------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease?
Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/RzSHvD/UOnJAA/79vVAA/GSaulB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: [CHAT] Aussie terminology question
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: YAEPT: "year" (sorry!) (was Re: Why "y" ain't arbitrary (was:
Intergermansk - Traveller's Phrasebook))
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: Unusual time / causality / worldviews (natlang/conlang)
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. CONCULTURE: Ayeri calendar again
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: YAEPT: "year" (sorry!) (was Re: Why "y" ain't arbitrary (was:
Intergermansk - Traveller's Phrasebook))
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Unusual time / causality / worldviews (natlang/conlang)
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: Unusual time / causality / worldviews (natlang/conlang)
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. [OT] Mandarin glyph selection help
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: Help: Arabic fonts for Turklangs
From: Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: Unusual time / causality / worldviews (natlang/conlang)
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: Unusual time / causality / worldviews (natlang/conlang)
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. negativity
From: # 1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: Help: Arabic fonts for Turklangs
From: Pipian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: [OT] Mandarin glyph selection help
From: Pipian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: Future English
From: Rob Haden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 18:46:17 +0000
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [CHAT] Aussie terminology question
On Monday, February 7, 2005, at 12:10 , Tristan McLeay wrote:
> On 7 Feb 2005, at 10.29 am, Mark J. Reed wrote:
>
>> The Wiggles seem to consistently refer to football as "soccer"; is this
>> normal? I thought that was strictly an Americanism.
>
> Absolutely not.
Indeed not! I was always under the impression that both "soccer" and
"rugger" developed as late 19th cent schoolboy slang in the UK. Certainly
I was quite familiar with both words as a schoolkid. And sorry to
disappoint Mark, but "soccer" is still used here. We assumed the Merkans
borrowed it from us as convenient name to give to what much of the word
now seem to call simply "football" :)
> The word was coined in a non-rhotic dialect, after all
> (it apparently derives from the repetition of 'assoc', as it used to be
> called 'Association Football'*).
Yep - during the 19th century in Britain various forms of football
received codified rules. In 1863 a body called the "Football Association"
formulated the rules of a game with 11 players on each and in which only
the goalkeepers of each side could handle the ball; the game was called
'Association Football' to distinguish it from other forms - or "soccer'.
The term 'Association Football' is still used here to distinguish soccer
from other forms of football.
> We do call it 'soccer' and as far as
> I'm concerned, calling it 'football' is the deviant name. (I hold that
> calling *anything* 'football' is deviant, because it always refers to
> the dominant football code in your area: a linguistic variable.)
Yes, certainly 'football' in English is a variable.
> It seems to me that the Brits who tell Americans that 'football' means
> 'soccer' & any other form name or definition is wrong
They are - but you are wrong also your generalization about Brits. Rugby
football (of both codes) has considerable following in the UK. Where the
context is clear, 'football' will be used; but if there is ambiguity we
will say 'Association Football'/ 'soccer' or 'Rugby (football)' etc. Just
over the sea from us in Ireland there is "Gaelic Football" with rules
established by the Gaelic Athletic Association. What Brits try to tell
Merkans is that soccer, like Rugby & Gaelic Football, is just another form
of football; like Tristan, we find the Merkan habit of of calling their
game "Football" without any qualifier deviant :)
[snip]
> * Which is neither here nor there. Aussie rules is just a contration of
> 'Australian rules football', and I guess 'rugby' is probably based on
> something like 'Rugby rules football' too.
No. It is either "Rugby League Football" with 13 players on each side or
"Rugby Union Football" with 15 players on each side (there are other
differences). IIRC "rugger" meant the Union code - but the term seems to
have fallen into disuse. I believe Rugby League Football has quite a
following in some parts of Australia.
[snip]
> Of course, Aussie rules is the obvious sport for a cricket-playing
> nation to play. It saves significantly on stadiums and so forth, given
> that they're both played on the same oval.
Yep - and IMO it's an excellent game - a pity it hasn't caught on
elsewhere in the cricket-playing world.
> In colloquial speech, 'football' is often contracted to 'footy' (both
> the sport and the ball), all over the country.
Same in the UK - but that may due to the influence of Australian soaps :
)
==============================================
On Monday, February 7, 2005, at 05:48 , Philip Newton wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 11:10:57 +1100, Tristan McLeay
[snip]
>> British criticism of American
>> spellings like 'behavior' and 'bastardize'.
>
> Heh. -ize is used in the UK, too, AFAIK.
It is. It is the standard spelling used by both the Cambridge University
Press and by the Oxford University Press, for example. The spelling -ise
is prevalent but -ize is by no means un-British.
> And it's the original spelling, etymologically --
It certainly is, from Greek -izein via Latin -izare. It is the spelling I
was taught at school in the 1940s & 50s and the one I have always used.
> just as "aluminum" is the original form of
> the word.
>
> ...I still prefer -ise and "aluminium" because it's what I grew up
> with. I was just pointing out that criticising people for retaining
> the original spellings and claiming they corrupted them is...
> interesting :)
It is, isn't i? People are often surprised to discover _plow_ was once
used in Britain before Dr Johnson enshrined _plough_ in his dictionary.
================================================
> On Monday, February 7, 2005, at 01:12 , Mark J. Reed wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 11:10:57AM +1100, Tristan McLeay wrote:
>> (I hold that calling *anything* 'football' is deviant, because it
>> always refers to the dominant football code in your area: a linguistic
>> variable.)
>
> The only problem with that idea is that the game played by the USA's
> National Football League HAS no other name but "football".
But it's their problem if they want to distinguish it from other types of
football. Otherwise other people will apply their own adjective.
> The term
> "Gridiron" properly refers only to the field on which the game is
> played; it was applied to the game itself only recently (and fairly
> briefly) as part of its introduction in Europe. I don't think even the
> name
> is still used by NFL Europe.
Um - on the analogy of "Association Football" or, colloquially, "soccer",
the Merkan game is obviously "National Football" or, colloquially "natter"
;)
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 2
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 18:39:37 +0000
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: YAEPT: "year" (sorry!) (was Re: Why "y" ain't arbitrary (was:
Intergermansk - Traveller's Phrasebook))
On Monday, February 7, 2005, at 01:09 , Mark J. Reed wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 06, 2005 at 04:45:37PM -0800, Gary Shannon wrote:
>> yesterday -> ee-esterdae-ee
>> sky -> ska-ee
>> sympathy -> simpathee
>
> The *letter* Y is *neither* a consontant nor a vowel. It is an element of
> the Roman alphabet and can be made to stand for anything.
Yes, it can and is made to. [j], [i], [y], [1], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [ai(] all
come
immediately to mind, and I have no doubt that there are others.
> In English, it
> sometimes stands for the consonant /j/ (as at the beginning of
> "yesterday"), sometimes for the diphthong /ai_^/ as in "sky", and
> sometimes for the vowel /e/ as in "sympathy"
Interesting, if /e/ is not a typo. This side of the Pond it is generally
either [i] or [I].
> (and arguably at the end of
> "yesterday", although that's really a case of the digraph |ay| standing
> for the sound /ei_^/ and it's not really possible to say the A stands
> for this part of the sound and the Y for that.).
[snip]
> So you can't say that the letter Y is either a consonant or a vowel.
> You can only talk about whether particular sounds represented by the
> letter
> are consonants or vowels.
Yep - just like any other letter.
[snip]
> And please stop going on about your lack of formal training.
Amen!
> Many of us
> don't have any formal linguistic training either; that's no excuse for
> not learning and using proper terminology.
AMEN!
I have no formal linguistic training. But I was brought up to aim to be
accurate. There is simply no point IMO in having terminology if one cannot
be bothered to find out what it means and try and use it in a generally
accepted way.
===============================================
> On Monday, February 7, 2005, at 01:17 , J. 'Mach' Wust wrote:
>
> On Sun, 6 Feb 2005 16:45:37 -0800, Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[snip]
>> These sounds exist in a continuum and drawing the
>> boundries that separate one type from another within
>> that continuum is, regardless of what anyone believes,
>> arbitrary.
>
> This is only true when you're examining the acoustic waves. Another way to
> analyze speech sounds is the way of looking for phonemes, which are
> defined
> as the minimal distinctive unit. That criterion still requires
> interpretation, but it's not arbitrary.
Indeed, it is certainly not arbitrary. The criteria for defining phonemes
are well known. It may well be that Gary does not accept the phonemic
theory - not everyone does, tho phonemic analysis is very widely used.
But it is quite clear, as I had suspected, from Gary's words above that he
speaking strictly in _phonetic_ terms and not in terms of phonemes. This
is what is causing the problems in understanding.
>> I have choosen a
>> different system of classification for the sounds, one
>> for which the terms "vowel" and "consonant" are
>> apparently not appropriate.
>
> They're often used in the way you've used them.
Yes, I did say that also. Gary is using 'vowel' and 'consonant' as they
are defined _phonetically_. The trouble is that most of us have been using
these terms as they are defined in phonology; writing the sound as /j/
should have made that clear. Phonemes are written between slashes thus /j/
.
> As Ray has pointed out, the
> terms _vocoid_ and _contoid_ coined by Kenneth Pike are less ambiguous
> terms
> for that use.
They certainly are. As I said, the sound at the onset of _year_ and _you_
is a vocoid (i.e. a 'phonetic vowel') but phonologically it is a type of
_consonant_ known as an approximant.
================================================
On Monday, February 7, 2005, at 01:38 , Tristan McLeay wrote:
> On 7 Feb 2005, at 11.45 am, Gary Shannon wrote:
[snip]
>> Granted, that is not the "conventional" system of
>> classification. However, "unconventional" is not
>> synonymous with "wrong", and "conventional" is not
>> synonymous with "correct".
>
> True, but often a system is conventional because it's right.
Indeed so. I may be quite happy with an unconventional system of
classifying sub-atomic particles; but if I wanted to have any meaningful
discussion on quantum physics with other people then it would helpful if I
took the trouble to learn the conventional classification.
[snip]
> Linguists, like artists, can call the sounds (colors)
> anything they like, but I'm an engineer with training
> is physics and I'll just call them the way I see them.
> ;-)
Linguists are not like artists. The terms we have been discussing have
precise definitions. I am surprised that an engineer with training in
physics is not concerned at precision in the use of technical terms when
it comes to discussing sounds with a group of people in which a few have
formal linguistic training but more have simply taken the trouble to learn
the terminology and try to use it properly.
> If you're going to do that, you might want to use 'contoid' and
> 'vocoid'. You aren't the first person to notice the difference, and the
> distinction between 'consonant' and 'contoid', 'vowel' and 'vocoid',
> is, as we've seen, pretty important.
It is - and precision in terminology is IMO important if we are to have
meaningful discussions and not misunderstand one another.
================================================
On Monday, February 7, 2005, at 05:52 , Philip Newton wrote:
> On Sun, 6 Feb 2005 20:47:37 -0800, Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> That was an historic event.
>>
>> Aha! 'H' is a vowel! I always wondered about that.
>> ;-)
Good grief! this thread is getting sillier & sillier.
> No. 'H' is a letter; it's neither a consonant or a vowel.
..and what's more, it's an upper case letter. :)
> Saying that "the vowels are 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u' [and sometimes
> 'y']", referring to letters as vowels or consonants is a
> simplification that may be appropriate in grade school, but vowels and
> consonants refer to *sounds*, not *letters*.
Yep.
But some 50 years or so ago in school we were also taught that:
_an_ is used before vowels and *before words beginning with h- if the
first syllable was unstressed*.
_a_ is used everywhere else.
Hence, of course, _an historic event_.
Except that sounds very old fashioned to me now. In this neck of the woods
way people now almost always say _a historic event_.
More to the point in this thread is that people generally say "an onion"
but "a union".
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 13:58:14 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Unusual time / causality / worldviews (natlang/conlang)
> >Another that I don't actually know much about except the really
> >generic pleb's redaction is the concept that - at quantum level, or in
> >other fundamental ways - "Reality" doesn't necessarily follow our
> >linear-progression-of-time outlook. Could anyone clarify that from an
> >actual physics perspective?
Time has physical reality, and in particular there are three physical
"arrows" which tell you whether you're looking forward or backward in
time, although I only remember two at the moment:
1. entropy increases going forward, decreases going backward
2. we remember the past, but not the future
These are probably actually the same arrow; in all likelihood physics
prevents memories from being formed in the direction of increasing entropy.
-Marcos
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 4
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 14:47:56 -0500
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: CONCULTURE: Ayeri calendar again
Manisu!
Yay, I think I am ready with my moon based calendar now.
I've had some problems due to calculation errors which are
hopefully fixed now. There may still be a problem with the
leap years, though. It's rather leap months, but anyway, I
hope the computer will calculate them correctly on its own.
The result of my work up to now can be seen in my sig: It's
a script which automatically converts the current time into
the Ayeri moon calendar system (Curan Tertanyan). The text
in the sig breaks down as follows:
Eda- taman- on le ma- tahan-ar
This.letter.TRG(inan) TRG:PAT(inan) past.write.3sg(inan):a
[beneno- ea ei- tyabo] ena [15-A7-58-10-2-14-18] ena
[morning.LOC OBL.late ] GEN [17-127-68-12-2-16-20] GEN
Curan Tertanyan.
Counting Tertanyan.
This letter was written in the late morning of
17-127-68-12-2-16-20 according to the Tertanyanian
Counting.
The parts in brackets are variable.
The date is encoded as follows (base-12 here):
15 -- 'century' (conjunction between the two moons,
occuring about each 108 years)
A7 -- year Colun
58 -- year Vicama
10 -- month Colun
2 -- month Vicama
14 -- day Colun
18 -- day Vicama
Acutally, it'd be enough to give the date for one moon, but
this is the 'official' ISO-like norm.
The error I made in my last mail where I figured out when
the UNIX epoch would start in the other calendar was that I
said there were only 3 'hours' per day. But that is wrong!
Since 1 Arecan second (asec) = 1.2 Earth seconds (esec),
the day must be 24ehrs/1.2 = 20 ahrs long. The division
into 3 parts is only exists for telling whether it's
morning, afternoon or evening/night. Accordingly, the start
of the UNIX count was in the late morning of
17-127-68-12-2-16-20 in fact.
Yours,
Carsten
... now without fever, but with a running nose instead.
--
Edatamanon le matahanar benenoea eityabo ena
15-A7-58-10-2-14-18 ena Curan Tertanyan.
http://www.beckerscarsten.de?conlang=ayeri
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 5
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 14:47:31 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: YAEPT: "year" (sorry!) (was Re: Why "y" ain't arbitrary (was:
Intergermansk - Traveller's Phrasebook))
On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 06:39:37PM +0000, Ray Brown wrote:
> On Monday, February 7, 2005, at 01:09 , Mark J. Reed wrote:
> >sometimes for the vowel /e/ as in "sympathy"
>
> Interesting, if /e/ is not a typo. This side of the Pond it is generally
> either [i] or [I].
Sorry to be boring, but 'twas merely a typo. It's [i_j:] for me.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 6
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 12:15:12 -0800
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Unusual time / causality / worldviews (natlang/conlang)
> 2. we remember the past, but not the future
... not [necessarily] a feature of external reality, though. Could be
just an oddness of our biology.
- Sai
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 7
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 15:41:27 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Unusual time / causality / worldviews (natlang/conlang)
On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 12:15:12PM -0800, Sai Emrys wrote:
> > 2. we remember the past, but not the future
>
> ... not [necessarily] a feature of external reality, though. Could be
> just an oddness of our biology.
Right, which is why I listed it as a separate arrow. If, however, it
does turn out to be an effect of the same cause as entropy increase,
which there is mounting experimental evidence to support, then it's not
a biological quirk; it would, in fact, be physically impossible to build
a memory that works in the direction of decreasing entropy.
-Marcos
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 8
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 15:40:05 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [OT] Mandarin glyph selection help
Even with the preference for monosyllabic roots I would expect the tone
system to give Mandarin fewer homonyms, but it seems like every time I
type some Pinyin, OS X presents me with a plethora of character choices.
So if someone could point me to the correct glyphs (Simplified is fine,
Unicode code points would be great) for the following, I'd appreciate it.
Hung d (as in the name of the Yellow Emperor)
皇帝，荒地，幌地，黄帝?
jiǎ (one of the two Celestial Stems associated with the element Wood)
I think this is 瘕
shen (the Terrestrial Branch associated with the Ape totem)
砷 or 蜃
yǐ (the second Celestial Stem associated with the element Wood).
yǒu (the Terrestrial Branch associated with the Rooster totem)
These two are the exceptions to the rule - I can't find *any* characters
for them. Maybe I have the wrong tone information?
Anyway, any help appreciated.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 9
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 22:33:12 +0200
From: Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Help: Arabic fonts for Turklangs
Tim May wrote:
> Isaac Penzev wrote at 2005-02-06 22:39:25 (+0200)
> What version of Code2000 do you have? It's under continual
> development, later versions may do better (I don't have it myself, so
> I couldn't say).
I'm not sure. Rather an old one. The zip file on my comp is dated 01/12/20.
> Or it may indeed just be your platform. Win98 isn't the most
> sophisticated OS with regard to Unicode.
Alas. But I have an Office2000 installed on it, plus a Hebrew/Arabic support
patch; that helps in most cases.
> Could you give specific examples where Code2000 has problems? I'm
> using the font PakType Tehreer under Linux, and it seems to be able to
> handle anything I can think of (at least in Pango apps) but my
> knowledge of what _should_ happen is limited.
It reads all the characters, but do not change some characters automaticly
from isolated to medial forms. The exact problems need to be figured out by
testing.
> A good point. I should make it clear that by "supports" I include
> having the necessary OpenType tables for the rendering of ligatures*.
> And even given that, a successful outcome is contingent upon the
> presence of suitable complex text rendering architecture on your
> platform.
Well, I don't know much about computers to comment on this, but OTOH there
are still some non-Unicode fonts that may be encoded manually, as they have
different code points for isolated and medial forms, e.g. "Persian Web" or
"Nasf2". But it is a bad solution: if this is a web page, the person will
need to download this font first to see the page correctly.
-- Yitzik
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 10
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 12:48:09 -0800
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Unusual time / causality / worldviews (natlang/conlang)
> it would, in fact, be physically impossible to build a memory that works in
> the direction of decreasing entropy.
Why? AFAIK increasing entropy only holds over the whole system; it
doesn't prevent local buildups of order. Humans are not closed
systems, ne?
- Sai
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 11
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 22:33:00 +0200
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Unusual time / causality / worldviews (natlang/conlang)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2005 10:41 PM
Subject: Re: Unusual time / causality / worldviews (natlang/conlang)
> On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 12:15:12PM -0800, Sai Emrys wrote:
> > > 2. we remember the past, but not the future
> >
> > ... not [necessarily] a feature of external reality, though. Could be
> > just an oddness of our biology.
>
> Right, which is why I listed it as a separate arrow. If, however, it
> does turn out to be an effect of the same cause as entropy increase,
> which there is mounting experimental evidence to support, then it's not
> a biological quirk; it would, in fact, be physically impossible to build
> a memory that works in the direction of decreasing entropy.
of course, if you're crafting a conlang for a being that can move through
time like a Q (from Star Trek) or experiences history like a traeki (from
David Brin's Brightness Reef books), then you might have something for it.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 12
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 16:01:45 -0500
From: # 1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: negativity
I was asking myself if a language needs a lot of levels of negativity
let me explain
If I beggin with the sentence
"I will can want to have been eaten"
It's a little weird but it's grammatical (as much I know, and if not just
follow my toughts it will be ok)
each auxiliaries have a different meaning of tense, aspect, mood, or voice
will = futur
can = hypothetic
want = optative (I think...)
have = perfective
been = passive
to make the sentence negative, each or some of the auxiliaries may be
negative by adding "not" after it, depending of each tense, aspect, mood, or
voice you want to say negative
I will not can want to have been eaten
I will can not want to have been eaten
I will can want not to have been eaten
I will can want to have not been eaten
I will can want to have been not eaten
There are, in that situation, 5 levels of negativity
For the same sentence in French "Je pourrai vouloir avoir t mang"
there are only 3 levels because the futur tense and the hypothetic aspect
are represented by the same word and the part "avoir t mang" can only be
made negative as a whole and not each part indepedently
Je ne pourrai pas vouloir avoir t mang
Je pourrai ne pas vouloir avoir t mang
Je pourrai vouloir ne pas avoir t mang
(But, the fact that, in spoken french, the "ne" is usually dropped don't
reduce that number of level because there's a little difference in
intonation between the two parts "Je pourrai pas vouloir")
So I ask that question: does a language has to have a lot of levels to make
a sentence negative or may it be possible to make the whole sentence
negative?
Because if we look each of the 5 negative sentences I gave, their meanings
are very similar...
So I could use a way in my conlang to make the sentence negative and not his
parts, there are probably natlangs that make this..
What do you think about this?
- Max
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 13
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:23:21 -0500
From: Pipian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Help: Arabic fonts for Turklangs
> > ----------
> > Tim May wrote:
> >
> >
> > > If it's simply a matter of being able to display Arabic script with
> > > the extended characters used in those languages, that's easily done.
> > > You just need a Unicode font that supports those characters in the
> > > Arabic range.
> >
> > As you see, it's not so easy. One needs fonts that would make ligatures
> > correctly.
>
>
> A good point. I should make it clear that by "supports" I include
> having the necessary OpenType tables for the rendering of ligatures*.
> And even given that, a successful outcome is contingent upon the
> presence of suitable complex text rendering architecture on your
> platform.
>
>
> * Or equivalent - I forget what the Apple technology is called, for
> example.
As a side note, as I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, Alan Wood's
site is invaluable for lists of fonts for every Unicode range. Here's
the Arabic one.
http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/fonts.html#arabic
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 14
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 17:42:50 -0500
From: Pipian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [OT] Mandarin glyph selection help
Mark J. Reed wrote:
> Even with the preference for monosyllabic roots I would expect the tone
> system to give Mandarin fewer homonyms, but it seems like every time I
> type some Pinyin, OS X presents me with a plethora of character choices.
> So if someone could point me to the correct glyphs (Simplified is fine,
> Unicode code points would be great) for the following, I'd appreciate it.
>
> Hung d (as in the name of the Yellow Emperor)
>
> 皇帝，荒地，幌地，黄帝?
Wikipedia says 黄帝.
>
> jiǎ (one of the two Celestial Stems associated with the element Wood)
>
> I think this is 瘕
The CJK Dictionary Database says 甲.
(http://www.uoregon.edu/~felsing/wired/C102.htm#%C2%8Db)
> shen (the Terrestrial Branch associated with the Ape totem)
> 砷 or 蜃
CJK Database says 申.
> yǐ (the second Celestial Stem associated with the element Wood).
CJK Database says 乙. Tone info is right.
> yǒu (the Terrestrial Branch associated with the Rooster totem)
Again, CJK Database says 酉. Tone info is right.
Pipian
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 15
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 18:05:39 -0500
From: Rob Haden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Future English
On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 00:37:22 +1100, Tristan McLeay
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>It looks very Germanised. I don't expect English to develop in that
>manner, unless the Germans take over the world. It also has absolutely
>no change to the grammar, but the changes in grammar will be the most
>interesting aspect. How will the clitics develop? Will we see some
>reanalysed into case markers? Will they become verbal prefixes? I
>propose, distant enough in the future, that:
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] will be reanalysed as, ironically, a singular subject
> marker
>(from 'is', 'has')
I think it may be more likely that the |-s| marker will develop into a
marker of plural subject, due to its phonological syncretism with the
nominal plural |-s|. However, there may also be a new plural marker for
nouns.
> if retained, the plural would be [EMAIL PROTECTED]@~@
One of the allophones would be [EMAIL PROTECTED] How do you figure?
> the distinction between him ('im) and them ('em) will finally
>collapse, perhaps taking with it the entire pronominal gender system (a
>regular plural is easily created with the current [EMAIL PROTECTED], as in
>'youse').
I think it likely that that pronoun will become a postclitic verbal marker
for transitivity.
> the derivative of 'us' or 'to us' will develop into a 1sg dative,
>perhaps eventually objective---with 'me' replacing 'I' in the
>subjective.
I don't see how that could happen in the forseeable future. Rather, it
seems more likely that oblique forms will be constructed similar to Hebrew
and Arabic: t'mi for "to me", n'yu for "and you", etc. Compare Hebrew
l'chaym "to life", etc.
> perhaps a distinction between active and stative verbs deriving from
>the simple present and the present progressive.
It seems more likely that there will be a suffix -im or -em that denotes
transitive or active verbs. The lack thereof, then, would indicate
intransitive or stative verbs. For example:
Mi tekim. = I take [something].
Mi tek. = I am taken.
>But I mean to be radical and I'm looking far into the future, so we'll
>all be dead before my predictions can come true---so I can always live
>safe in the knowledge that I'm not wrong yet :)
And that's the beauty of it. :)
Other possibilities:
1. A contrast between alienable and inalienable possession. The former is
expressed by the verb _on_ "own", e.g. ket mion "my cat", while the latter
is expressed by the preposition _o_ "of", e.g. hed omi "my head".
2. Complete obliteration of the fossilized ablaut verb forms (e.g. sing ~
sang ~ sung) and also the currently productive past-tense formation in -
ed. The new verb system would have mostly prefixing TMA markers.
3. Possibly a new animate/inanimate grammatical gender distinction
expressed by different verbal markers. For example, an animate direct
object would be marked by the suffix -im on the verb, while an inanimate
direct object would be marked by the suffix -it (or perhaps -o, from "her").
- Rob
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
