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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I
From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. The ExtIPA
From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Silindion - Present Tense
From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: Silindion - Present Tense
From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: OT: FontForge (was: writing system)
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: OT: How common is it to speak 5+ languages?
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Semi-OT: McGuffey Readers and Their Editions...
From: Pipian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: Starting a Conlang-OT group? (was Re: Workshops Review #01, 2005)
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I
From: Rene Uittenbogaard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I
From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: Starting a Conlang-OT group? (was Re: Workshops Review #01, 2005)
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: Starting a Conlang-OT group? (was Re: Workshops Review #01, 2005)
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: tonal language
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: CONLANG Digest - 8 Jan 2005 to 9 Jan 2005 (#2005-10)
From: Aquamarine Demon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I
From: # 1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. conlang alphabets, etc
From: Wesley Parish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I
From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: Christophe
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long]
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: Language comparison
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: Declaration of Human Rights
From: Aquamarine Demon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: beginner
From: Sharon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: Reasonable sound changes.
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 21:59:00 -0000
From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I
--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, caeruleancentaur
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In your various conlangs how do you express the concepts:
> 1. to have just
> and
> 2. to be about to
Good question. I haven't had a correspondent idiom
in Jovian so far. To stress the completion or the
unstarted state of an action, one could simply use
the prepositions |his| "this side of" and |tran|
"through, the other side of":
Johan ix his pfider sud gionur.
[jo:n iS hiS 'pfi:[EMAIL PROTECTED] sug '[EMAIL PROTECTED]@r]
{John is this side of confessing his sin.}
"John has yet to confess his sin."
Johan ix tran pfider sud gionur.
[jo:n iS tram 'pfi:[EMAIL PROTECTED] sug '[EMAIL PROTECTED]@r]
{John is through confessing his sin.}
"John has confessed his sin."
For the sense you wanted, ie stressing the imminence
or the recentness instead, I've made up the following
idioms:
Johan peinde suore pfider sud gionur.
[jo:n pend [EMAIL PROTECTED] 'pfi:[EMAIL PROTECTED] sug '[EMAIL PROTECTED]@r]
{John dangles above confessing his sin.}
"John is just about to confess his sin."
Johan reize de pfider sud gionur.
[jo:n rejz d@ 'pfi:[EMAIL PROTECTED] sug '[EMAIL PROTECTED]@r]
{John returns from confessing his sin.}
"John has just confessed his sin."
Thanks for the inspiration.
-- Christian Thalmann
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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 14:08:57 -0800
From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: The ExtIPA
What is this for, the ExtIPA? It says for
'disorganized speech', but I have no idea what that is.
=====
-The Sock
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
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Message: 3
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 14:28:49 -0800
From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Silindion - Present Tense
The present tense in Silindion is divided into an
Athematic and Thematic conjugation. The Thematic
conjugation is formed by adding a thematic present
tense vowel to the root, followed by the endings. The
thematic tese vowel is mostly determined by the root
vowel, although, there are some exceptions.
So, if the root vowel is "a" then the thematic vowel
will be "a". If it is "e", then the thematic vowel is
"e", etc. For the most part this rule is followed,
except for the following cases:
1) If the root is a long-e stem, meaning that it is of
the form <Ce:>, then the thematic vowel is just "e",
not long-e.
examples: le: "show" > li-e-
ve: "gossip" > vi-e-
ne: "get married" > ni-e-
(notice the vowel change, this is a regular
process)
2) In some roots, if the root vowel is "u", then the
thematic vowel is "o" (in High Silindion)
example: pur "speak" > pur-o- (H.S)
nun "smell" > nun-o- (H.S)
(this does not hold true for Low Silindion:
pur > pur-u-, nun > nun-u-)
3) Roots that have the vowel "ei", have the thematic
vowel "a"
example: leir- "praise" > leir-a-
Most roots ending in a consonant have thematic
presents. The only roots ending in a vowel that are
thematic are the long-e stem roots.
Finally, if a root is dysallibic (having two
syllables) then the 2nd vowel determines the thematic
vowel: namben- "to get engaged" > namben-e-
The personal endings are:
1s -si 1p -na
2s -lë 2p -nta
3s <described below> 3p -nto
3dual/(HS 3p) -ntë
Present Tense of <namben->
nambenesi nambenena
nambenelë nambenenta
nambenén nambenento/nambenentë
One further note is appropriate here. For certain
consonant roots, the thematic vowel does not appear to
be present, but is in fact there underlyingly. This
mostly is the case with the fricative K-stems:
laK- 'ride' > laK-a-
deK- 'survive' > deK-e-
reK- 'reach for' > reK-e-
Since the fricative K has ceased to be pronounced, the
thematic and root vowel merge to be pronounced as one
vowel, even though the K is still written in the
Silindion alphabet (but not in the romanisation)
lan "he/she rides" (written: laKan)
der "he/she survives" (written: deKer)
ren "he/she reaches for" (written: reKen)
-----------------------------------------------------
Athematic presents do not have a thematic vowel for 1
of 2 reasons.
1) The root is a vowel stem: -ya, -a, -e, -u, -i, -o
2) The root is a root accented consonant stem.
For these roots, the personal endings are added
directly to the root final vowel or consonant. In the
case of vowel stem roots, there's no problem, but in
the case of consonant stem roots, some changes must
take place.
Since there are a lot of changes, I'll just list the
conjugation of common athematic verbs from common stem
classes:
vur "weave" > vussi, vullë, vurna, vurna, vurta, vurto
sophar "rest" > sophassi, sophallë, sophár, sopharna,
sopharta, sopharto
mis "fall" > missi, millë, mir, mirna, mirta, mirto
siD "sit" > sissi, sildë, sindë, sinda, sinda, sindo
neK "suffer" > neksi, nelkë, nenkë, nenka, nenka,
nenko
nalpin "to play piano" > nalpissi, nalpillë, nalpir,
nalpinna, nalpinta, nalpinto
nal "to light" > nassi, nallë, nan, nalda, nanta,
nanto
fing "to swim" > finsi, finlë, fingë, finga, finta,
finto
etc.
Everything, except for the 3rd singular is easily
predictable.
-R stems: -ssi, -llë, X, -rna, -rta, -rto
-S stems: -ssi, -llë, X, -rna, -rta, -rto
-D stems: -ssi, -ldë, X, -nda, -nda, -ndo
-K stems: -ksi, -lkë, X, -nka, -nka, -nko
-N stems: -ssi, -llë, X, -nna, -nta, -nto
-L stems: -ssi, -llë, X, -lda, -nta, -nto
-NG stems: -nsi, -nlë, X, -nga, -nta, -nto
-P stems: -psi, -lpë, X, -mpa, -mpa, -mpo
-----------------------------------------------------
3rd Singular:
The ending for the 3rd singular is either -n, or -r.
Originally this must have distinguished certain types
of transitive verbs from certain types of intransitive
verbs, although the difference between the two is
largely lexical at the present stage of Silindion. The
-r ending is still largely reserved for many
intransitive verbs, although not all intransitives
will take the -r ending and some transitives will have
it.
For thematic verbs, the -n or -r is attached to the
thematic vowel which is stressed, and an accent is
written above it:
namben- "to get engaged with"
namben-e- "present-thematic"
namben-é-n "he/she gets engaged with X"
fingand- "to go fishing"
fingand-a- "present-thematic"
fingand-á-r "he/she goes fishing"
With athematic verbs, the endings are attached
directly to the root. Vowel stem athematics look
basically like thematic verbs:
moni- "to hear"
moni- "present-athematic"
moní-r "he/she hears"
Consonant stem athematics suffer all sorts of changes
and may have vowel harmony with the root vowel.
N-3rd Singular R-3rd Singular
Back Front
-R stems: -rna -rnë -r
-S stems: -rna -rnë -r
-D stems: -nda -ndë does not occur
-K stems: -nka -nkë does not occur
-N stems: -n -r
-L stems: -n -r
-NG stems: -nga -ngë -ngra -ngrë
-P stems: -mpa -mpë does not occur
(as you can see, only n-3rd singulars are compatible
with consonant stems ending in an obstruent)
I appologize for the length of this, but I hope you
enjoyed it :)
~Elliott
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Message: 4
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 22:50:52 -0000
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I
I guess I should have completed my request by showing how these
concepts are expressed in Senyecan.
To be about to = infinitive + the postposition pòrsa (up to,
until,
on the edge of).
I am about to eat dinner.
µèsperéda pòrsa mésa.
to-eat-dinner on-the-edge-of I-am.
I was about to eat dinner.
µèsperéda pòrsa e-mésa.
to-eat-dinner on-the-edge-of I-was.
to have just = present perfective participle + sénïa (to
complete).
I have just read the book.
tom càqvaalíyom ðéyantom e-musénïa.
the book reading I-finished.
as opposed to:
I finished reading the book.
tom càqvaalíyom ðéya e-musesénïa.
the book to-read I-have-finished.
I need to figure out whether the pres. perf. part. should agree with
the object or the subject!!
Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/User:Caeruleancentaur
--- End forwarded message ---
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Message: 5
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 14:48:36 -0800
From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Silindion - Present Tense
A small addendum:
1) Another exception to the thematic rule: root vowel
= thematic vowel, is the following verb:
ask- "to shake hands with X"
ask-i- "present-thematic"
askín "he/she shakes hands with X"
2) Some verbs differ in conjugation between High
Silindion and Low Silindion.
a) thematic verbs can have different thematic
vowels:
pur- "speak"
HS. pur-o-
LS. pur-u-
b) athematic verbs can become thematic, and thematic
verbs can become athematic:
nal- "light"
HS. nal-a- (thematic)
LS. nal- (athematic)
nos- "break" ("waves break against the shore")
HS. nos- (athematic)
LS. nos-o (thematic)
~~Elliott Lash
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Message: 6
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 14:52:45 -0800
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: FontForge (was: writing system)
On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 08:32:21PM +0100, Henrik Theiling wrote:
> Hi!
>
> "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
[...]
> > But that's still the easiest part of the process. The power of
> > Metafont is that font programs are parametrized, and the font programs
> > can act on the parameters in arbitrary ways. To truly capture the
> > entire quality of a Metafont, one would have to translate the function
> > of the program on its parameters into font hinting parameters. This is
> > the part that's probably infeasible or impossible to implement.
> > (NP-completeness or NP-hardness comes to mind... and likely
> > intractability.)
>
> Sure, sure, but even LaTeX normally uses a set of fixed sizes. So you
> could run Metafont at, say, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 18 and
> 22pt, and then use the converted font that comes closest for any given
> size.
Good point. Perhaps Metafont's complete generality isn't really
required in all cases after all.
[...]
> This ignores whether TrueType can handle this -- I don't know. I
> think PostScript fonts cannot automatically handle different curves
> for different sizes, but simply scale linearly on both axes..
Yeah that's a problem. Metafont allows you to completely change the
glyph depending on size (although conventionally you don't do that).
This is rather hard to encode as hints.
> Further, do all of these font types use cubic splines? PostScript
> does, but what about TrueType. I vaguely seem to remember that it
> uses quadratic splines only. To convert order 2 to order 3 would be
> easy, but order 3 to order 2, is, of course, quite hard.
IIRC, TrueType does use quadratic splines only (which sucks, IMHO, but
this really only makes a difference at very large font sizes, and not
everyone is in the banner-making business).
> I will not claim font conversion is easy -- I know it is not. There
> would probably be good tools if it was easy. I just wanted to say
> that Metafont first computes cubic splines and then renders them just
> like PostScript does as well. That's all. :-)
OK. :-)
> > Well, sanokí (Ebisédian's writing system) doesn't really have too
> > large a number of glyphs, but it is significant, so I wrote a program
> > to typeset it. :-)
>
> Ha, you seem to have very similar needs as I have when conlanging --
> the ligature rules of Fukhian were so hard that even LaTex could not
> master them. I wrote a preprocessor for LaTeX that composes ligatures
> and inserts separators (similar to an Arabic 'tatweel' U+0640).
The ligature rules for sanokí aren't *too* hard, but they're complex
enough that it's easier to write a program for composing them than to
code it in LaTeX. (The latter can actually be done if you grasp enough
of the TeXbook.)
> And for Tyl Sjok, the font renderer also preprocesses LaTeX and
> replaces romanised Tyl Sjok by an inclusion of a generated PostScript
> file for each glyph. :-)
Whoa, that's quite an overkill, isn't it? Or is it really that complex
there's no other way to do it?
> For both scripts, HTML support is quite bad, however. The missing
> link isn't programmed yet -- but Tyl Sjok, using PostScript, will be
> easier to use.
To be honest, I hate HTML because it's overly constrained and has a
bad history of being abused for visual markup rather than logical
markup.
[...]
> Since not even I am currently willing to learn my own conlangs, you
> will probably not have much chances of a nice chat. :-) But *if* you
> start learning, say, Qthen|gai, I will try it, too, I think :-))) --
> I'm sure it's really hard to master, though. And since the whole
> grammar is programmed in Lisp, it takes alsmost no effort to change
> the grammar: all the texts will adjust automatically. This means the
> language is still heavily in flux. (Relay 10 text at Jan's page must
> be considered Old Qthen|gai now (at that time: Q'en|gai)...)
[...]
No kidding. How do you actually store the texts? I assume what you
mean is that you run the Lisp program (the "grammar") on the texts and
they produce the actual texts.
On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 09:32:29PM -0600, Herman Miller wrote:
> H. S. Teoh wrote:
> >Nice. I can see how PS lends itself to this kind of thing. For
> >Ebisédian, though, I've no choice but to render it in LaTeX, 'cos no
> >other tool I know of can handle its painfully complex diacritic
> >composition rules (even just in the orthography alone, not even actual
> >sanokí).
>
> Have you tried Graphite / WorldPad?
[...]
Unfortunately (or not), I don't have Windows at home, so I can't
really make much use of it.
T
--
That's not a bug; that's a feature!
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Message: 7
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 17:54:05 -0500
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: How common is it to speak 5+ languages?
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 01:36:31 -0800, B. Garcia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>So, how common would you say it is for someone to be conversant enough
>in 5+ languages where it's more than what your average "teach
>yourself" book is going to prepare you for?
I knew a daughter of Galician immigrants who had grown in Swiss German, and
thus speaking Galician (1) and therefore Spanish (2) and Portuguese (3) as
well, and Italian (4), which is the common language among Swiss non-French
Romance immigrants, and German (5) (and the local dialect which is not
mutually intelligible with German), and, from school, French (6) and English
(7) (most learn both), all of them very fluently.
I'd say an avarage Spanish or Portuguese that grows up in Swiss German
normally speaks five languages fluently.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
j. 'mach' wust
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Message: 8
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 17:06:39 -0600
From: Pipian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Semi-OT: McGuffey Readers and Their Editions...
After looking on the net for various copies of the McGuffey Readers
digitized, and finding no less than three different versions of the
first reader (Gutenberg, Revised Edition on fiziwig.com, and a partially
digitized version at http://www.lib.muohio.edu/mcguffey/), I found that
apparently there are three major revisions (which the latter site helped
clarify)
The Eclectic Readers:
1836 - Primer and First Reader published
(parts of this First Reader are on the muohio site)
1837 - Second and Third Readers published
1838 - "Revised and improved" Second and Third Readers
1841, 1843, 1844, and 1848 - Changes, added Fifth Reader and Speller
1853 - Material and binding changes
The New Eclectic Readers:
1857 - Introduction of the "New" Eclectic Reader
(This reader series contains the Gutenberg excerpts)
1865, 1866 - Minor changes
The Revised New Eclectic Readers:
1879 - Introduction of the "Revised" New Eclectic Reader
(This reader series is the one most published now, and on fiziwig)
1901 - Minor changes in the lower books.
So it seems that the available Readers on the web are:
---
Eclectic Readers:
First
This is also partial with some ripped pages, on muohio.
---
New Eclectic Readers:
Primer, First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth
First and Fourth are available on Gutenberg and thought to be from this
version. The Primer (1867), Fourth (1866), Fifth (1857), and Sixth
(1857) readers are available at http://digital.library.pitt.edu/nietz/
---
Revised New Eclectic Readers:
First
First is the only one partially digitized, and only on fiziwig, but all
the others are available (presumably in 1901 form) for purchase in
physical form.
---
As a result, there are no versions of the Second or Third Readers in any
form on the web at this time.
Pipian
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Message: 9
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 00:12:35 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Starting a Conlang-OT group? (was Re: Workshops Review #01, 2005)
Hi!
Jörg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > needed would be someone asking "Hey, guys, take it to the OT group, would
> > ya?", or words to that effect, and we could all continue our lives,
> > distractions optional.
>
> This might work (or not), and it is at least worth trying!
As I told Paul privately, I'm against that, because the OT marker in
the subject line can be used for it. It can be added and removed
easily -- much easier than switching the list in the middle of
a thread. And threads tend to switch heavily between Off- and On-Topic.
The means for filtering are there. We just need to be consistent
about using OT markers. (And I think that's also easier than being
consistent about using the 'right' list.)
> In this case (OT overflow on CONLANG), it is often the same
> people who discuss their conlangs, though I have the impression
> that the most notorious off-topic posters tend to be people
> who have little to contribute to conlang-related discussions.
I don't have that impression, actually. Many people post a good
mixture. It would be a pity if they felt more comfortable in an
OT group.
> *Something* ought to be done about that.
Well, I suggest to set up your account by the web interface to filter
by OT marker.
**Henrik
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Message: 10
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 00:21:14 +0100
From: Rene Uittenbogaard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I
Steg Belsky wrote:
> On Jan 10, 2005, at 9:13 PM, caeruleancentaur wrote:
>
>> In your various conlangs how do you express the concepts:
>> 1. to have just
>> and
>> 2. to be about to
>> If you answer, please include a literal English translation. Thanks.
>> Charlie
>> http://wiki.frath.net/User:Caeruleancentaur
In Calénnawn, this is done as follows:
The perfective is _or .. -vra_:
Bóbo or fésnivra.
Bobo has eaten.
Combined with tense _Å¡i_ (immediate past):
Bóbo órši fésnivra.
Bobo has just eaten.
Incoative is done with _or .. -day_:
Bóbo or fésniday.
Bobo is going to eat.
Combined with tense _gre_ (immediate future):
Bóbo órgre fésnivra.
Bobo is about to eat.
Additionally we have aspects used if the situation doesn't agree with
the expectations of the listener:
Bóbo hépla fésnivra.
Bobo has already stopped eating.
Bóbo hépla fésniday.
Bobo has not yet started eating.
René
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Message: 11
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 19:19:05 -0500
From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I
caeruleancentaur wrote:
>In your various conlangs how do you express the concepts:
>1. to have just
>and
>2. to be about to
Charlie,
The Rhean simple past tense is "somewhat" perfective, in that it's used for
completed actions even when they've only just happened. So one way to
express number 1 is with the past tense plus an adverb like |alta| "just now":
Alta des'tais'.
just-now leave-3SG:PAST
"(She)'s just left". or "(She) just left."
But there are also three forms which are (kinda inaccurately, I guess)
called the past, present and future participles.
http://suzsoiz.free.fr/rhean/gramverbs.htm#participles
On their own they work as adjectives:
des'tov - (... who has) just left
des'tar - (... who is) in the middle of leaving
des'ti - (... who is) about to leave
des'tov lekuz'ad
leave-PTP train
"the train that just left"
Combined with the verb anc'ek, these form compound tenses with more specific
tense/aspect info:
http://suzsoiz.free.fr/rhean/gramverbs.htm#compound
Any of the participles can be used with any tense of anc'ek, so you can get
forms like
|des'tov anyere| "(he) will have just left", |des'ti anas'em| "I was about
to leave" etc.
M
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Message: 12
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 19:44:29 -0500
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Starting a Conlang-OT group? (was Re: Workshops Review #01, 2005)
On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 00:12:35 +0100, Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Jörg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> > needed would be someone asking "Hey, guys, take it to the OT group,
>> would
>> > ya?", or words to that effect, and we could all continue our lives,
>> > distractions optional.
>>
>> This might work (or not), and it is at least worth trying!
>
> As I told Paul privately, I'm against that, because the OT marker in
> the subject line can be used for it. It can be added and removed
> easily -- much easier than switching the list in the middle of
> a thread. And threads tend to switch heavily between Off- and On-Topic.
>
> The means for filtering are there.
It's not just about filtering, it's about clogging the list -- that's my
real gripe. Believe it or not, I remember a time when the list would get
locked without a hint of OT content, and markedly fewer members. I also
remember when a flamewar was a rare enough event to raise an eyebrow. We
can and should strive to return the list culture to what it was in those
days.
Paul
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Message: 13
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 01:58:43 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Starting a Conlang-OT group? (was Re: Workshops Review #01, 2005)
Hi!
Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 00:12:35 +0100, Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>...
> It's not just about filtering, it's about clogging the list -- that's my
> real gripe.
>...
Ah, ok.
> Believe it or not, I remember a time when the list would get locked
> without a hint of OT content, and markedly fewer members. I also
> remember when a flamewar was a rare enough event to raise an
> eyebrow. We can and should strive to return the list culture to what
> it was in those days.
Definitely!
But let's first try to behave before thinking about splitting again.
I think the last few days where much better already than, say, the
week before that. Most probably due to some shock that valuable
people are about to be leaving. It seems people *can* indeed behave.
Wars must be moved to private emails at an early time. (Or not be
fought at all. :-))
**Henrik
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Message: 14
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 17:35:18 -0800
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: tonal language
On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 07:45:18AM +0000, Ray Brown wrote:
[...]
> They are also _diachronically_ unanalyzable, two-syllable words. There are
> a handful of such words, such as:
[...]
> bo1li "grass"
Surely you mean "glass"?
[...]
> They are not and never have been - they are all monomorphemic disyllabic
> words. They were borrowed at a very early date and the origin of most is
> either not known or is hypothetical.
Were they borrowed, or were they actually indigenous words that have
always been disyllabic?
> It is only the traditional written language that adopted the fiction
> of treating them as two 'quasi-morphemes' , each with the same
> meaning :)
[...]
Yeah, Chinese writing has the tendency to push the hypothetical ideal
of one syllable per word a tad too far.
T
--
Spaghetti code may be tangly, but lasagna code is just cheesy.
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Message: 15
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 19:30:59 -0800
From: Aquamarine Demon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CONLANG Digest - 8 Jan 2005 to 9 Jan 2005 (#2005-10)
>>Hey!
Just another "con-art" related thing to fight flamewars ;) ...<<
Yes, that's a good idea; I regret replying in it. :P
>>I just noticed that my second conlang, Daléian
(www.beckerscarsten.de/conlang/daleian), is not listed on Langmaker
anymore. Due to concentrating on Ayeri, I forgot that lang anyway, but not
its writing system which I uploaded there yesterday evening.
Here is the picture that I uploaded to give an overview over the alphabet:
http://www.beckerscarsten.de/conlang/daleian/pics/daleianalphabet.jpg
I think it's influenced by SE-Asian writing systems because the main shape
is a circle.<<
I like it! Reminds me sort of how Thai looks, though I'm only vaguely
aware of how that writing system works. It's awesome, though. You seem to
come up with a lot of very interesting scripts.
>>I've never had difficulties to remember the shapes of the letters,
altough much is based on mirroring.
Cheers,
Carsten Becker<<
I tend to use a lot of mirrored forms in my conscripts, too. I think if
you put similar shapes with similar sounds, though, that makes it a whole
lot easier to memorize. (And I see you've done that, soo...)
Noelle
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Message: 16
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 22:56:27 -0500
From: # 1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I
caeruleancentaur wrote:
>In your various conlangs how do you express the concepts:
>1. to have just
>and
>2. to be about to
These can be made by aspects
Prospective indicates "to be about to" and I don't know if there's a
aspect's name to indicate when something just ended but you can both make
them with endings on the following verb, with an auxilary, or an aspect
marker if it's more isolating
I already tent each of them and it's all working...
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Message: 17
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 17:47:34 +1300
From: Wesley Parish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: conlang alphabets, etc
Just for the record - I've spent a few days recently digging up my old
documents, stuff I had archived at my parents' place in the late eighties. I
discovered a syllabary I had made some effort to develop.
Four positions/angles for each letter, each representing a CV cluster, going
from voiced to unvoiced or vice-versa ... when I get back home I'll try to scan
the document which it's on, and put it up on my web-site.
Chow for now ... chomp! ;)
Wesley Parish
"Sharpened hands are happy hands.
"Brim the tinfall with mirthful bands"
- A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge
"I me. Shape middled me. I would come out into hot!"
I from the spicy that day was overcasked mockingly - it's a symbol of the
other horizon. - emacs : meta x dissociated-press
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Message: 18
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 22:57:24 -0700
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I
caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In your various conlangs how do you express the concepts:
> 1. to have just
> and
> 2. to be about to
I havnt yet planned for the former, but in Ibran the deontic is
used for the latter:
Ye mangiarde l'oif.
/j\E %mA~dZ\Ar"dE l9jf/
"I should/ought to eat the egg."
or,
"I am about to eat the egg."
The deontic is a suffix derived from _debeo_, in the same way that
in much of Romance as well as in Ibran the future is a suffix derived
from _habeo_. In Ibran, given the use mentioned above, it could be
said that it has two futures, a near future and a general future.
(Context and/or intonation here distinguish the case where one should
eat the egg but for some reason isn't about to.)
*Muke!
--
website: http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt: http://kohath.deviantart.com/
FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/
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Message: 19
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 22:14:39 -0800
From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I
--- Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > In your various conlangs how do you express the
> concepts:
> > 1. to have just
> > and
> > 2. to be about to
In High Silindion "to have just" is expressed by the
perfective of the verb "niello" plus anterior gerund:
aniksisi liu pessisë "I have just eaten"
(literally: I have come having eaten)
a-niK-si-si liu peT-isë
AUG-come-PAST-1s PERF eat-ANT.GER
In Low Silindion, "to have just" is expressed by the
perfective of the verb "fatiello" plus the accusative
of the nominal gerund:
ahwateisi liu pentán
(literally: I have done eating)
a-fat-ë-si liu peT-ná-n
AUG-do-PAST-1s PERF eat-GER-ACC
In both High and Low Silindion, the verb "filiello"
plus the infinitive may be used to express "to be
about to"
filisi pessiello
(literally: I come to eat)
fil-i-si peT-iello
come-PRS-1s eat-INF.
~ Elliott
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Message: 20
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 07:31:44 +0100
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Christophe
On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 20:38:03 +0100, Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 'Gomilego' contains 'Lego' reminding me of toys.
It also contains 'gomi' which is Japanese for 'rubbish/trash/garbage'.
Not sure whether that's significant :)
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Watch the Reply-To!
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Message: 21
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 07:20:18 +0000
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long]
On Monday, January 10, 2005, at 05:45 , kcasada wrote:
> Hi, my name's Krista Casada; I'm new to this list, and find it
> fascinating.
Hi, welcome - I am glad you find it fascinating.
> I had one little comment on numbers in Arabic. Someone said (sorry, I don'
> t have
> the original posting) that they seem to be written backwards relative to
> the
> rest of the text. Actually the situation's a bit more complicated. If I
> want
> to write the number 1995, for instance, the digits appear on the paper as
> 1995, and indeed appear to be in reverse order relative to the text, but
> are
> read as "thousand, nine hundred, five and ninety." So the spoken version
> is
> not exactly a reversal of the written one.
I thought it might be a little more complicated :)
So the last two digits are OK for reading right to left, but not the first
two. It seems then that Arabic system is similar to that in older forms of
the Germanic languages, where things like "four and twenty" were once the
common form. "Five and twenty" was in fact still the norm for telling the
time in my grandparents' generation.
> Does that make sense?
Yep - I guess the Arabic system must them have started by writing the two
digit numeral from rught to left in the order they are spoken, i.e. units
followed by tens, and then just have extended this as the hundreds and
thousands got added.
> And would somebody please explain to me why we have to
> use masculine numbers with feminine nouns (and vice versa) in Arabic?
> Please, please, please??? :)
Curiouser and curiouser :)
And how is the decimal point handled in real Arabic notation?
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" ]
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Message: 22
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 07:20:00 +0000
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Language comparison
I was truly hoping that the "broad area of agreement" I outlined in my
last mail would help bring this thread to an end. {Sigh} It has not and,
indeed, as Paul Bennett has observed the thread has gone beyond discussion
and into dogma. So let me make myself perfectly clear: *This is my last
mail in this tedious thread*.
On Monday, January 10, 2005, at 09:31 , Sai Emrys wrote:
>> Right - hence the confusion. So we are talking about 'languages'
>> specifically designed by humans (formal languages), rather than about
>> natural languages, are we?
>
> No. "Human language" = "languages used by/between humans". Which
> includes natural and constructed languages, and is unlikely to include
> formal languages.
Why? They are used by humans.
This, it seems to me, has been one of the problems all along, it has
simply not been clear to me what you do & do not include in the term
"human languages".
[snip]
>> Maybe not - what I meant is that the approach you appear to be taking
>> would, if translated into a conlang project, seem to suggest an engelang.
>> I was suggesting, in fact, getting 'on topic' :)
>
> Sure; another time. Different topic, is all.
By "on topic" I mean what is normally meant by the term on this list,
namely "pertaining to language construction". This thread seems to be
encompassing just about every form of communication and to have a lot more
to do with semiotics than linguistics.
[snip]
>> Yes, yes - this works fine for formal languages - the where people like
>> Mach, I & some others disagree strongly is the idea that natural
>> languages
>> can be successfully evaluated in such a way.
>
> Even if you take a set of criteria by which to evaluate them?
Please read the excellent email Paul Bennett wrote on Monday, January 10,
2005, at 01:22.
I won't quote it all here, but I think Paul's final two paragraphs may be
profitably repeated:
"Thus, the quality of every human language is immeasurable, and probably
indenumerable, and as far as I'm concerned, all immeasurable values are
indistinguishable.
"That will be my final word on the subject. Please, please, please, take
this off list. Discussions of optimality are well and good, but we're
getting beyond discussion and into dogma, and that is never fun for
someone outside the conversation to read. Kill it."
AMEN!
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" ]
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Message: 23
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 23:30:17 -0800
From: Aquamarine Demon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Declaration of Human Rights
>>I thought I might like to translate the Universal Declaration on Human
Rights into Senyecan (at least the preamble). I went looking for it
online and discovered a site that might be of interest to the group.
http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr
The site has the declaration in over 200 languages ("from Abkaz to
Zulu"), written in their proper script. If someone wanted to see a
substantial amount of a language, especially in a non-Latin script,
this would be a good site for that.<<
Ah yes, I love that site. When I was a member of the Amnesty International
club at my high school, I used that site a lot when coming up with flyer
designs to promote the club. They didn't draw many members, but I had fun
making them. :)
Anyway, that's an interesting tranlation exercise. I shall have to try it
sometime.
>>Incidentally, I tried to look at the Navaho example, but a note said
I needed to download the Navaho font. I did this but still couldn't
view the text properly. What am I doing wrong?
Charlie<<
I installed it and then refreshed the page, and it worked okay for me.
Sorry if this is obvious, but remember that you do need to install the
font in your Fonts folder (it's in the Control Panel). Failing that, I
don't know.
=====
The Aquamarine Demon
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell
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Message: 24
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 01:28:51 -0800
From: Sharon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: beginner
> > Here in Brazil we
> > have
> > english classes in our schools (recently, spanish
> > too). Do you have something familiar in the schools
> > of
> > your country?
>
> When I went to school in California, USA in the 1950's
> and 1960's I had the choice of Spanish, French, German
> and Latin. I took Latin and German both. for 2 years.
>
> Today, my grand daughter here in Oregon, USA had her
> choice of French, Spanish or Japanese.
I envy high schools which have more language classes... I go to a
small religious private school, and until very recently we only
offered Spanish (our French program was started last year and only has
one teacher).
Of course, our school is very small and Spanish is generally more
useful here in Southern California than possibly any other foreign
language, but it still irks me to have very little choice in which
language I could study at school. It doesn't help to have giant public
schools nearby with programs in Spanish, French, German, Japanese,
Chinese, and possibly more which I'm not aware of...
> Clearly the opportunities are available, but it still
> seems very few Amercians bother to learn another
> language.
That's very true--most of the students at my school see the foreign
language requirement as completely unnecessary, and insist that if
they were to learn Spanish, they should learn the
heavily-American-influenced Mexican Spanish used here instead of the
Academy in Spain's Spanish (I forget the name, apologies :).
Sharon.
--
Matt: But yeah, Latin would be cool. Plus, when you say to people "I
can speak Latin, pitiful worm!" they'll be like "Omfg, he be learned!"
Matt: and they will cower before you.
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Message: 25
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 11:11:33 +0100
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Reasonable sound changes.
On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 22:52:25 +1100, Tristan McLeay
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 9 Jan 2005, at 10.47 pm, Carsten Becker wrote:
>
> > On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 23:01:53 -0800, bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> /k_w/ -> /p/
> >
> > I don't know much about sound changes, but this feels a little
> > strange. "QU"
> > changes into "P", doesn't it?
>
> Perfectly normal, in fact. Happened in the P-celtic languages (hence
> the name), something similar happened in Greek, I think there were some
> Italic languages it happened it, and it happened in Føtisk, too :)
Romanian, too, AFAIK; ISTR the correspondance "aqua" (Latin) ~ "apa"
(Romanian). Or possibly apă.
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:19:55 +0100, Carsten Becker
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> BTW, I've always wondered why there is P and Q-Celtic. So
> it's because on the Isle, people changed /k_w/ -> /p/ and
> on the continent they didn't?
Not as simple as that -- there are P-Celtic and Q-Celtic forms in both
Insular and Continental Celtic. For example, Welsh and Cornish
(Insular) are P-Celtic while Celtiberian (Continental) was Q-Celtic.
For more information, see
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_languages (with a discussion of
the P/Q vs Insular/Continental nomenclature)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goidelic (one reference of the term "Q-Celtic")
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brythonic_languages ("P-Celtic", similarly)
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Watch the Reply-To!
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