There are 10 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: 30-Day Conlang: Day 27
From: Matthew Martin
2. 30-Day Conlang: Day 28
From: Gary Shannon
3a. Re: Exquisite corpse
From: David Edwards
3b. Re: Exquisite corpse
From: Njenfalgar
3c. Re: Exquisite corpse
From: Peter Bleackley
4a. Re: Diacritics
From: Njenfalgar
4b. Re: Diacritics
From: R A Brown
4c. Re: Diacritics
From: Andreas Johansson
5a. Exquisite Corpse
From: Peter Bleackley
5b. Re: Exquisite Corpse
From: Amanda Babcock Furrow
Messages
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1a. Re: 30-Day Conlang: Day 27
Posted by: "Matthew Martin" matthewdeanmar...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2010 8:55 am ((PST))
vocatives and imperatives in tokipona
There is a rule that says the double o collapses into one.
"jan Meri o, o kama!" -> "jan Meri o kama!"
jan Meri o mi kama! has two readings, vocative + an indicative sentence
but also, vocative + optative or hortative, which is formed by o + a sentence
with subject.
Mary! I am arriving, I've arrived.
Mary! We should come! Let it be that we arrive. I should come.
Messages in this topic (4)
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2. 30-Day Conlang: Day 28
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Nov 28, 2010 10:49 am ((PST))
On Day 28 I'm going to do something completely different and
completely radical. The idea came to me from the thread on CBB on
Creating Irregularity in conlangs.
I'm posting this before I actually try out this idea so that if it
fails miserably I can post that outcome as well as any positive
outcome.
I'm taking all the dictionary files I have from all my other conlangs
and mashing them together into one giant lexicon. Then I'm going to go
through the resulting file and remove words that are just way too
wrong for Txtana, modify those that can be made to fit the Txtana
phonology, and filter out the duplicate meanings (I don't really need
7 different words for "dog") by making the redundant words either more
specific (like "poodle" instead of "dog") or more general (like
"liquid" instead of "water").
If it works, and I only have to throw away half of the borrowed words
I could, theoretically, end up with 2,000 words in my dictionary by
the time I'm done.
My justification is that in my conworld some global but gradual
cataclysm pushed several different cultures together as refugees on a
small continent where, because there were so few survivors, they had
to intermarry and blend their cultures and languages into one. The
Txtana-speaking group being the most numerous, determined the grammar,
but the lexicons got blended in this linguistic melting pot.
Whether it works like a charm or fails utterly, I will post my findings here.
--gary
Messages in this topic (1)
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3a. Re: Exquisite corpse
Posted by: "David Edwards" dedwa...@stanford.edu
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2010 12:41 am ((PST))
I'm in!
On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 9:36 AM, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 12:24 PM, Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I don't think there's a need to organise any manner of set interval: the
> > sentence will only pass through your hands once, and you can take your
> time
> > with it. I assume the passing will be done offlist, to prevent everyone
>
> We should have some way of noticing when it gets stuck, though.
> Probably have people post a brief message here, or on the relay list,
> when they send their sentence to the next person, and if we go a few
> days without such a post, ask the last person who got a sentence if
> they've passed their own sentence to someone else yet...?
>
>
> --
> Jim Henry
> http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
>
Messages in this topic (24)
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3b. Re: Exquisite corpse
Posted by: "Njenfalgar" njenfal...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2010 1:45 am ((PST))
I'm game to have a go. Count me in as well!
2010/11/25 Peter Bleackley <peter.bleack...@rd.bbc.co.uk>
> Anyone for a game of Conlang Exquisite Corpse?
>
> I'll send a sentence in Khangaþyagon to somebody. Each person in turn
> translates the sentence they receive, writes a new sentence that would
> follow on from it, and translates the followon sentence into their own
> conlang. They then send the followon sentence to the next participant.
>
> Pete
>
--
Raash te feegatpin: nuukazet nhamaru'eng, shayip büngnetuk seepiit.
http://njenfalgar.4shared.com/
Messages in this topic (24)
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3c. Re: Exquisite corpse
Posted by: "Peter Bleackley" peter.bleack...@rd.bbc.co.uk
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2010 2:37 am ((PST))
On 26/11/2010 21:02, John Campbell wrote:
> What if your conlang isn't publicly documented? Could you use someone
> else's?
>
In that case, send a mini-grammar.
Pete
Messages in this topic (24)
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4a. Re: Diacritics
Posted by: "Njenfalgar" njenfal...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2010 2:08 am ((PST))
Hi all!
Having studied Vietnamese in quite some depth, I must Jean-François in
defending the diacritics. Actually there are many things wrong with
Vietnamese spelling (why use <ph> for /f/ and not use <f> for anything, for
example), but the diacritics are not part of it. Now, I personally tend to
like diacritics, so that may play a role as well.
In answer to Lars's questions: all these vowels written with diacritics are
indeed independent phonemes. A priori there is no reason one could not
invent a separate letter, like the IPA equivalent, for each of them.
However, in the time the Vietnamese script was developed, it was based on
that time's analogue of the IPA, which appeared to be a mix of Portuguese
and some other languages, with plenty of diacritics thrown in. Hence...
Native Vietnamese (and even I, to some extend) can read Vietnamese with all
the diacritics left out, but it's like English without vowels. It being
possible does not mean you _want_ to read and write like that if you don't
have to.
As for being able to make out the difference between i, í, ì, á», Ä© and á»,
that's indeed a problem, but it's one of fonts, not of Vietnamese. The
"correct" way to display these characters would be to leave on the dot and
to have the tone diacritic floating somewhere in a more visible position,
usually more at the right of the letter. That's how handwriting works, and
that's how billboards and other signs (where more thought can be put into
visibility than in the next best book or e-mail) usually display it.
In all, given a written Vietnamese word, it's possible to figure out the
pronunciation, which is very nice for learners (non-natives and
schoolchildren alike). Cannot be said of such diacritic-free languages like
English... And in my taste, Vietnamese orthography is much better than, say,
Hmong romanized script. What the heck does <b> have to do with high tone, or
<m> with glottalization?
Diacritically yours,
David
2010/11/27 Lars Finsen <lars.fin...@ortygia.no>
> Den 27. nov. 2010 kl. 07.18 skreiv Jean-François Colson:
>
>
>> I don't understand what you find wrong in the Vietnamese spelling. IMO
>> it's a very well thought system.
>>
>
> So maybe they aren't quite out of control after all?
>
>
> The breve is used to distinguish two values commonly associated to the
>> letter a: a = /É/, Ä = /a/.
>> The circumflex means the vowel is closer: a = /É/, â = /É/; e = /É/, ê =
>> /e/; o = /É/, ô = /o/.
>> The horn means a back vowel is unrounded: o = /É/, Æ¡ = /ɤ/; u = /u/, Æ° =
>> /ɯ/.
>>
>
> But are all these independent phonemes, or are they all or some of them
> just allophonic variations? If the latter, why not just let the condition
> triggering the allophony be its marker as well?
>
>
> And finally there are five diacritics to mark five of the six tones:
>> - an acute for the high rising tone (/˧˥/),
>> - a grave for the low falling tone (/˧˩/),
>> - a hook above for the dipping tone (/˧˩˧/),
>> - a tilde for the glottalized rizing tone (/˧˥Ë/),
>> - a dot below for the glottalized falling tone (/˧˩Ë/).
>> The mid tone (/˧/) is left unmarked.
>>
>
> But are they really needed? Won't native speakers know which tone to use?
> Or are there too many minimal pairs that can be confused in reading?
>
>
> That's clear, neat, easy to master.
>>
>
> Neat isn't exactly the first word coming to my mind. But I agree that there
> is some logic to it.
>
> LEF
>
--
Raash te feegatpin: nuukazet nhamaru'eng, shayip büngnetuk seepiit.
http://njenfalgar.4shared.com/
Messages in this topic (24)
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4b. Re: Diacritics
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2010 6:05 am ((PST))
Been a bit busy in the last few days - just catching up!
On 27/11/2010 09:45, J. 'Mach' Wust wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 11:37:06 +0000, R A Brown<r...@carolandray.plus.com>
> wrote:
[snip]
> Of course, the new way of (mostly) not creating new letters is due to the
> influence of the Scriptures, which in Western Europe were written in the
> Latin script,
I doubt very much whether this is so. The Roman alphabet,
in which the Latin version of the scriptures were written,
has a mere 23 letters. The modern English version has 26 - I
make that three extra letters.
You may complain that _u_ and _v_ were once the same, just
as _i_ and _j_ were, so it's only one extra. But if the
scriptures had the effect you suggest, surely there would
have been resistance to treating all four as separate
letters. In any case, _w_ by any definition is an addition.
In Middle English yogh and thorn were regularly used.
Indeed, thorn remained in use till the early modern period.
My understanding is that it was the invention of printing
that killed of thorn - not any respect for the scriptures.
The early printers got their fonts from the continent and
simply substituted _y_ for thorn (as in the mock antique "ye
olde teas shoppe")
>while in ancient times, there was nothing comparable to that.
What? The Greek scriptures were around (and still are) for
some time before a Latin version of the scriptures became
authorized in the 4th century CE. The Greek Old testament
had been around about 600 years by then, and the New
Testament had begun, of course, in the 1st century CE. When
the Greek alphabet was used to produce a Coptic version of
the scriptures, the Copts felt no scruples to adding a few
signs from the old Egyptian demotic script to pad out the
Greek one (just as my Old English forebears were not averse
to adding the Runic wen and thorn to the Roman alphabet at a
later date). Nor we Cyril & Methodius averse to added extra
the Greek alphabet to produce scriptures in Old Slavonic.
-----------------------------------------------------
On 29/11/2010 10:06, Njenfalgar wrote:
> Hi all!
[snip]
>
> As for being able to make out the difference between i,
> í, ì, á», Ä© and á», that's indeed a problem, but it's one
> of fonts, not of Vietnamese.
Yes, but IMO it's a problem of diacritics generally, not
specifically of Vietnamese.
> The "correct" way to display
> these characters would be to leave on the dot and to have
> the tone diacritic floating somewhere in a more visible
> position, usually more at the right of the letter. That's
> how handwriting works, and that's how billboards and
> other signs (
That may be what is done in Vietnamese. But it ain't
universally so. Nor is the "correct" way of displaying
diacritics on _i_ everywhere.
[snip]
> In all, given a written Vietnamese word, it's possible to
> figure out the pronunciation, which is very nice for
> learners (non-natives and schoolchildren alike). Cannot
> be said of such diacritic-free languages like English...
It can be said of diacritic-free languages like Swahili,
Xhosa, Zulu etc. etc. The fact that one cannot always
figure out the pronunciation of English is nothing
whatsoever to with the lack of diacritics - as many of the
hundreds of proposals for English spelling reform demonstrate.
----------------------------------------------
As I see it, diacritics have come to have two uses:
(a) to denote various prosodic features, e.g. pitch, tone,
irregular stress (the reason why they were first invented).
(b) to be added to letters to denote different sounds (e.g.
the circumflex in Esperanto).
Both these things can be done, of course, be done by the use
of digraphs (or trigraphs) and this, for those with impaired
eyesight, is surely preferable.
IMO their use for (b) is a poor choice compared with that of
adding another distinct letter.
(a) above IMO is the "proper" use of diacritics, but the
symbols are, probably, better displayed either to the right
or left of the symbol to which the prosody is attached.
--
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 (24)
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4c. Re: Diacritics
Posted by: "Andreas Johansson" andre...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2010 6:31 am ((PST))
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 3:01 PM, R A Brown <r...@carolandray.plus.com> wrote:
[snip]
> As I see it, diacritics have come to have two uses:
> (a) to denote various prosodic features, e.g. pitch, tone, irregular stress
> (the reason why they were first invented).
> (b) to be added to letters to denote different sounds (e.g. the circumflex
> in Esperanto).
>
> Both these things can be done, of course, be done by the use of digraphs (or
> trigraphs) and this, for those with impaired eyesight, is surely preferable.
>
> IMO their use for (b) is a poor choice compared with that of adding another
> distinct letter.
Salience is not the only criterion, of course, but I'm not sure I
accept that separate letters are more easily distinguished than
diacritics in practice.
Is, frex, _u_ more distinct from _a_ than _ä_ is? Not in my
handwriting at any rate!
Also, the use of the same diacritic on different letters allows to
hint at phonological systemicity more easily than inventing new
letters. Consider, say, German _ä ö ü_ v. _a o u_ - replacing the
former three with novel letters that still hint at the relationship
with one another and with the later set isn't trivial. Diacritics
seems like a good idea to me whenever we want featural, er, features
in a basically alphabetical script.
> (a) above IMO is the "proper" use of diacritics, but the symbols are,
> probably, better displayed either to the right or left of the symbol to
> which the prosody is attached.
I didn't see Gary's private reply, but I'm not sure why. If, as he
seemed to suggest in an earlier mail, the problem is that they're
small and easily missed, the solution would seem to be bigger, more
salient symbols, not displaced ones.
--
Andreas Johansson
Why can't you be a non-conformist just like everybody else?
Messages in this topic (24)
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5a. Exquisite Corpse
Posted by: "Peter Bleackley" peter.bleack...@rd.bbc.co.uk
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2010 5:35 am ((PST))
Here's the running order for the Exquisite Corpse game.
Samuel Stutter
Lars Finsen
Patrick Dunn
Tony Harris
Arthaey Angosii
Jim Henry
neo gu
John Campbell
Amanda Babcock Furrow
Douglas Koller
kechpaja
Roman Rausch
Alex Fink
Logan Kearsley
David Edwards
Njenfalgar
... and then back to me. We might do a second round if all goes well.
You can find your successor's email address on the list archives.
A reminder of the rules - you will receive a sentence in a conlang and
the information you need to translate it. After translating it, write a
sentence that follows on from it in your own conlang, and send that, and
the relevant information, to your successor. Do not send on the sentence
you received.
I'm just sending the first sentence to Sam now.
Pete
Messages in this topic (2)
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5b. Re: Exquisite Corpse
Posted by: "Amanda Babcock Furrow" la...@quandary.org
Date: Mon Nov 29, 2010 7:12 am ((PST))
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 01:32:58PM +0000, Peter Bleackley wrote:
> A reminder of the rules - you will receive a sentence in a conlang and
> the information you need to translate it. After translating it, write a
> sentence that follows on from it in your own conlang, and send that, and
> the relevant information, to your successor. Do not send on the sentence
> you received.
Where should we send our official copy of our decipherment of the sentence
we received and our new sentence with its intended translation for posterity?
If we wait till the end to put these up someplace, someone will inevitably
have gone unreachable in the meantime.
(I am hoping this goes quickly, as I'd have to drop out if it doesn't get
to me by 12/28.)
Looking forward to this,
Amanda
Messages in this topic (2)
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