There are 15 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: Colloquial French resources From: Basilius 2a. Re: On Dating Oneself (was: RE: USAGE: New english conjunction?) From: C. Brickner 3a. Re: Conjunctions From: A. da Mek 4a. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym From: Dirk Elzinga 4b. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym From: R A Brown 4c. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym From: Padraic Brown 4d. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym From: Sam Stutter 4e. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym From: Tony Harris 4f. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym From: Daniel Bowman 4g. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym From: Daniel Bowman 4h. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym From: Daniel Bowman 4i. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym From: Jörg Rhiemeier 4j. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym From: R A Brown 5a. Re: Choosing a word for "German" From: Adam Walker 6a. Re: Concision in your conlang vs your L1 From: Jim Henry Messages ________________________________________________________________________ 1.1. Re: Colloquial French resources Posted by: "Basilius" vecher...@yandex.ru Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 7:12 am ((PDT)) On Wed, 4 Sep 2013 08:40:23 +0200, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote: >On 4 September 2013 04:47, Aidan Grey wrote: > >> >> > I would agree with Christophe though that the most common solution is to >> > simply replace "le" or "la" with "ça". >> > >> > >> I am thinking to have la and sa as 3rd sg., but different cases, one nom, >> one acc/dat., or some combination thereof. >> > >Could happen. I'm not sure about the distribution of _ça_ with an expressed >noun phrase, i.e. whether it's more common in subject or object position. >My gut instinct says object position, but I could be wrong. Also, I'm not >aware of _ça_ used in object position to refer to persons (if it happens, >it's probably very markedly pejorative, even more than _ça_ as subject with >a person as referent). > >If you lose the gender distinctions otherwise, you might keep them in >verbal agreement markings only, and actually introduce a >masculine/feminine/neuter distinction there à la English he/she/it. It >would probably (for the subject agreement prefixes anyway) sound like >i/e/sa. For agreement marking on verbs, this would seem the most natural option to me, too. However, were I designing a genderless Future French myself, I'd be mostly bothered by elimination of gender agreement within NP's; and especially by getting rid of purely lexical gender, i. e. gender in inanimates; and in doing so, I'd probably get stuck at killing the gender distinctions in articles and other determiners (_le_ vs. _la_; _du_ vs. _de la_; _au_ vs. _à la_; _mon_ vs. _ma_; _ce_ vs. _cette_, etc.). In fact, it seems to me that killing them without simultaneously killing the *number* distinctions would look rather forced and artificial. It could be different if what one is designing is actually a creole. Messages in this topic (49) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 2a. Re: On Dating Oneself (was: RE: USAGE: New english conjunction?) Posted by: "C. Brickner" tepeyach...@embarqmail.com Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 7:37 am ((PDT)) Victor Borge was a hoot, at or away from the keyboard. Charlie ----- Original Message ----- From: douglaskol...@hotmail.com To: romi...@yahoo.com Subject: On Dating Oneself (was: RE: USAGE: New english conjunction?) Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2013 06:06:05 -0400 > Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2013 19:58:35 -0700 > From: romi...@yahoo.com > Subject: Re: USAGE: New english conjunction? > To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu > RM (Ancient History Dept.) YEARS AGO, the Danish pianist/humorist Victor > Borge had a bit with "spoken" punctuation marks. IIRC, those clicks were used > for single/double quotes. Plus a lot of others that I disremember. Wow, there's a pleasant blast from the past! Not *that* ancient, but a *little* before my time to say I teethed on it. Still, like Talulah Bankhead, Ruby Keeler, or Edgar Bergen, I can catch a reference. I*I*RC, his punctuation schtick was relatively drole. :) Nostaligically fuzzily yours, Kou Messages in this topic (2) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 3a. Re: Conjunctions Posted by: "A. da Mek" a.da_m...@ufoni.cz Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 7:49 am ((PDT)) > only "regardlessof", "ior" and "if2" can be used singly. Obviously, it is not "ior" but "and" what can be used singly. And the "thob"/"endboth" word has an attested synonym "-que". Here is the corrected table: 0011 A 0101 B ---- 0000 nregardlessof A, nregardlessof B 0001 (both) A, (and) B (-que) 0010 (nif) A nthen B (fin) = (only) A, andnot B 0011 (yest) A, regardlessof B 0100 nann A (nif) B (nnan) = not A, (only) B 0101 regardlessof A, (yest) B 0110 xeither A xor B (rethiex) 0111 ieither A ior B (rethiei) 1000 neither A nor B (rethien) = not A andnot B 1001 nxeither A nxor B (rethiexn) = ifandonlyif A thenandonlythen B (fiylnodanfi) 1010 regardlessof A, not B 1011 ann A if B (nna) 1100 not A, regardlessof B 1101 if A then B (fi) 1110 nboth A nand B (n-que) 1111 regardlessoff A, regardlessof B Messages in this topic (2) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 4a. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym Posted by: "Dirk Elzinga" dirk.elzi...@gmail.com Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 8:10 am ((PDT)) I don't know what the autonym for Miapimoquitch is (and by 'autonym', I assume you mean what they call themselves or their language). Miapimoquitch is a Paiute word that is supposed to mean something like "little Hopi". This name was applied to the language as well as to the people who spoke it. The Paiute pronunciation would be [m̥i̥ˈa.pi̥ˈmo.kʷi.tʃɨ̥], which is Anglicized as [miˌæ.piˈmoʊ.kʷɪtʃ]. Close, but not exactly the same. On Sun, Sep 8, 2013 at 8:24 PM, Zach Wellstood <zwellst...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi all, > > (if this has been discussed elsewhere, please link me. I haven't seen it.) > > I haven't ever had an anglicized autoglottonym for my conlang, łaá siri, > but recently I've been considering coining one. Not only is it unwieldy to > type that <ł>, but saying it to those who don't understand sounds of other > languages is too: /ɬɑꜛɑ siri/. > > I don't think that an English translation would sound right ("Language of > the Sky People"?). Too long-winded and RPG-sounding for my purposes. > > So I think the best way is to decide on a name like Siric (which wouldn't > make sense in the conlang, really, but is an option) or maybe Lhaa > (pronounced like /laa/). Maybe just retaining it as Lhaa Siri but, to be > honest, it's aesthetically unappealing to me (kind of a butchery with my > knowledge of the language). > > But how have others done this? It seems quite complicated to me. > > Best, > Zach > > > raa'lalí 'aa! - [sirisaá! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conlang>] > Messages in this topic (20) ________________________________________________________________________ 4b. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 11:26 am ((PDT)) On 09/09/2013 13:27, Daniel Bowman wrote: [spin] > > So the consequences are: people read /æn/go/seɪ rather > than ɑn/ko/seɪ, oh well, close enough...! Depends where you put the stress. Until this post, I had been saying ['æŋgəsi] You can't win with anglophones ;) I recall many years ago I used to refer to my unnamed briefscript simply as 'briefscript' in quotes. Some one coined the abbreviation BrSc and that stuck around for quite a while. I always read as "briefscript", but it became apparent that other conlangers were giving all sorts of strange pronunciations for it :) That's why, when Bax came along ,I anglicized as _Piashi_. There were probably some variant pronunciations of _Piashi_, but as with Angosey, they were hopefully not too far out. -- 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 (20) ________________________________________________________________________ 4c. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 11:26 am ((PDT)) >Ah, yes, I ought to have mentioned: I designate anglicized names for all my >conlangs >because they are intended for use in stories, and thus public consumption. As >much >as I'd love to talk about linguistics for hours, the middle of the story is >not the time. Quite. In that case, I'd definitely keep it as simple as possible, for the target audience. In this case, I think very few people would have a problem with "Laa Siri", and I, at least, wouldn't even bother with the "Lh" spelling. I'm not sure what sound [ł] represents — something like that Welsh lateral hiss? If so, most English speakers will be unfamiliar with the sound, and anyway, "Ll", "Lh" and "L" are all going to be pronounced about the same. You mìght try "Hla Siri", which would at least give a hint of the hissiness. I've never been a fan of overly complicated anglification schemes in fiction writing. There just simply comes a point when readers, confronted by fourteen diacritics, tone marks, breathing marks and length marks on every other vowel, will simply give up trying to make heads or tails of your conlang words. They will either skip the obviously hard bits, or else, if there are too many passages of incomprehensible gibberish, put the book down. Or worse, never pick it up (and pay for it!) in the first place. I say this as a conlanger and reader of SF/F. In my opinion as a reader, too much is a put-off; well and not overly done is definitely a feather in your cap. I should be transported to your world and immersed in your story — not forced to sit in on a Conlang 101 course in the middle of the narrative! ;)) Padraic > > > >On Sun, Sep 8, 2013 at 10:56 PM, Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >> (if this has been discussed elsewhere, please link me. I haven't seen it.) >> >>> >>> I haven't ever had an anglicized autoglottonym for my conlang, łaá siri, >> >>Nor am I really certain why they would have one... >> >>To my way of thinking, an Anglification is really only useful for English >>speakers, not for the people who speak the other language being named. >>I mean, we call Deutsch "German". Why would the Germans want or need >>to take that name, "German" and use it for any purposes other than using >>it in an English language context, or describing how us foreigners call their >>language. They would have no more use for it, auf Deutsch, than we would >>for the French word "Anglais". >> >>That said... >> >> >>> but recently I've been considering coining one. Not only is it unwieldy to >>> type that <ł>, but saying it to those who don't understand sounds of >>> other languages is too: /ɬɑꜛɑ siri/. >>> >>> I don't think that an English translation would sound right ("Language >>> of the Sky People"?). Too long-winded and RPG-sounding for my purposes. >> >>Quite, though the definition is welcome! >> >> >>> So I think the best way is to decide on a name like Siric (which wouldn't >>> make sense in the conlang, really, but is an option) or maybe Lhaa >>> (pronounced like /laa/). Maybe just retaining it as Lhaa Siri but, to be >>> honest, it's aesthetically unappealing to me (kind of a butchery with my >>> knowledge of the language). >>> >>> But how have others done this? It seems quite complicated to me. >> >>I thìnk what you're looking for now is simply an Anglicisation, or an English- >>friendly version of the native name, not so much a Anglified autoglottonym. >>Siric could work. (Sirian might also, but might be confused with Syrian.) I >>have always read the name as /la siri/ without any fancy sounds, for whatever >>it may be worth to you! :) But again, unless the Sirians come into contact >>with English speakers, what use would that form of the name be to them? >> >>I would only note that exonyms of any kind never have to, and probably >>most often do nòt "make sense in the conlang". "Anglais" doesn't really >>make sense in English (though, in all honesty, most English speakers are >>aware of its meaning in French), but that doesn't stop the French from >>using a French name for our language! And why should it? It's their language >>and they can name ours however they damn well please. >> >>For my part, English never comes in contact with any of my conlangs. They >>happen on a different world among different stars, and so there is >>no reason to invent an actual English exonym. Generally what I try to do is >>either "capture the feel" of some in-world exonym and Anglify that, or else >>take a known native name and Anglify that. >> >>Thus, with "Rumeliard", I am capturing the essence of the Avantimannish >>exonym for the Rumnian language; and generally, I only use this name within >>an Auntimoanian context. In a more general context, I would Anglify the native >>name, i.e., Rumnian. With Tallarian, I am simply Anglifying the native name of >>the language (tenxxwar talanusa), or perhaps better, the native name of the >>people (talaryâs). >> >>None of them would ever use or even have any knowledge of these >>Anglicisations. >>For the World, that wouldn't make any sense at all. >> >>Padraic >> >> >>> >>> Best, >>> Zach >>> >>> >>> raa'lalí 'aa! - [sirisaá! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conlang>] >>> >> > > > Messages in this topic (20) ________________________________________________________________________ 4d. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym Posted by: "Sam Stutter" samjj...@gmail.com Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 11:40 am ((PDT)) I've been reading it as /an'goʊ.zi/ all along! I prefer anglicisation too, but mainly because its so much easier to type and sort. Accents are alright when needed, but I prefer di/trigraphs on purely personal aesthetic terms. Sam Stutter samjj...@gmail.com "No e na'l cu barri" On 9 Sep 2013, at 13:27, Daniel Bowman <danny.c.bow...@gmail.com> wrote: > I have deliberately kept Angosey's orthography free of accents, special > linguistic symbols, etc for two reasons. One, I find it easier to remember > and write down diglyphs rather than special monoglyphs. I also find it > simpler to change the American English pronunciation of a letter into the > Angosey pronunciation of the letter in my mind, rather than recalling the > exact pronunciation of an "unusual" symbol. Part of this preference is > likely because I have no formal training in linguistics. > > The other is because I *do* want to have people have some sort of aural > representation of Angosey when the read it, even though inevitably they > will get it wrong. This seems preferable than having a linguistically > precise but much less accessible orthography. > > So the consequences are: people read /æn/go/seɪ rather than ɑn/ko/seɪ, oh > well, close enough...! > > > 2013/9/8 Zach Wellstood <zwellst...@gmail.com> > >> Hi all, >> >> (if this has been discussed elsewhere, please link me. I haven't seen it.) >> >> I haven't ever had an anglicized autoglottonym for my conlang, łaá siri, >> but recently I've been considering coining one. Not only is it unwieldy to >> type that <ł>, but saying it to those who don't understand sounds of other >> languages is too: /ɬɑꜛɑ siri/. >> >> I don't think that an English translation would sound right ("Language of >> the Sky People"?). Too long-winded and RPG-sounding for my purposes. >> >> So I think the best way is to decide on a name like Siric (which wouldn't >> make sense in the conlang, really, but is an option) or maybe Lhaa >> (pronounced like /laa/). Maybe just retaining it as Lhaa Siri but, to be >> honest, it's aesthetically unappealing to me (kind of a butchery with my >> knowledge of the language). >> >> But how have others done this? It seems quite complicated to me. >> >> Best, >> Zach >> >> >> raa'lalí 'aa! - [sirisaá! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conlang>] >> Messages in this topic (20) ________________________________________________________________________ 4e. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym Posted by: "Tony Harris" t...@alurhsa.org Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 11:53 am ((PDT)) I used to do that, as people who have been on this list since the mid 1990s may remember. Once upon a time, Alurhsa was called Aluric, and the people who spoke it were Alurians who lived on Aluria. However, as my time on the Internet grew, I found that Aluric was the name of some notable Viking or Saxon in history, Aluria was a woman's name, and in use in other contexts such as Aluria Software (whose owner/president was very nice, actually, and we exchanged a few emails about whether there was some way to collaborate given the connection), and above all, Alurians turned out to be virtually co-opted by Paramount when they named Guinan's race as El-Aurians in Star Trek: Generations. I confess I nearly fell out of my seat in the theater when they said the name in the movie, and had to watch the credits to see that it wasn't Alurians at all. But I had enough contacts from people who didn't do that much research and figured my Alurians were Star Trek's El-Aurians. Worried that Paramount might get in a twist because of the closeness (never mind I'd been calling my people Alurians since the mid 1970s, I hadn't published anything and wasn't a major movie studio...), I decided the safest bet overall might be to go with the native name, Alurhsa, for the language and the people, and Alurhna for the planet. I put an explanation of that up on the website (which is still there since I am horribly lax in updating that site...), and moved on. That said, I don't use the technically correct name of álurhsá, which is pronounced /a:l.U4sa:/ if I'm remembering my XSAMPA correctly, and in English it just gets said like "uh-LURR-suh" or something like that. On 2013-09-08 22:24, Zach Wellstood wrote: > Hi all, > > (if this has been discussed elsewhere, please link me. I haven't seen it.) > > I haven't ever had an anglicized autoglottonym for my conlang, łaá siri, > but recently I've been considering coining one. Not only is it unwieldy to > type that <ł>, but saying it to those who don't understand sounds of other > languages is too: /ɬɑꜛɑ siri/. > > I don't think that an English translation would sound right ("Language of > the Sky People"?). Too long-winded and RPG-sounding for my purposes. > > So I think the best way is to decide on a name like Siric (which wouldn't > make sense in the conlang, really, but is an option) or maybe Lhaa > (pronounced like /laa/). Maybe just retaining it as Lhaa Siri but, to be > honest, it's aesthetically unappealing to me (kind of a butchery with my > knowledge of the language). > > But how have others done this? It seems quite complicated to me. > > Best, > Zach > > > raa'lalí 'aa! - [sirisaá! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conlang>] Messages in this topic (20) ________________________________________________________________________ 4f. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym Posted by: "Daniel Bowman" danny.c.bow...@gmail.com Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 11:56 am ((PDT)) Depends where you put the stress. Until this post, I had > been saying ['æŋgəsi] > > You can't win with anglophones ;) > > > Moments after sending the message this morning, I realized that almost every English speaker would read "Angosey" with an ŋ rather than ng! I even forgot that *I* used to say ŋg before I modified the phonology. Messages in this topic (20) ________________________________________________________________________ 4g. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym Posted by: "Daniel Bowman" danny.c.bow...@gmail.com Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 12:00 pm ((PDT)) Alurians turned out to be virtually co-opted by Paramount when they named Guinan's race as El-Aurians in Star Trek: Generations. I confess I nearly fell out of my seat in the theater when they said the name in the movie, and had to watch the credits to see that it wasn't Alurians at all. But I had enough contacts from people who didn't do that much research and figured my Alurians were Star Trek's El-Aurians. I was enraged to discover "Angosians" on Star Trek. Actually, I did not discover it on my own, because I never watched Star Trek back then. Rather, my "friends" came running up gleefully to inform me that there were Angosians on Star Trek, and I knew that no one would *ever* believe I had come up with them on my own. I remember well - it was in 8th grade band class. Not that I should have been too smug - only two years earlier I was immensely proud of the originality of my "star annihilators" that were much, much more powerful than "star destroyers." At least then I knew I was ripping someone off! Messages in this topic (20) ________________________________________________________________________ 4h. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym Posted by: "Daniel Bowman" danny.c.bow...@gmail.com Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 12:08 pm ((PDT)) 2013/9/9 Sam Stutter <samjj...@gmail.com> > I've been reading it as /an'goʊ.zi/ all along! Wow! That's one I never thought of! Messages in this topic (20) ________________________________________________________________________ 4i. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" joerg_rhieme...@web.de Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 12:21 pm ((PDT)) Hallo conlangers! On Monday 09 September 2013 04:24:41 Zach Wellstood wrote: > Hi all, > > (if this has been discussed elsewhere, please link me. I haven't seen it.) > > I haven't ever had an anglicized autoglottonym for my conlang, łaá siri, > but recently I've been considering coining one. Not only is it unwieldy to > type that <ł>, but saying it to those who don't understand sounds of other > languages is too: /ɬɑꜛɑ siri/. > > I don't think that an English translation would sound right ("Language of > the Sky People"?). Too long-winded and RPG-sounding for my purposes. Yes, it sounds like something from a fantasy RPG. > So I think the best way is to decide on a name like Siric (which wouldn't > make sense in the conlang, really, but is an option) or maybe Lhaa > (pronounced like /laa/). Maybe just retaining it as Lhaa Siri but, to be > honest, it's aesthetically unappealing to me (kind of a butchery with my > knowledge of the language). > > But how have others done this? It seems quite complicated to me. _Old Albic_ is not an anglicization of the native name (which is _Elbirin_ ['ɛlbɪrɪn]), but a name that modern scholars would use for the language. _Roman Germanech_ [ʀɔ'mɑn ʒɛʀ'mɑnəç] simply is the native name; a reasonable English name would be _Germano- Romance_, but I feel that this is too unspecific across the Multiverse. After all, we conlangers and conworlders need names that are unique across many worlds! And there are many other Germano-Romance conlangs in various conworlds. A project that has an anglicized name is _Quetch_ [kwɛtʃ], which is "natively" (it is an engelang and doesn't have fictional native speakers) [kʷətç]. -- ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html "Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1 Messages in this topic (20) ________________________________________________________________________ 4j. Re: Anglicizing Your Conlang's Autoglottonym Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 12:23 pm ((PDT)) On 09/09/2013 19:53, Tony Harris wrote: > I used to do that, as people who have been on this list > since the mid 1990s may remember. Once upon a time, > Alurhsa was called Aluric, and the people who spoke it > were Alurians who lived on Aluria. > > However, as my time on the Internet grew, I found that > Aluric was the name of some notable Viking or Saxon in > history, Aluria was a woman's name, and in use in other > contexts such as Aluria Software (whose owner/president > was very nice, actually, and we exchanged a few emails > about whether there was some way to collaborate given > the connection), and above all, Alurians turned out to be > virtually co-opted by Paramount when they named > Guinan's race as El-Aurians in Star Trek: Generations. Yes, but Jan van Steenbergen stuck to his name "Hattic" for the fictional IE language of the legendary "Hats" of the erstwhile USSR, though he subsequently discovered that there was already a non-IE language called "Hattic" spoken in Asia minor in the 3rd & 3nd millennia BC. http://steen.free.fr/khadurian/hattic_grammar.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattic_language IIRC Jan considered that the vast time difference and the quite different locations would mean no one but an idiot would think they were the same or even connected ;) > I confess I nearly fell out of my seat in the theater > when they said the name in the movie, and had to watch > the credits to see that it wasn't Alurians at all. Good. > But I had enough contacts from people who didn't do that > much research and figured my Alurians were Star Trek's > El-Aurians. People should do more research ;) > Worried that Paramount might get in a twist because of > the closeness (never mind I'd been calling my people > Alurians since the mid 1970s, I hadn't published > anything and wasn't a major movie studio...), I decided > the safest bet overall might be to go with the native > name, I think Aluric showed up enough on this list to show that Paramount would not have had any grounds for such nonsense. > Alurhsa, for the language and the people, and Alurhna for > the planet. OK - but now I want to pronounce the _rh_ like the Welsh _rh_ ;) I guess in the end how one anglicizes a conlang's name, if one does indeed anglicize it, is up to its author. -- 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 (20) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 5a. Re: Choosing a word for "German" Posted by: "Adam Walker" carra...@gmail.com Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 9:20 am ((PDT)) On Mon, Sep 9, 2013 at 4:31 AM, yuri <yur...@gmail.com> wrote: > and for the > Dutch I might choose something related to cheese. > > Yuri > I you're going there, you cloud just be perverse and call them Yankees! Adam Messages in this topic (24) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 6a. Re: Concision in your conlang vs your L1 Posted by: "Jim Henry" jimhenry1...@gmail.com Date: Mon Sep 9, 2013 10:22 am ((PDT)) gjâ-zym-byn is definitely more verbose than English overall, though it's easy enough to construct particular pairs of phrases or sentences where English is more verbose than the gzb equivalent. gzb has mostly one and two-syllable nominal roots, but it makes extensive use of compounding and affixing; no verb or modifier is less than two syllables. And the postpositions are mostly two syllables, occasionally three. A few of the features of gzb were designed to offset this tendency -- it's pro-drop and verb-drop, and sometimes the subject or the subject's postposition can be omitted. But they don't fully counteract the other sources of verbosity. Another, sketchier language I worked on a few years ago was intended to be more concise than English, and it was, for the few texts I translated into it (the Hail Mary and the Our Father and maybe one or two other prayers). It had mostly CV roots, with -C suffixes; and when the V of a word was schwa, and eliding it wouldn't result in a forbidden consonant cluster, it got elided. And proper names were CVCV, and their vocative forms elided the final consonant. The Hail Mary was a bit more than half as many syllables in this language as in English. I doubt whether I could have kept it at this extreme level of conciseness when writing and translating other texts and running out of unassigned CV roots. On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 11:16 PM, Daniel Bowman <danny.c.bow...@gmail.com> wrote: > I recently retranslated Frank Herbert's Litany against Fear, and I was once > again struck by the fact that Angosey tends to be "wordier" than English. > That is, my words have more syllables, and it seems like I mark a lot of > grammar as prefixes and suffixes. I explain this at the end of my blog post > as because Angosey is solely written, and because it's only in written form I > have unconsciously made extra effort to make up for the fact that other > contextual clues (facial expression, tone of voice, etc) are entirely absent > from my experience of the language. > > What are your experiences? For those who do not have a stated goal either > way, are your languages "wordier" (in the sense that it takes more glyphs, be > they Roman or otherwise) to convey the same meaning compared to your L1? > > Danny > > PS I have posted my translation of the Litany online: > http://glossarch.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/the-litany-against-fear-translated-into-angosey/ -- Jim Henry http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/ http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org Messages in this topic (12) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/ <*> Your email settings: Digest Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join (Yahoo! 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