((PDT)) Lyle Campbell and Ronald Langacker present an 11 rule cascade from Proto-Uto-Aztecan to Nahuatl in part II of their paper "Proto-Aztecan Vowels" (International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 44, No.l 3 (July, 1978), pp. 197-210). It was very helpful for me in a project I'm currently working on. Dirk On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 2:36 AM, Arnt Richard Johansen <a...@nvg.org> wrote: > Throughout my undergraduate linguistics studies, I have been exposed to > the Neogrammarian hypothesis, that is, the idea that historical sound > change can be described as an ordered sequence of phonological rules that > operate on a protolanguage to create a daughter language. > > When conlangers describe fictional diachronic languages, this set of rules > is called a Grand Master Plan, and is sometimes specified to such a > precision that it exists as a machine-readable file that can be used by a > sound change applier. > > In my textbooks I sometimes saw examples of one or two sound change rules, > but I have never seen a set of sound change rules between a proto-language > and a daughter language, say Latin and French, that was claimed to be > reasonably complete. > > So, my question is this: are there any examples of scholars in historical > linguistics having collected a complete set of sound change rules from some > pair of language and proto-language? Do they use computerized tools to test > those rule sets? > > If so, what do they call their equivalent of the sound change applier, and > what do they call their Grand Master Plans? I would like to play with one > of those. For example, to see what would happen if language X had retained > the word Y from its protolanguage, instead of losing it and extending the > sense of a different word. Or to see what would happen if language X went > through the same sequence of changes that happened between proto-language Y > and language Z. > > If on the other hand academic linguists do not build such complete sets of > sound changes, how can they make strong claims of exceptionlessness? > > -- > Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/ > I know, I know. I could write a whole book about procrastination, but > who has the time? -- Mark Shoulson > Messages in this topic (6) ________________________________________________________________________ 1e. Re: Equivalent to Grand Master Plans in Proper Linguistics? Posted by: "Robert Marshall Murphy" mrandmrsmur...@gmail.com Date: Wed Jun 19, 2013 9:25 am ((PDT)) Sabatino Moscati's INTRODUCTION TO THE COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR OF THE SEMITIC LANGUAGES has had several reprints and is essential for Semitic conlanging. I would recommend this for anyone interested. It has been my constant companion in the planning of Proto-Oceanic Hebrew. -Robert Murphy- On Jun 19, 2013, at 10:39 AM, Dirk Elzinga <dirk.elzi...@gmail.com> wrote: > Lyle Campbell and Ronald Langacker present an 11 rule cascade from > Proto-Uto-Aztecan to Nahuatl in part II of their paper "Proto-Aztecan > Vowels" (International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 44, No.l 3 > (July, 1978), pp. 197-210). It was very helpful for me in a project I'm > currently working on. > > Dirk > > > On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 2:36 AM, Arnt Richard Johansen <a...@nvg.org> wrote: > >> Throughout my undergraduate linguistics studies, I have been exposed to >> the Neogrammarian hypothesis, that is, the idea that historical sound >> change can be described as an ordered sequence of phonological rules that >> operate on a protolanguage to create a daughter language. >> >> When conlangers describe fictional diachronic languages, this set of rules >> is called a Grand Master Plan, and is sometimes specified to such a >> precision that it exists as a machine-readable file that can be used by a >> sound change applier. >> >> In my textbooks I sometimes saw examples of one or two sound change rules, >> but I have never seen a set of sound change rules between a proto-language >> and a daughter language, say Latin and French, that was claimed to be >> reasonably complete. >> >> So, my question is this: are there any examples of scholars in historical >> linguistics having collected a complete set of sound change rules from some >> pair of language and proto-language? Do they use computerized tools to test >> those rule sets? >> >> If so, what do they call their equivalent of the sound change applier, and >> what do they call their Grand Master Plans? I would like to play with one >> of those. For example, to see what would happen if language X had retained >> the word Y from its protolanguage, instead of losing it and extending the >> sense of a different word. Or to see what would happen if language X went >> through the same sequence of changes that happened between proto-language Y >> and language Z. >> >> If on the other hand academic linguists do not build such complete sets of >> sound changes, how can they make strong claims of exceptionlessness? >> >> -- >> Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/ >> I know, I know. I could write a whole book about procrastination, but >> who has the time? -- Mark Shoulson >> Messages in this topic (6) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 2a. Re: Nominal and Adjectival Predicates Posted by: "Adam Walker" carra...@gmail.com Date: Wed Jun 19, 2013 9:19 am ((PDT)) On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 9:51 PM, Douglas Koller <douglaskol...@hotmail.com>wrote: > > Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:28:00 -0500 > > From: carra...@gmail.com > > Subject: Re: Nominal and Adjectival Predicates > > To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu > > > 1. Ngedh Tom źuhr John bvozh gron. > > > 2. Ngedh Tom źuhr John flekh gron. > > > 3. Ngedh Tom źuhr John trregh gron. > > > 4. Ngedh Tom źuhr John ezheshmek gron. > > > 5. Ngedh Tom źuhr John cho bvozh gron. > > > 6. Ngedh Tom źuhr John smi bvozh gron. > > Take "źuhr" and "trregh", and obviously "Tom" and "John" out of the mix, > and you have a lovely palette of potential Géarthnuns words. :) > > Kou > I'm still not 100% settled on the spelling źuhr with źux being the alternate waffle. The sound represented by rh/x is variously a uvular trill or a uvular fricative, the two (or perhaps three) (IPA capital R, turned capital R and capital chi) sounds having collapsed in the modern language. Hr looks as if it should be a voiceless trill or aproximant. X looks as if it should be a velar fricative. Meh. I'll keep pondering. But feel free to use any of the word forms above for whatever purposes you like. Adam Messages in this topic (18) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 3. New language in OZ Posted by: "Paul Schleitwiler, FCM" pjschleitwiler...@gmail.com Date: Wed Jun 19, 2013 9:24 am ((PDT)) New 'Mixed' Language Discovered in Northern Australia http://www.livescience.com/37501-australia-language-discovery.html Provides idea re how your conlangs might "meet and greet" each other. God bless you always, all ways, Paul Messages in this topic (1) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 4a. Re: writing (almost) entirely in lower-case letters Posted by: "G. van der Vegt" gijsstri...@gmail.com Date: Wed Jun 19, 2013 9:50 am ((PDT)) On 19 June 2013 04:41, Douglas Koller <douglaskol...@hotmail.com> wrote: >> Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:14:53 -0500 >> From: carra...@gmail.com > >> Carrajina uses the Latin alphabet natively and capitalizes the first words >> of sentences and proper names, but not proper adjectives since that seems >> to be common practice among the Romance languages. I have briefly >> considered capitalizing DJ and CH together rather than Dj and Ch, but >> haven't ever actually done it as it looks weird to me. > > Yeah, I don't go there either. IJsland? Thank you, no. :) > > Kou > > Well, the IJ digraph is not really written as two letters in handwritten and early typewritter/movable type Dutch, and probably would never have become two letters in digital if the standard of the day wasn't ascii. In handwritten Dutch, it looks more like ÿ or its capitalized equivalent, and there are plenty examples of the digraph in non-handwritten Dutch where it's clearly represented as a single letter. (Example: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Signboard-slijterij.jpg ) That said, I can imagine it's weird for people not used to it. Different expectations and all that. Messages in this topic (20) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 5a. What do you call the damn thing! Posted by: "Jim T" clanrubyl...@yahoo.com Date: Wed Jun 19, 2013 12:17 pm ((PDT)) Hi all, I found this interesting because at work, the TV remote was stolen. I was last to see it, so I had to cross the river (Fraser) to get the replacement. A facebook acquaintance recently posted this in her status and I though the list might enjoy the debate as our own uses of English vary widely. Clicker, remote, switcher, chanel changer, chanel hopper, channel flipper.... WHAT DO YOU CALL THE DAMN THING? ObConlang, do any of your conlangs have a word for this? Mine don't because their world doesn't have the TV, or the remote. Jim Messages in this topic (8) ________________________________________________________________________ 5b. Re: What do you call the damn thing! Posted by: "Mechthild Czapp" rejista...@me.com Date: Wed Jun 19, 2013 12:24 pm ((PDT)) In German, Fernbedienung (literally: usage from a distance) is pretty common. Do Rejistanis need remotes for their few analogue terrestrial channels? If yes, anteni'het jenti (literally: distant switch) seems like it should be the best term. If only because anteni (switch) is such a nice false friend here :) Am 19.06.2013 um 20:16 schrieb Jim T <clanrubyl...@yahoo.com>: > Hi all, > I found this interesting because at work, the TV remote was stolen. I was > last to see it, so I had to cross the river (Fraser) to get the replacement. > > A facebook acquaintance recently posted this in her status and I though the > list might enjoy the debate as our own uses of English vary widely. > > Clicker, remote, switcher, chanel changer, chanel hopper, channel flipper.... > WHAT DO YOU CALL THE DAMN THING? > > ObConlang, do any of your conlangs have a word for this? > > Mine don't because their world doesn't have the TV, or the remote. > > Jim Messages in this topic (8) ________________________________________________________________________ 5c. Re: What do you call the damn thing! Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com Date: Wed Jun 19, 2013 12:44 pm ((PDT)) On 19/06/2013 20:16, Jim T wrote: [snip] > > Clicker, remote, switcher, chanel changer, chanel hopper, > channel flipper.... WHAT DO YOU CALL THE DAMN THING? Controller :) If context needs more clarification: "remote controller." On the few occasions when an even more specific clarification is need: "remote controller for the telly." > ObConlang, do any of your conlangs have a word for this? > Haven't thought of one for TAKE. The ancient Greeks, of course, didn't have them. What do they call them in modern Greek? Outidic, of course, won't have a word because they weren't around in the 17th century. My Britannic Romlang will certainly need a word, but I haven't a clue what it will be. -- 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 (8) ________________________________________________________________________ 5d. Re: What do you call the damn thing! Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com Date: Wed Jun 19, 2013 12:47 pm ((PDT)) I call it a "remote". A Chinese friend informs me that the Chinese is é¥æ§, which appears to be a direct calque of the English "remote control" (é¥ yao2 "far, remote, distant"; æ§ kong4 "to control"). She said é¥æ§å¨ yao2kong4qi4 "remote control device" is also acceptable. None of my conlangs have a word for remote control, since they are set in environments where they wouldn't really need it -- and of course, I have precious tiny lexica anyway. On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 2:24 PM, Mechthild Czapp <rejista...@me.com> wrote: > In German, Fernbedienung (literally: usage from a distance) is pretty > common. Do Rejistanis need remotes for their few analogue terrestrial > channels? If yes, anteni'het jenti (literally: distant switch) seems like > it should be the best term. If only because anteni (switch) is such a nice > false friend here :) > > Am 19.06.2013 um 20:16 schrieb Jim T <clanrubyl...@yahoo.com>: > > > Hi all, > > I found this interesting because at work, the TV remote was stolen. I > was last to see it, so I had to cross the river (Fraser) to get the > replacement. > > > > A facebook acquaintance recently posted this in her status and I though > the list might enjoy the debate as our own uses of English vary widely. > > > > Clicker, remote, switcher, chanel changer, chanel hopper, channel > flipper.... WHAT DO YOU CALL THE DAMN THING? > > > > ObConlang, do any of your conlangs have a word for this? > > > > Mine don't because their world doesn't have the TV, or the remote. > > > > Jim > Messages in this topic (8) ________________________________________________________________________ 5e. Re: What do you call the damn thing! Posted by: "Jim Henry" jimhenry1...@gmail.com Date: Wed Jun 19, 2013 2:55 pm ((PDT)) On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 3:16 PM, Jim T <clanrubyl...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Clicker, remote, switcher, chanel changer, chanel hopper, channel flipper.... > WHAT DO YOU CALL THE DAMN THING? In my English 'lect (southeastern U.S., Georgia and Lousiana), I generally say "remote" or "remote control" or "TV remote". > ObConlang, do any of your conlangs have a word for this? In gjâ-zym-byn, it's {jÄlm-Åy-Äa} - {jÄlm} "to open, turn on, activate", {Åy} "distant", {Äa} tool suffix. -- Jim Henry http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/ http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org Messages in this topic (8) ________________________________________________________________________ 5f. Re: What do you call the damn thing! Posted by: "C. Brickner" tepeyach...@embarqmail.com Date: Wed Jun 19, 2013 3:45 pm ((PDT)) I call it âthe remoteâ. I live in VA. Sefdaanian culture is pre-technology, so they wouldnât know about remote controls. But I have coined a word. In the Senjecan dictionaries I put in italics words that are contemporary. firmeiþlos fir- < firis, adj., far, remote < fira, to distance, to recede -meiþ- < meiþa, 1) t.v. change, vary, alter, alternate, change places with; mutate. 2) i.v. change, vary, alter, alternate; mutate. -los, tool suffix. Charlie ----- Original Message ----- Hi all, I found this interesting because at work, the TV remote was stolen. I was last to see it, so I had to cross the river (Fraser) to get the replacement. A facebook acquaintance recently posted this in her status and I though the list might enjoy the debate as our own uses of English vary widely. Clicker, remote, switcher, chanel changer, chanel hopper, channel flipper.... WHAT DO YOU CALL THE DAMN THING? ObConlang, do any of your conlangs have a word for this? Mine don't because their world doesn't have the TV, or the remote. Jim Messages in this topic (8) ________________________________________________________________________ 5g. Re: What do you call the damn thing! Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com Date: Wed Jun 19, 2013 8:15 pm ((PDT)) I'm not sure whether Kash has such a tool/concept; but 2 possibilities exist: çunu 'different' (rucunu 'to change') + nava 'far' could take the agentive prefix kaN- > kacunu+nava, which would go to kacundava, most likely shortened to cundava, even further (favoring 2-syll. structure) _cundap_. Riyena cundap raç? Where's the damn remote? (The Kash would more likely just get up and change the channel physically. But of course there can be remote controls for things besides TVs.... OR nirit 'to control' + nava could > nirindava, again probably shortened to something like _rindap_. (_niri_ means 'to steer', so maybe we could form something off that;....) Gwr is more likely to have such a gadget, but I don't have enough vocab. yet..... --- On Wed, 6/19/13, George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com> wrote: From: George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: What do you call the damn thing! To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu Date: Wednesday, June 19, 2013, 3:47 PM I call it a "remote". A Chinese friend informs me that the Chinese is é¥æ§, which appears to be a direct calque of the English "remote control" (é¥ yao2 "far, remote, distant"; æ§ kong4 "to control"). She said é¥æ§å¨ yao2kong4qi4 "remote control device" is also acceptable. None of my conlangs have a word for remote control, since they are set in environments where they wouldn't really need it -- and of course, I have precious tiny lexica anyway. On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 2:24 PM, Mechthild Czapp <rejista...@me.com> wrote: > In German, Fernbedienung (literally: usage from a distance) is pretty > common. Do Rejistanis need remotes for their few analogue terrestrial > channels? If yes, anteni'het jenti (literally: distant switch) seems like > it should be the best term. If only because anteni (switch) is such a nice > false friend here :) > > Am 19.06.2013 um 20:16 schrieb Jim T <clanrubyl...@yahoo.com>: > > > Hi all, > > I found this interesting because at work, the TV remote was stolen. I > was last to see it, so I had to cross the river (Fraser) to get the > replacement. > > > > A facebook acquaintance recently posted this in her status and I though > the list might enjoy the debate as our own uses of English vary widely. > > > > Clicker, remote, switcher, chanel changer, chanel hopper, channel > flipper.... WHAT DO YOU CALL THE DAMN THING? > > > > ObConlang, do any of your conlangs have a word for this? > > > > Mine don't because their world doesn't have the TV, or the remote. > > > > Jim > Messages in this topic (8) ________________________________________________________________________ 5h. Re: What do you call the damn thing! Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" lytl...@gmail.com Date: Wed Jun 19, 2013 10:35 pm ((PDT)) I call it a remote, but my father-in-law calls it a clicker, which I didn't understand for a while. stevo On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 3:16 PM, Jim T <clanrubyl...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Hi all, > I found this interesting because at work, the TV remote was stolen. I was > last to see it, so I had to cross the river (Fraser) to get the replacement. > > A facebook acquaintance recently posted this in her status and I though > the list might enjoy the debate as our own uses of English vary widely. > > Clicker, remote, switcher, chanel changer, chanel hopper, channel > flipper.... WHAT DO YOU CALL THE DAMN THING? > > ObConlang, do any of your conlangs have a word for this? > > Mine don't because their world doesn't have the TV, or the remote. > > Jim > Messages in this topic (8) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yahoo! 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