There are 12 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Celticity? From: R A Brown 2a. Re: Celticity? (was: Teresa Edgerton conlangs) From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets 3a. Re: Fight Linguistic Extinction From: MorphemeAddict 4a. Celtic & other myths (was: Celticity?) From: R A Brown 5a. Re: Sino-Romance in the LLL? From: Peter Bleackley 6a. As the Actress Said to the Bishop From: Peter Bleackley 6b. Re: As the Actress Said to the Bishop From: Larry Sulky 6c. Re: As the Actress Said to the Bishop From: Tony Harris 6d. Re: As the Actress Said to the Bishop From: p...@phillipdriscoll.com 6e. Re: As the Actress Said to the Bishop From: Alex Fink 6f. Re: As the Actress Said to the Bishop From: Samuel Stutter 7a. Re: Creating Confonts / IME From: J. 'Mach' Wust Messages ________________________________________________________________________ 1a. Re: Celticity? Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com Date: Thu Sep 23, 2010 11:54 pm ((PDT)) On 23/09/2010 16:42, Andreas Johansson wrote: [snip] > > AFMCL, Meghean has been said to exhibit "Celticity". To > the extent that's true, it's of a second-hand variety - Yes, very much second-hand variety IMO :) > the chief inspiration, for phonology and orthography, was > Sindarin. IT's by no means a phonological calque, tho, > including a number of sounds Sindarin lacks (incl [ɣ], > which JRRT seems to have disliked - True - and it's possibly one of the reasons he found the Gaelic languages ugly. [snip] > Apart from the obligatory mutations (which aren't really > all that close to Sindarin's - don't know enough of > Celtic mutations to say how close they're to them), Nothing like the mutations in Welsh & the other Brittonic languages. The lenition of plosives (and others) to fricatives is sort of reminiscent of the Gaelic languages - but similar mutation occurs in other languages, e.g. Biblical Hebrew. The way the mutation is triggered in Meghean is not obviously "Celtic" IMO. [snip] > > What I've seen of Gaulish looks more Italicoid than > anything else to me. Such impressions are not evidence, ...and ancient British is usually thought to have been similar to Gaulish. AFAIK the is *no* evidence at all that anything like initial consonant mutations occurred in Gaulish or any other continental Celtic language nor, for that matter, in ancient British. The development of these mutation appears to have been peculiar to Ireland and, later, Britain and did not develop the same way in the two islands. ------------------------------------------------- On 23/09/2010 21:18, taliesin the storyteller wrote: > On 2010-09-23 21:17, Patrick Dunn wrote: >> I unabashedly stole the slender-with-slender >> broad-with-broad vowel system of Irish for Aerest (not >> to mention the name), but now I'm thinking I have made >> an aesthetic error in the eyes of the cognoscenti. > > Some people were born with an allergy to peanuts, others > developed it later. Others yet again love peanuts and mix > 'em in with everything. FWIW, I personally have nothing against the slender-with-slender broad-with-broad vowel system of Irish per_se. I love all nuts, including peanuts, and do have a tendency to mix nuts with all sorts of things. But some mixes are better than others. It's the mixture that matters. -- Ray ================================== http://www.carolandray.plus.com ================================== "Ein Kopf, der auf seine eigene Kosten denkt, wird immer Eingriffe in die Sprache thun." [J.G. Hamann, 1760] "A mind that thinks at its own expense will always interfere with language". Messages in this topic (11) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 2a. Re: Celticity? (was: Teresa Edgerton conlangs) Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com Date: Fri Sep 24, 2010 12:02 am ((PDT)) On 23 September 2010 21:17, Patrick Dunn <pwd...@gmail.com> wrote: > I unabashedly stole the slender-with-slender broad-with-broad vowel > system of Irish for Aerest (not to mention the name), but now I'm > thinking I have made an aesthetic error in the eyes of the > cognoscenti. > > If it fits the language, I don't see why you shouldn't. Gaelic is not the only orthography to use vowels to mark consonantal distinctions (look at the Cyrillic alphabet, for instance, which has two series of vowels whose only difference is that one indicates that the preceding consonant is palatalised and the other not), so I don't see why a slender-with-slender broad-with-broad couldn't have evolved independently somewhere else (of course, if you copied it *exactly*, that's something else :P ). -- Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets. http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/ http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/ Messages in this topic (22) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 3a. Re: Fight Linguistic Extinction Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" lytl...@gmail.com Date: Fri Sep 24, 2010 12:34 am ((PDT)) 57 is Lojban. I don't know who translated it. I don't see Klingon there at all. stevo On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 7:55 PM, Mario Bonassin <tar_sa...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > I have recently found the images from the t-shirt that we did for this list > back in 02'ish. It was the second attempt and I managed to gather nearly > 100 different conlangs for it. > > I have put them up on my website and I'd like to gather the Name and Author > of the different conlangs. I don't know if many of the people that > contributed are still around or not. But I'd like to get as many as I can. > > So if you recognize your own handywork or that of someone else please let > me > know, I'd love to give you credit. > > you can reply to this thread or you can email me at tar_saron AT > yahoo.com > > here is the webpage. > > http://www.conlang.net/conlangs/conlist.html > Messages in this topic (16) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 4a. Celtic & other myths (was: Celticity?) Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com Date: Fri Sep 24, 2010 12:54 am ((PDT)) On 23/09/2010 23:34, J�rg Rhiemeier wrote: > Hallo! > > On Thu, 23 Sep 2010 12:17:18 +0100, R A Brown wrote: [snip] >> Now the name has stuck and any attempt to name this >> sub-branch of IE differently is doomed to failure. > > There are several names of language groups which are > equally questionable. We have no evidence that the > languages usually named "Tocharian" by linguists had > anything to do with the people who are called _Tocharoi_ > in Hellenistic sources; many scholars now assume that the > _Tocharoi_ were in fact an Iranian people. True. > Similar problems with "Hittite". Yep - the only language called "Hittite"(i.e. the language of the Hittites) in the ancient world was the non-IE language we now call "Hattic" (not to be confused with a conlang of the same name!) For the language of the pre-IE Hittites, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattic_language For the conlang called 'Hattic' see: http://steen.free.fr/khadurian/hattic_grammar.html When Jan van Steenbergen, who was (still is?) a member of this list, developed Hattic he had no idea that a natlang of the same name existed. IIRC he did think of changing the name of his conlang but thought that as it was set in an entirely different area at a different time no one in their right mind would confuse the two. Yet I notice on one website the warning: "Hattic (z�juk Chader) is a fictional diachronic language invented by Jan van Steenbergen. It should be noted that Hattic has nothing in common with the ancient, non-IE Hattic language of the same name, spoken in Anatolia long ago." :) But I digress. What we call "Hittite" the ancients referred to as the language of Ne�a". The modern English would be Nesic, Nesian or, maybe, Nesite. In my M.Litt thesis I consistently referred to the language as Nesite; but the misnomer "Hittite" is, alas, too firmly established to change, even though it's as inappropriate as calling modern English "British." > With "Celtic", we at least know that the people referred > to as _Keltoi_ in ancient sources indeed spoke a language > belonging to that group. Yes, but the _Celti_ named by the Romans were one the peoples that made up those known collectively as "Gauls." It has been observed that 'Gallic' would have been a better name, but it was politically unacceptable in 18th century Britain since its was too closely associated with the French who were, of course, our "natural enemies." (Yes, folks, that term was widely used and appears in contemporary print - a bit of state propaganda to persuade the common man that it was natural to go and bash the French!) >> One of things that bugs me, however, is the assumption >> that the peculiarities of the Insular Celtic languages >> are features of the Celtic sub-branch of IE as a whole. >> In fact what we know of ancient Gaulish seems to >> contradict that. > > Indeed, indeed! There is not a shred of evidence for the > existence of any of the Insular Celtic peculiarities > (VSO word order, initial mutations, profusion of spirants > from the lenition of stops, etc.) in Gaulish, Lepontic > or Celtiberian! These languages are much more similar to > Latin in their structure than they are to Insular > Celtic. Absolutely - yet if a conlang occurs that purports to be a survival of a Continental Celtic language, what's the betting it will have most, if not all, of these features! > The Continental Celtic language I have under work for > the League of Lost Language shows *nothing* of the > typical traits of an Insular Celtic language. Good for you. [snip] > > On the Insular side, the uncertain member is Pictish, > long considered non-IE, but according to more recent > studies, probably Brythonic. As I've pointed out before, 'Picti' simply means "painted people." Many think that the "painted people" were not all of the same stock, i.e. it included peoples who spoke Brythonic/Brittonic language(s), but there were others who spoke a non-IE language. Certainly non-IE languages must have been spoken in Ireland & Britain way before the spread of IE to these islands. [snip] > >> But I do find it annoying when people write, for >> example, as though the ancient Brits and ancient Irish >> felt themselves kindred people sharing a common >> culture. It just ain't true. The ancient Brits >> experienced the Irish as alien pirates and raiders much >> like the Saxons. > [snip] > > Often, the "Celts" are even identified with the "megalith > culture" (itself a doubtful concept), utterly ignoring > the fact that the megalithic monuments are far too old to > have anything to do with the "Celts". Some were erected > at a time when Indo-European was just the language of a > tribe on the Ukrainian steppe. Exactly!! And there was nothing Celtic about Stone Henge - but try telling the modern self-styled druids! > And as if all that was not enough, there is also a lot of > boohow about "Celtic Christianity", as if there had been > a wiser and more truthful tradition of Christianity that > was stomped out by the evil Roman church. In fact, > "Celtic Christianity", which of course was never named > that way in its time, was just a branch of Western > Christianity that did some rather peripheral things such > as monks' tonsures or the calculation of Easter dates > differently (but shared the same doctrine and > acknowledged the authority of the Roman pope) - Exactly! I'm darn sure the remnant of British Christianity, which had become inward looking and turned its back on the Saxons, felt no particularly closer connexion with the vibrant Christianity developing in Ireland than it did to Christianity on on the Continent. The difference over Easter was merely one of calculation. All accepted the Nicaean decree that it was the Sunday on or following the full moon after the Spring equinox. But this was calculated according to tables drawn up which did not always correspond to the actual astrological date. It's just that by the time the Irish monks and monks from Rome were at last evangelizing the Saxons, Rome in common with most other Christian communities had adopted the tables of calculation drawn up by the Alexandrians; the Irish were obviously still using an older set of tables. No big deal - at Whitby every one fell in line. The notion of the "Celtic Church" seems have been a Victorian invention which, inevitably, has stuck. >> No one in ancient times ever referred to the >> inhabitants of Britain or Ireland as Celts. It wasn't >> till the 18th century they were so named - and since >> then all sorts of nonsense has appeared which Tolkien >> objected to - and so do I. > > And I. Amen. -- Ray ================================== http://www.carolandray.plus.com ================================== "Ein Kopf, der auf seine eigene Kosten denkt, wird immer Eingriffe in die Sprache thun." [J.G. Hamann, 1760] "A mind that thinks at its own expense will always interfere with language". Messages in this topic (11) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 5a. Re: Sino-Romance in the LLL? Posted by: "Peter Bleackley" peter.bleack...@rd.bbc.co.uk Date: Fri Sep 24, 2010 1:59 am ((PDT)) staving Anthony Miles: > Okay, Sino-Romance won't work in the Roman or Chinese Empire. Perhaps we > can put it somewhere in-between (I still want to make a viable GMP). Maybe > the Chinese influence is a perception only due to the tones? Whatever works - > the conlang, not the conculture, is the governing factor here. Mind you, it does occur to me that it might have been harder for speakers of non-tonal Latin to learn a tonal Chinese language than for speakers of a Chinese language to learn Latin. Also, I still maintain that despite the great pride that the Chinese take in their culture, Oriental women of that period would have been expected to obey their husbands in all things. I've not really taken part in LLL, but the premiss seems to be "What could have slipped under history's radar?" > Speaking of creoles, though, if two SOV languages with similar structural > rules > made contact, would that result in an SOV creole? I don't see why not. The things common to both languages should be the ones most likely to be retained. Pete Messages in this topic (10) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 6a. As the Actress Said to the Bishop Posted by: "Peter Bleackley" peter.bleack...@rd.bbc.co.uk Date: Fri Sep 24, 2010 2:53 am ((PDT)) The title of this message is a stock phrase used in the UK as the punchline to an accidental double entendre or innuendo. I thought it would be an interesting translation exercise, as it can't be translated literally. What would the equivalent term in your conlang? I'll try to think up ones for my conlangs over the weekend. Pete Messages in this topic (6) ________________________________________________________________________ 6b. Re: As the Actress Said to the Bishop Posted by: "Larry Sulky" larrysu...@gmail.com Date: Fri Sep 24, 2010 5:44 am ((PDT)) For that matter, what do other natlangs and other varieties of English do? Messages in this topic (6) ________________________________________________________________________ 6c. Re: As the Actress Said to the Bishop Posted by: "Tony Harris" t...@alurhsa.org Date: Fri Sep 24, 2010 6:28 am ((PDT)) On 09/24/2010 09:19 AM, Alex Fink wrote: > On Fri, 24 Sep 2010 08:42:10 -0400, Larry Sulky<larrysu...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> For that matter, what do other natlangs and other varieties of English do? > "That's what she said!" is more or less a N. Am. analogue, as I understand it. > > Alex If that's the case, then the Alurhsa equivalent would be "Kólfe dívé". Literally "Thus is said". Messages in this topic (6) ________________________________________________________________________ 6d. Re: As the Actress Said to the Bishop Posted by: "p...@phillipdriscoll.com" p...@phillipdriscoll.com Date: Fri Sep 24, 2010 7:03 am ((PDT)) Alex Fink wrote: > > Larry Sulky wrote: > > > > For that matter, what do other natlangs and other varieties of English do? > > "That's what she said!" is more or less a N. Am. analogue, as I understand it. Yep. First person: "I think the task may be difficult, but I'll try to do it." Second person, innocently: "It's so hard. Do you think you can keep it up?" First person: "That's what she said!" Messages in this topic (6) ________________________________________________________________________ 6e. Re: As the Actress Said to the Bishop Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com Date: Fri Sep 24, 2010 7:03 am ((PDT)) On Fri, 24 Sep 2010 08:42:10 -0400, Larry Sulky <larrysu...@gmail.com> wrote: >For that matter, what do other natlangs and other varieties of English do? "That's what she said!" is more or less a N. Am. analogue, as I understand it. Alex Messages in this topic (6) ________________________________________________________________________ 6f. Re: As the Actress Said to the Bishop Posted by: "Samuel Stutter" sam.stut...@student.manchester.ac.uk Date: Fri Sep 24, 2010 7:13 am ((PDT)) I tried to think of one which didn't rely to heavily on English puns, instead using *universal* double-entendres, which aren't likely to differ hugely between languages. And Nauspayr is a devil for puns already; many which I put in deliberately; the word for "fox" sounds identical to the word "fleet", (referencing the band) only differing in noun class. Yet, of course, Julian Clary came to the rescue with: " Plú qêl plêtt blåmél bråh beaheq dårrec " Literally: " And an applause warm to benefit your entry " Or: "And a warm hand upon your entrance" :D On 24 Sep 2010, at 10:52, Peter Bleackley wrote: > The title of this message is a stock phrase used in the UK as the > punchline to an accidental double entendre or innuendo. I thought it > would be an interesting translation exercise, as it can't be > translated literally. What would the equivalent term in your conlang? > > I'll try to think up ones for my conlangs over the weekend. > > Pete Messages in this topic (6) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 7a. Re: Creating Confonts / IME Posted by: "J. 'Mach' Wust" j_mach_w...@yahoo.com Date: Fri Sep 24, 2010 4:48 am ((PDT)) On Thu, 23 Sep 2010 11:04:17 -0500, Daniel Nielsen wrote: >Thank you for the information, Carsten and JMW. It sounds like it may be >best if I use pixel graphics and write my own text editor at this point. I'm >too afraid I'll get caught up in the bloaty computer side of things and >leave off on the actual language development. :) I'd say, though, that if you do it with OpenType ligatures, then adding those ligatures to the font is not much additional work. If you already create the font with FontForge, you can add the ligatures with FontForge, too. Of course, creating 800 glyphs is indeed a lot of work. -- grüess mach Messages in this topic (7) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/ <*> Your email settings: Digest Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join (Yahoo! 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