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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Gender Bending Moro
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: Clockwise without clocks
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: Clockwise without clocks
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: Clockwise without clocks
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Clockwise without clocks
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: Clockwise without clocks
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. OT: Time (Was: Clockwise without clocks)
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: Clockwise without clocks
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: OT: Time (Was: Clockwise without clocks)
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: Clockwise without clocks
From: "Joseph a.k.a Buck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: Clockwise without clocks
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: Fan de Condorcet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: Clockwise without clocks
From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: Clockwise without clocks
From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Dimorphic conlang?
From: "Joseph a.k.a Buck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: OT Cardinal Points (was Re: Clockwise without clocks)
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: Dimorphic conlang?
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: Advanced English - new Babel text
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. OT Cardinal Points (was Re: Clockwise without clocks)
From: Joseph Bridwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: OT Cardinal Points (now a poem) (was Re: Clockwise without
clocks)
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 09:56:57 +0100
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
David J. Peterson wrote:
> I was just looking over your page. A couple questions:
>
Problem is, Pascal's German, so it's bound to be imperfect. I think
there should be a few modifications.
> -How would AE differentiate between the [dZ] in a word like
> "language" and the "dg" in a made-up word like "midguard"?
>
Well, of course there's the possibility that it follows English rules
and 'softens' before an orthographic front vowel.
> -Same goes for something like "missionary" and "vishnu",
> the first with a reduced vowel between the [S] and [n], and
> the latter without?
I'd put a schwa-letter there (which I'd suggest to be e-umlaut, a la
Luxembourgish).
>
> -Curious: Why did you use "ae" for schwa, rather than "a",
> when you use "a" for carrot [V]?
>
Again, for Schwa I'd suggest e-umlaut. For [V], I think we could have
o-tilde, which is Estonian for [7]. I'm a big fan of taking examples
from European languages.
> -According to your chart, you use "a" for [V] and [A]/[Q].
> Does this mean "cot" and "cut" would be spelled the same?
>
As I said, o-tilde would work.
> -Not familiar with British pronunciation. Does the "i" in
> "technique" rhyme with the "i" in "bit" or the "ee" in "beet"?
>
The latter. The other one would be understood as 'Technic'.
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Message: 2
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 01:24:49 -0800
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Gender Bending Moro
Having just seen Sin City, and being too disturbed to fall asleep,
I decided to send an e-mail about something truly amazing our
class discovered about Moro today (Kordofanian language of
Sudan).
[Note: This is for real. April Fool's day is over with, and I'm
pretty sure our consultant doesn't know about the custom.]
Anyone familiar with a language that has gender is probably
familiar with the following phenomenon, exemplified by the
Spanish below:
[Note: For the benefit of those who can't see diacritics, I'm
going to leave the tildes out.]
nina = girl
nino = boy
ninas = girls
ninos = boys *or* children
In other words, when the language lacks a generic word for
"child" or "kid", the masculine will be used as a gender-neutral
term, and the masculine plural will be used if there are a hundred
girls and one boy in the room.
Well, as it turns out, Moro, a real language, does *exactly* the
opposite.
ombja = boy
Ne4a = girl
lembja = boys
Je4a = girls *or* children (e.g., 100 boys and 1 girl, or all boys, too)
And there can be no mistake about this. We asked our consultant
to tell us a story about anything so that we could transcribe it,
figure it out, and have more than words and sentences to go by.
The story he told us was a brief personal history. In the relevant
part, our consultant was talking about his brother, who had five
children (Je4a), three boys and two girls. Our consultant then
told how he has four children (Je4a again), two boys and two
girls.
So, there you have it: A virtually undocumented language until
now strikes a blow for women's rights!
Well, maybe it's not as fantastic as all that, but it is interesting.
ObConlang, I immediately thought of Laadan. When I went to
look it up, though, it appears that the site I was familiar with
has disappeared... That site actually had some of the grammar
online. The sites I can find now are a kind of history of the
construction of the language, and a blog.
In my own languages, I (very artificially) create a male, female
and gender-neutral version of every human term that usually
has a gender (e.g., "man", "cousin", etc.), and then for the rest,
they all tend to be gender neutral ("worker", "monarch", etc.).
I know it's artificial, but that's the way I like to do it.
Anyway, I just wanted to share that datum, and maybe spark
a discussion of gender/noun classification in conlangs. Now
I'll try to go to sleep... *shudder*
-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
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Message: 3
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 12:13:26 +0200
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Clockwise without clocks
On Thursday 31 March 2005 22:03 +0100, Ray Brown wrote:
> The trouble with withershins/wid(d)ershins (apart from
> dialect variation) is that it is often used loosely to
> mean 'in the wrong way, in a contrary direction', which
> in fact was the original meaning of the word (from Low
> German _weddersins_). Cf. Old English _wither_ "against"/
> and L.G. _sind_ "direction", O.E. síth (<-- *sinT)
> "journey").
According to the DUDEN, "Widersinn" survived. It means
basically the same as "Unsinn", and more specifically
"against the logic" -> in the wrong way.
> It is surprising how unfamiliar many youngsters are with
> analog clock movements and indeed cannot tell the time
> from such clocks
For me, in fact, it's just the other way round. My parents
insisted that I, as well as my brother and my sister learn
to read an analog clock first. I still have an analog watch
and get by with it nicely, my brother and sister as well.
When giving the time, meanwhile *anyone* in class gives the
analog time even though the asked person has a digital
watch. I remember in primary school, especially many of the
boys in class were always quarrelling whether their
(digital) clock is right to the second or not. If someone
asked me then what the time is, I'd answer e.g. "Just half
past ten ago" and would hear from another corner of the
classroom "No, he's wrong, it's nine-thirty-two".
> Exactly - quite often, in fact, I find I need to explain
> what clockwise means :)
If nobody can read an analog clock anymore, it's not a
wonder.
> Yep - and if you're uncertain, all you have to do is to
> take a coin from your pocket and roll it slowing along
> your desktop, table-top or whatever
I was told that all those claims like "in Australia, water
in toilets turns the other way round" are nonsense. But
then, I may have misunderstood that, because corriolis
power was mentioned in one breath with that. And in fact,
corriolis powers do not exist.
> Very true - which is why the Latinate adjectives
> 'dextrorse' and 'sinistrorse' are not really
> satisfactory, as they have had opposite meanings at
> different times.
*That's* ironic.
On Friday 01 April 2005 02:19 +0100, Doug Dee wrote:
> Ok, that's perfectly clear now.
> Of course, it assumes the language in question has words
> for "right" and "left."
> Are those universal? I seem to recall reading that some
> cultures did not distinguish right & left.
IIRC the Chinese as well as other cultures have N/E/S/W
instead. There are indeed people who know where the
absolute directions are most of the time. I couldn't tell.
Carsten
--
Edatamanon le matahanarà sitayea eityabo ena Bahis Venena,
15-A8-58-1-3-9-9 ena Curan Tertanyan.
» http://www.beckerscarsten.de/?conlang=ayeri
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Message: 4
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 05:27:43 -0500
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Clockwise without clocks
On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 12:13:26 +0200, Carsten Becker
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I'd answer e.g. "Just half
>past ten ago" and would hear from another corner of the
>classroom "No, he's wrong, it's nine-thirty-two".
Of course I'd be wrong! That should have been "half past nine"! German is so
stupid by parsing "half ten" as "half past nine", or rather "half *to* ten".
c.
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Message: 5
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 11:36:17 +0100
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Clockwise without clocks
Carsten Becker wrote:
>On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 12:13:26 +0200, Carsten Becker
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>
>>I'd answer e.g. "Just half
>>past ten ago" and would hear from another corner of the
>>classroom "No, he's wrong, it's nine-thirty-two".
>>
>>
>
>Of course I'd be wrong! That should have been "half past nine"! German is so
>stupid by parsing "half ten" as "half past nine", or rather "half *to* ten".
>
>
Well, I'd rather say English is stupid for doing it the other way round,
since every other Germanic language has 'half ten' meaning 'half past
nine'.
Also, Estonian (my current obsession) has an even more interesting
system. In Estonian, 'quarter past nine' by 'veerand kümme' - literally
'a quarter of ten'. Similarly, 'pool kümme'(half of ten) and
'kolmveerand kümme' (three quarters of ten) are 'half past nine' and
'quarter to ten', respectively.
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Message: 6
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 06:13:34 -0500
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Clockwise without clocks
On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 11:36:17 +0100, Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Carsten Becker wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 12:13:26 +0200, Carsten Becker
>><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>I'd answer e.g. "Just half
>>>past ten ago" and would hear from another corner of the
>>>classroom "No, he's wrong, it's nine-thirty-two".
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Of course I'd be wrong! That should have been "half past nine"! German is so
>>stupid by parsing "half ten" as "half past nine", or rather "half *to* ten".
>>
>>
>
>Well, I'd rather say English is stupid for doing it the other way round,
>since every other Germanic language has 'half ten' meaning 'half past
>nine'.
>
>Also, Estonian (my current obsession) has an even more interesting
>system. In Estonian, 'quarter past nine' by 'veerand kümme' - literally
>'a quarter of ten'. Similarly, 'pool kümme'(half of ten) and
>'kolmveerand kümme' (three quarters of ten) are 'half past nine' and
>'quarter to ten', respectively.
So it is in German: _Viertel Zehn_ 'a quarter past nine' (literally: quarter
ten), _halb Zehn_, _dreiviertel Zehn_ 'a quarter to ten' (literally:
three-quarters ten_. It makes sense when you keep in mind how the chime (is
this the word) of the bells: At a quarter past nine, it's one time, at half
past nine, it's two times, at a quarter to ten, three times, at ten o'clock,
four times: a quarter, a half, three quarters, and the entire hour.
Only _halb Zehn_ is used in the whole German-speaking area, and _Viertel
Zehn_ is least used. In Switzerland, most won't understand either _Viertel
Zehn_ or _Dreiviertel Zehn_ at all.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
j. 'mach' wust
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Message: 7
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 13:32:20 +0200
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Clockwise without clocks
Hi!
Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> > I'd answer e.g. "Just half
> >past ten ago" and would hear from another corner of the
> >classroom "No, he's wrong, it's nine-thirty-two".
>
> Of course I'd be wrong! That should have been "half past nine"! German is so
> stupid by parsing "half ten" as "half past nine", or rather "half *to* ten".
It's not stupid!
**Henrik
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Message: 8
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 13:36:47 +0200
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: OT: Time (Was: Clockwise without clocks)
Hi!
Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> Also, Estonian (my current obsession) has an even more interesting
> system. In Estonian, 'quarter past nine' by 'veerand kümme' - literally
> 'a quarter of ten'. Similarly, 'pool kümme'(half of ten) and
> 'kolmveerand kümme' (three quarters of ten) are 'half past nine' and
> 'quarter to ten', respectively.
Ah, funny. :-) That's the same in most southern German dialects:
viertel zehn = 9:15
halb zehn = 9:30
dreiviertel zehn = 9:45
Of these, only 'halb zehn' is considered Standard High German.
My dialect allows 'zehn vor halb zehn' (ten to half ten) = 9:20, but
I'm not sure how universal that is. Most seem to allow 'fünf vor halb
zehn' for 9:25, but use 'zwanzig nach neun' for 9:20.
**Henrik
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Message: 9
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 13:38:10 +0200
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Clockwise without clocks
Hi!
"J. 'Mach' Wust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> So it is in German: _Viertel Zehn_ 'a quarter past nine' (literally: quarter
>...
Oops, you already answered this.
Next time I'll get *and read* the new postings before replying...
**Henrik
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Message: 10
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 12:58:50 +0100
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Time (Was: Clockwise without clocks)
Henrik Theiling wrote:
>Hi!
>
>Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>
>>...
>>Also, Estonian (my current obsession) has an even more interesting
>>system. In Estonian, 'quarter past nine' by 'veerand kümme' - literally
>>'a quarter of ten'. Similarly, 'pool kümme'(half of ten) and
>>'kolmveerand kümme' (three quarters of ten) are 'half past nine' and
>>'quarter to ten', respectively.
>>
>>
>
>Ah, funny. :-) That's the same in most southern German dialects:
>
> viertel zehn = 9:15
> halb zehn = 9:30
> dreiviertel zehn = 9:45
>
>Of these, only 'halb zehn' is considered Standard High German.
>
>
>
Ah, hadn't heard of that, except for 'halb zehn', obviously.
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Message: 11
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 05:40:30 -0800
From: "Joseph a.k.a Buck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Clockwise without clocks
> > You mean the pre-colonial Amerindian cultures don't know the wheel?
> > That's interesting.
>
> It seems to have been related to the development of smelting.
> Stone Age peoples like the pre-colonial Americans never got that far.
The Amerindians of North America didn't, but I believe that some of those of
South America did as evidenced precolombian toys.
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Message: 12
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 07:16:46 -0700
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Clockwise without clocks
Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Ok, that's perfectly clear now.
> > Of course, it assumes the language in question has words
> > for "right" and "left."
> > Are those universal? I seem to recall reading that some
> > cultures did not distinguish right & left.
>
> IIRC the Chinese as well as other cultures have N/E/S/W
> instead. There are indeed people who know where the
> absolute directions are most of the time. I couldn't tell.
If you live in an area with landmarks it is easy. For example, people
who live in Denver, CO, you [generally] learn quickly that the Rocky
Mountains, visible pretty much all over town, are to the west, which for
the most part makes orienting oneself easy, even when the [fairly
regular] street grid fails one. [There are people who do not acquire this
skill; it makes giving directions to them rather difficult; when
giving directions with left and right, you have to take into account
things like what direction they're coming from, etc.]
(Interestingly this is mentioned already in Wikipedia's article on Denver...)
Where I lived before, in TN, I never could get the hang of the
cardinal directions.
*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: 13
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 09:10:05 -0600
From: Fan de Condorcet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Gender Bending Moro
David,
Hehe, you woke up late, and I woke up early. Finding your message about
gender was quite the treat for me this morning.
You wrote:
[ . . . ]
>
> Well, as it turns out, Moro, a real language, does *exactly* the
> opposite.
>
> ombja = boy
> Ne4a = girl
> lembja = boys
> Je4a = girls *or* children (e.g., 100 boys and 1 girl, or all boys, too)
>
To say this is interesting is an understatement.
Now I really want to know about Moro's pronouns. Does it have feminine
pronouns? Masculine? Neuter? Is there a feminine pronoun that can be
used in a gender neutral sense, as the masculine pronoun in English
supposedly does or did? I won't hold it against you if you don't have
the answers to these questions, but I just *had* to try to find out.
[ . . . ]
>
> Anyway, I just wanted to share that datum, and maybe spark
> a discussion of gender/noun classification in conlangs. Now
> I'll try to go to sleep... *shudder*
Pleasant dreams.
CF
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Message: 14
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 16:29:33 +0100
From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Clockwise without clocks
Carsten Becker wrote at 2005-04-02 12:13:26 (+0200)
>
> I was told that all those claims like "in Australia, water in
> toilets turns the other way round" are nonsense. But then, I may
> have misunderstood that, because corriolis power was mentioned in
> one breath with that. And in fact, corriolis powers do not exist.
>
Eh? The Coriolis force is a real phenomenon. (There's a sense in
which it "doesn't exist", in that it's just a consequence of taking
your measurements in a rotating frame, but that's irrelevant to the
question of what it does to water going down a plughole.)
The fact is though, that over the size of a sink or toilet, the
Coriolis force is too small to have more than a slight statistical
effect over which way the water goes. You can easily make the water
go the "wrong" way. It does account for the direction of rotation of
hurricanes and other large weather systems, though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_force
>
> On Friday 01 April 2005 02:19 +0100, Doug Dee wrote:
>
> > Ok, that's perfectly clear now. Of course, it assumes the
> > language in question has words for "right" and "left." Are
> > those universal? I seem to recall reading that some cultures
> > did not distinguish right & left.
>
> IIRC the Chinese as well as other cultures have N/E/S/W
> instead. There are indeed people who know where the
> absolute directions are most of the time. I couldn't tell.
>
I'm quite sure the Chinese distinguish left and right, though it's
possible they use an absolute frame of reference more than in English
and German. But there are cultures which use an absolute frame almost
exclusively. Tenejapan Tzeltal, for example.
| At night, in an alien city, facing a device never seen before
| (namely a sink with two taps), one Tenejapan asked another, "Which
| is the hot tap, the uphill (southern) or the downhill (northern)
| one?".
[1]
In language Guugu Yimithirr, one uses absolute terms even to refer to
body parts, saying things like "There's an ant on your south leg"
(although there are, IIRC, terms for the left and right hands).
It would be interesting to know whether there's any kind of
implicational universal relating terms for left/right (in either an
intrinsic or a relative sense) and clockwise/anticlockwise in
languages, and how strong it is.
[1] http://www.mpi.nl/world/pub/cognition.html
or
http://www.ling.lu.se/education/homepages/ALS021/ReturningTables.pdf
(in response to
http://www.ircs.upenn.edu/download/techreports/2000/00-03.pdf)
There's been some interesting debate in recent years about possible
Whorfian effects of this kind of thing.
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Message: 15
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 16:57:09 +0100
From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Clockwise without clocks
Tim May wrote at 2005-04-02 16:29:33 (+0100)
>
> In language Guugu Yimithirr, one uses absolute terms even to refer to
That should read something like "In the Australian language Guugu Yimithirr..."
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Message: 16
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 10:30:51 -0800
From: "Joseph a.k.a Buck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Dimorphic conlang?
Have any of the conlangers here ever developed a language wherein a sentient
species' physiological or social dimorphism was reflected in the language in
other than a minor way (e.g. m/f manifesting as specifically male pronouns &
female pronouns?
Thanks.
____________________________________
One should respect public opinion in so
far as is necessary to avoid starvation
and to keep out of prison, but anything
beyond this is voluntary submission to
an unnecessary tyranny.
-- Bertrand Russell
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Message: 17
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 13:39:33 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT Cardinal Points (was Re: Clockwise without clocks)
Muke Tever wrote:
> If you live in an area with landmarks it is easy. For example, people
> who live in Denver, CO, you [generally] learn quickly that the Rocky
> Mountains, visible pretty much all over town, are to the west, which for
> the most part makes orienting oneself easy, even when the [fairly
> regular] street grid fails one. [There are people who do not acquire this
> skill; it makes giving directions to them rather difficult; when
> giving directions with left and right, you have to take into account
> things like what direction they're coming from, etc.]
>
> Where I lived before, in TN, I never could get the hang of the
> cardinal directions.
>
Aside from the town I grew up in (grid) and NYC (Manhattan mostly grid,
Brooklyn...well...) and E.Coast Florida, in other places I've lived I've
never acquired a sense of NSEW. I won't even mention Boston...
Ann Arbor Mich. (mostly grid, but with major streets that ran diagonally)
was particularly perverse*, as is present Saugatuck Mich. (tiny, mostly a
grid, all named streets; the Lake is always West, at least, even though you
can't see it from the main part of town). I could give direction in AA, and
in Saugatuck, but only in terms of Left/Right, Up/down such and such a
street...If I see a map of a new city, I orient myself, but not really in
terms of L/R. Very odd.
An old friend of mine wrote a lovely poem about his childhood in Little Rock
Ark., called "Cardinal Points"... perhaps I'll put it up on the website
temporarily (at some point...)
===========================
*As an example: Main St. ran N/S; the next NS street on the E was 4th Ave.,
then 5th Ave., (or vice-versa, I don't recall; these only ran a few blocks
in the downtown area), then Division st. and more named NS streets;
immediately parallel to the W was...1st Ave., then Ashley St., then the RR
tracks; over the tracks there was a series of short numbered NS _streets_
1st thru 7th only, then named streets. Numbered things were the exception;
also, few streets actually crossed the NS/EW dividing-line streets (so
didn't have to be designated "N X st ~S X st."), or if they did, they often
changed names..... Then there was the river (N of downtown)-- across it was
an area like lower Manhattan, a maze (it even had Broadway, Wall St. and
Maiden Lane)... But no complaints-- it was a wonderful place to live :-))
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Message: 18
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 13:40:06 -0500
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
On Fri, 1 Apr 2005 17:43:30 -0800, David J. Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I was just looking over your page. A couple questions:
>
>-How would AE differentiate between the [dZ] in a word like
>"language" and the "dg" in a made-up word like "midguard"?
You could use a hyphen (mid-guard) or an apostrophe (mid'guard).
>-Same goes for something like "missionary" and "vishnu",
>the first with a reduced vowel between the [S] and [n], and
>the latter without?
Why would you want to write vowels which are not pronounced in the first
place? Ideally, you don't, so I left them out as much as possible.
>-What is the difference between the onset of "gem" and the
>onset of "joy"?
Phonetically none, but I chose dg and dj to stay closer to the original
spelling. dj would only be used for words originally spelled with j,
otherwise dg is used.
>-Curious: Why did you use "ae" for schwa, rather than "a",
>when you use "a" for carrot [V]?
I chose this to distinct between normal a and schwa. The carrot [V] is just
a short a, so I wrote it as such.
>-According to your chart, you use "a" for [V] and [A]/[Q].
>Does this mean "cot" and "cut" would be spelled the same?
Since [Q] is closer to a than to o, I chose to write it with a.
Even if I had chosen "o", there would be some other words with then
identical spelling.
>-Not familiar with British pronunciation. Does the "i" in
>"technique" rhyme with the "i" in "bit" or the "ee" in "beet"?
It's a French word. The i is long, as in beet.
>-Curious: Why no consonant for the (inter)dental fricatives?
>There are lots of minimal pairs: dare/there/their; die/thy; tie/thigh;
>tin/thin, etc.
You'll have to take into consideration the vast amount of non-native
speakers, which now outnumber the native speakers. Most of them don't have a
th, so I thought it better to axe it.
>-Also, "s" is *always* voiced before a vowel? So "sue" and "zoo"
>are pronounced the same: [zu]?
Basically yes. A distinction would be unneccessary here.
Everyone should be able to understand "Sue goes to the zoo" regardless is
the s is voiced or not.
>-Oh, interesting. Do you pronounce "v" and "w" the same?
Yes. The difference is too small to warrant separate letters, so get rid of
a superfluent letter :D
>Neat stuff!
Thanks :)
--
Pascal A. Kramm, author of:
Shinsei: http://www.choton.org/shinsei/
Intergermansk: http://www.choton.org/ig/
Chatiga: http://www.choton.org/chatiga/
Choton: http://www.choton.org
Ichwara Prana: http://www.choton.org/ichwara/
Skälansk: http://www.choton.org/sk/
Advanced English: http://www.choton.org/ae/
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Message: 19
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 20:48:02 +0200
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Dimorphic conlang?
Quoting "Joseph a.k.a Buck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Have any of the conlangers here ever developed a language wherein a sentient
> species' physiological or social dimorphism was reflected in the language in
> other than a minor way (e.g. m/f manifesting as specifically male pronouns &
> female pronouns?
My Kalini Sapak (which I've essentially given up working on) has verbs agreeing
in gender with the subject. Does that count? It marks gender in all persons and
numbers of pronouns. (Yes, there's a neuter 1st sg.)
Andreas
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Message: 20
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 13:52:06 -0500
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 09:56:57 +0100, Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Problem is, Pascal's German, so it's bound to be imperfect.
Oh my, what an ugly arrogant attitude >:(
I can really hear the contempt in your voice... Why don't you say right
away: "Germans are lower than dirt."
Let me guess, American? Even if you think that that makes you better than
anyone else, I have news for you: IT DOESN'T.
That attitude is sadly quite common among Americans... but I also know
enough Americans which are very nice, so you can't make any generalizations
there.
> I think there should be a few modifications.
Well, then go and create your own spelling reform, rather than talking
someone else's work bad just because he's a "German".
--
Pascal A. Kramm, author of:
Shinsei: http://www.choton.org/shinsei/
Intergermansk: http://www.choton.org/ig/
Chatiga: http://www.choton.org/chatiga/
Choton: http://www.choton.org
Ichwara Prana: http://www.choton.org/ichwara/
Skälansk: http://www.choton.org/sk/
Advanced English: http://www.choton.org/ae/
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Message: 21
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 14:00:36 -0500
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English - new Babel text
On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 10:22:22 +0900, Sanghyeon Seo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I think I found some mistakes in Gettysburg Address transcription:
<snip>
Thank you very much for pointing it out :)
I will fix it immediately.
--
Pascal A. Kramm, author of:
Shinsei: http://www.choton.org/shinsei/
Intergermansk: http://www.choton.org/ig/
Chatiga: http://www.choton.org/chatiga/
Choton: http://www.choton.org
Ichwara Prana: http://www.choton.org/ichwara/
Skälansk: http://www.choton.org/sk/
Advanced English: http://www.choton.org/ae/
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Message: 22
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 14:17:42 -0500
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Gender Bending Moro
On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 01:24:49 -0800, David J. Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Spanish (alike in others)
>nina = girl
>nino = boy
>ninas = girls
>ninos = boys *or* children
>
>Well, as it turns out, Moro, a real language, does *exactly* the
>opposite.
>
>ombja = boy
>Ne4a = girl
>lembja = boys
>Je4a = girls *or* children (e.g., 100 boys and 1 girl, or all boys, too)
>
>So, there you have it: A virtually undocumented language until
>now strikes a blow for women's rights!
I think it's that way in Spansih and other languages (e.g. Italian), because
thoese are primarily male-dominated societies where the womens don't have
much influence, which reflects in the language.
If women were to have more influence in the society (or if it would even be
a female-dominated society), I could very well imagine that mixed-gender
groups would be based on the female form then - not just in Moro, but
probably also in other languages in which women have some influence in the
society (female amazon tribes, for example).
--
Pascal A. Kramm, author of:
Shinsei: http://www.choton.org/shinsei/
Intergermansk: http://www.choton.org/ig/
Chatiga: http://www.choton.org/chatiga/
Choton: http://www.choton.org
Ichwara Prana: http://www.choton.org/ichwara/
Skälansk: http://www.choton.org/sk/
Advanced English: http://www.choton.org/ae/
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Message: 23
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 12:25:16 -0700
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
Pascal A. Kramm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 09:56:57 +0100, Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> Problem is, Pascal's German, so it's bound to be imperfect.
>
> Oh my, what an ugly arrogant attitude >:(
> I can really hear the contempt in your voice... Why don't you say right
> away: "Germans are lower than dirt."
I don't think it would have to do with your ethnicity, merely with that
you are working with a language non-native to you. If an American-English
speaker attempted a spelling reform of German, similar remarks could be
expected.
*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: 24
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 19:56:20 -0000
From: Joseph Bridwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: OT Cardinal Points (was Re: Clockwise without clocks)
Knowledge of NSEW for me is influenced by my decades as a Pagan -
mentally establising cardinal points from the sun etc. is nearly a
subconscious process for me when I visit any place (though Seattle
seems to have been the most problematic for me because of the many
grey cloud-covered days).
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Message: 25
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 16:02:53 -0500
From: Roger Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT Cardinal Points (now a poem) (was Re: Clockwise without
clocks)
I wrote:
> An old friend of mine wrote a lovely poem about his childhood in Little
> Rock
> Ark., called "Cardinal Points"... perhaps I'll put it up on the website
> temporarily (at some point...)
And here it is: http://cinduworld.tripod.com/cardinal_points.htm
Enjoy!
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