There are 21 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. YAGST: Why sp-, st- in German?
From: Carsten Becker
1b. Re: YAGST: Why sp-, st- in German?
From: J. 'Mach' Wust
2a. classification of slavic languages, old slavonic etc.
From: Vojtěch Merunka
2b. Re: classification of slavic languages, old slavonic etc.
From: Jan van Steenbergen
3a. Re: Fight Linguistic Extinction
From: Jan van Steenbergen
4a. theory of old slavonic as a medieval conlang
From: Vojtěch Merunka
4b. Re: theory of old slavonic as a medieval conlang
From: Jan van Steenbergen
4c. Re: theory of old slavonic as a medieval conlang
From: Vojtěch Merunka
5a. Equisite Corpse Status...
From: Tony Harris
5b. Re: Equisite Corpse Status...
From: Larry Sulky
5c. Re: Equisite Corpse Status...
From: Tony Harris
5d. Re: Equisite Corpse Status...
From: Jan van Steenbergen
5e. Re: Equisite Corpse Status...
From: neo gu
5f. Re: Equisite Corpse Status...
From: Patrick Dunn
5g. Re: Equisite Corpse Status...
From: Garth Wallace
5h. Re: Equisite Corpse Status...
From: Logan Kearsley
6a. Diacritics vs. extra letters vs. digraphs
From: Herman Miller
6b. Re: Diacritics vs. extra letters vs. digraphs
From: David Peterson
7a. Re: the concept of slavic conlangs Slovio, Slovianski, Slovioski and
From: neo gu
8a. A birthday list?
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
8b. Re: A birthday list?
From: Carsten Becker
Messages
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1a. YAGST: Why sp-, st- in German?
Posted by: "Carsten Becker" carb...@googlemail.com
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 5:36 am ((PST))
Hi,
I'm just wondering whether there's any reason why the spelling of [ʃp]
and [ʃt] in German is sp- and st-, not *schp- and *scht- in analogy to
other sC- combinations. The sound change s > S / #_C is realized in
orthography for other possible combinations as well, after all, e.g.
slac > Schlag, smerze > Schmerz, snê > Schnee, swester > Schwester.
According to my MHG dictionary, ?/sr/ is spelled <schr> already, at
least in the modern normalized orthography.
Carsten
PS: YAGST = YA German Spelling T
--
Ayeri Grammar (under construction): http://bit.ly/9dSyTI (PDF)
Der Sprachbaukasten: http://sanstitre.nfshost.com/sbk
Messages in this topic (2)
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1b. Re: YAGST: Why sp-, st- in German?
Posted by: "J. 'Mach' Wust" j_mach_w...@yahoo.com
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 6:05 am ((PST))
On Sat, 4 Dec 2010 13:46:09 +0100, Carsten Becker wrote:
>I'm just wondering whether there's any reason why the spelling of [ʃp]
>and [ʃt] in German is sp- and st-, not *schp- and *scht- in analogy to
>other sC- combinations. The sound change s > S / #_C is realized in
>orthography for other possible combinations as well, after all, e.g.
>slac > Schlag, smerze > Schmerz, snê > Schnee, swester > Schwester.
>According to my MHG dictionary, ?/sr/ is spelled <schr> already, at
>least in the modern normalized orthography.
I rather wonder why <sl sm sn sw> changed to the rather clumsy spellings
<schl schm schn schw>. As you have said, the spelling <schr> already
existed. The reason is that it comes from older /skr/ where the /sk/
regularly changed to /ʃ/, spelled as <sch>. So there was a precedence for
<sch> + continuant.
Other than that, I can think of two possible factors why <st sp> persisted,
but not <sl sm sn sw>:
1. The combinations <st sp> frequently occur in Latin, but none of <sl sm sn
sw> do.
2. The combinations <st sp> are not confined to the beginning of a word,
while <sl sm sn sw> are. There are two possible consequences of this: Either
initial and medial <st sp> had different pronunciations, as in modern
standard German. Then the occurence of medial <st sp> might have helped to
retaining initial <st sp> by analogy of spelling. Or initial and medial <st
sp> were pronounced the same, as in modern Southwestern German dialects.
Then changing both initial and medial <st sp> to *<scht schp> might have
been too much of a change.
BTW the sound change was not s > ʃ / #_C but rather something like ɕ
> ʃ
/#_C AND ɕ > s #_V. Slavic loanwords from Medieval German render German "S"
as /ʃ/, not as /s/, and the Hungarian spelling of /ʃ/ as <s> and /s/
as <sz>
is another Medieval German export.
--
grüess
mach
Messages in this topic (2)
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2a. classification of slavic languages, old slavonic etc.
Posted by: "Vojtěch Merunka" vmeru...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 5:57 am ((PST))
Hello everybody,
>> But more seriously: I studied miscellaneous works on the subject of
>> Slavic languages similarities and classification. I think that
>> tree-based hierarchic models are wrong way. I propose to use
>> heptatochomic network model by V. V. Ivanov(*) filled by metrics by
>> Zhuravlev(**), which looks like this (please set monospaced font):
>>
>> +---------------lechitic (polish)------northern(novgorodian)
>> polabian | |
>> (lusatian,...) | |
>> +-------------czechoslovak-------------------eastern(UA,BY,RUS)
>> | |
>> | |
>> slovenian-serbocroatian----macedonian-bulgarian
>>
> Yeah, this is a model very similar to the one Slovianski uses: six branches,
> or
> subbranches, while the Polabian/Sorbian one is usually not taken into
> consideration. I'm not so sure about juxtaposing Czechoslovak and Eastern,
> though.
>
Jan, maybe ordinary people do not feel this similarities because of
different alphabets, accents and cultural and political background of
eastern and western languages, but it is real, indeed:
This is based on the deep lexicostatistical test made by Zhuravlev (*)
from the etymological dictionary of slavic languages in 15 books (ed.
O.N. Trubachev, Moscow 1974).
There is a complex formula how to compute statistical distance of languages:
G(A,B) = SUM i is from 2 to n ((n + 2 - i) * V(A,B)i) / H(A) / H(B), where
A,B are tested languages,
n is total number of tested languages
G(A,B) is congruence of these two languages
H(A), H(B) is inherited dictionary from common root of these two languages
V(A,B)i is isoglossa
In this formula, the higher value has isoglossa limited to only two
languages and the lower number has isoglossa, which is common for more
languages.
The highest number of profimity is between upper and lower lusatian
sorbian: 1.93,
Bulgarian-Slavomacedonian has 1.73,
Czech-Slovak has 1.36,
Bielorusian-Russian has 1.27,
Ukrainian-Russian has 1.20 (but ukrainians learn Russian as well) and
Polish-Bulgarian has only 0.93 etc.
If languages have proximity at least 1.1, they can be assigned into one
group, but this approach goes intoa lot of such similar solutions.
For mutual understanding of ordinary people You need to have at least 1.2.
Old Slavonic has value 1.15 (to Polish) or better (1.27 to Czech, for
example) to modern slavic languages.
> I tend to see the Slavic languages as a wheel, or circle:
> Russian - Belarussian - Ukrainian - Rusyn - Polish - Cashubian - Lower
> Sorbian - Upper Sorbian - Czech - Slovak - Slovene - Serbo-Croatian -
> Macedonian - Bulgarian - back to Russian
>
>
I do not thing so. In circle You do not have inner relations.
Belarussian and Polish are not connected only through Rusyn and
Ukraininan, for example.
> But it really depends how you look at it. Phonologically, the most obvious
> distinction is North - South (where Czech and Slovak are closer to the South);
> lexically, the East/West distinction is at least as important as the
> North/South
> distinction.
>
>
Yes, there are many scientific models how to classify slavic languages.
See references below.
> But tell me, does Ivanov actually call Old Novgorian a "North Slavic
> language"?
> I've been looking for sources for the hypothesis of a fourth (North Slavic)
> group, but couldn't find it.
>
>
Yes, Novgorodian is assigned as the independent group. But total number
of literary heritage is very small as far I know.
>> The ideal candidate for interslavic language from current modern
>> languages is probably Slovak or something shift bit closer to Rusyn. But
>> if we extend this model to extinct languages, the best candidate is Old
>> Slavonic.
>>
> Well, there are in fact several candidates. Slovak and Rusyn are indeed pretty
> much at the epicentre of the Slavic languages, but they have a lot of their
> own specificalities as well. Another good candidate would be Old Ruthenian
> (a.k.a. Old Belorussian).
Belorussian? Why?
> And Church Slavonic, as you say. But the best
> candidate would of course be a modernised form of reconstructed Proto-
> Slavic! :)
>
No, I say OLD SLAVONIC, not Church Slavonic. See another mail.
Protoslavic is yet more archaic than old slavonic. In protoslavic You
have constructs, which are not present in any current slavic language
except Polish.
>> There are also another not so scientific but also meaningful arguments
>> for the preference of modernized Old Slavonic:
>>
>> 1) Old Slavonic was already a conlang!
>>
> I have heard that theory, but as far as I know, it is absolutely not a broadly
> recognised one.
>
>
in another mail
>> 2) Old Slavonic is usualy assigned to the sub-group of southslavic
>> languages by its grammar and phonetics. Southslavic phonetics and
>> grammar (e.g. verbal system) is good candidate for an inter-Slavic
>> language. Southern accent is not so soft as eastern, and has very
>> similar phonetics with romance languages and Greek. This is not a bad
>> company, is it?
>>
> Well, that's a matter of taste, really. To me, it is doubtful that South
> Slavic
> grammar (excluding Slovene) is such a good candidate, because it is so
> radically different from the remaining Slavic languages. IMO an Interslavic
> language should avoid forms that are not understandable at all to over 75% of
> the Slavic population.
>
Who says? Simply say, this is not true. Maybe it is based on some polish
perception of the surrounding languages, which I do not know. Southern
people feel it differently.
Maybe this is the explanation: except Polish, any other slavic nation
has its closely related and easy understandable language of another
slavic nation. But who knows...
BTW. Our results with Neoslavonic in polish forums are also not so bad, eh?
> The greatest disadvantage of OCS, however, is not that it is archaic, but that
> it never covered the whole Slavic territory. There has never been any mutual
> influence with Polish at all, and its influence on Ukrainian has been very
> limited
> as well. It is not more understandable to a Pole than, say, Classical Latin
> is to
> a Frenchman.
Old Slavonic is not understandable to any modern man in the same way as
Old Anglo-Saxon for anybody English speaking person. Jan, please, do not
mix the apples with the horses.
You prefer proto-slavic, but this is yet much more "archaic" than OSl.
If Your simply transcript OSl into latin and pronounce it with modern
accent, understandability dramatically improves. This is the approach of
these canadian guys, whom I collaborate with: http://uss.utoronto.ca/
And moreover, if You fix the language (grammar, morphology, phonetics,
orthography, add modern words, ) according to evolutionary changes which
have also occurred in spoken slavic languages, You obtain well working
Neoslavonic. This is it.
> That's something that always must be taken into account -
> especially if you consider that the number of Polish speakers is about as high
> as the number of Czech, Slovak and South Slavic speakers together!
>
> Therefore, I still think it is a great source of input, but it should be
> handled
> with care. Except for the soft consonants, the phonology of OCS is very
> South Slavic indeed. For example, the reflex of CSl. tj/dj as s^t/z^d is
> typical
> for Bulgarian, but doesn't exist anywhere else (not even in standard
> Macedonian), except for numerous OCS borrowings in Russian. I would strongly
> recommend you to consider this. Also lexically OCS is a bit of a mousetrap,
> because it contains lots of words that are understandable to South Slavs only
> (and not for the remaining 90% of the Slavic population). Therefore, to be
> useful as a real Interslavic language, it needs lots of adjustments.
>
You are wrong again, sorry.
Any form of jazyk, jezik, jezyk, jazik or cviet, cvet, kviet, kvet or
mezhdu, medzhu is well understandable at the almost same level within
Slavic community. This is my practical experience. I do not like
neverending internet debates on it at our slavic conlang forums. We do
not work really with our interslavic languages, but only solve again and
again matter of secondary importance in English.
The biggiest problems we have are different:
1) false friends and
2) different grammars (mostly verbal tenses, conditionals, etc.)
This why we have our concept of language flavourization, receptive
learning and passive understability. We strongly need to test all these
ideas in the practice. This is why we organized the E.U. courses - open
for anybody from slavic conlang community
(http://ec.europa.eu/education/trainingdatabase/index.cfm?fuseaction=DisplayCourse&cid=26829)
why we try to produce videos and speak in conlang
(https://sites.google.com/site/novoslovienskij/youtube)
and why I try to describe grammar and morphology of the entire
Neoslavonic language in Neoslavonic.
https://sites.google.com/site/novoslovienskij/demonstracia-grammatiky-ns-jazyka
:o)
cheers
VM
references
Zhuravlev, Anatolij F. 1994. Leksiko-statisticzeskoe modelirovanie
systemy slavjanskogo jazykovogo rodstva. Moskva: Indrik. Formula of the
lexicostatistical model at page 63.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.phil.muni.cz%2Flinguistica%2Fart%2Fnovbla%2Fnob-001.pdf&rct=j&q=bla%C5%BEek%20klasifikace%20slovansk%C3%BDch%20jazyk%C5%AF&ei=EkD6TPmGM4Sv8gOHqbiLDA&usg=AFQjCNFhHFWgiDQk3a9bTbvjxqYfhWBUow&sig2=yvFXFir60GRbLBBuU2MAQw&cad=rja
http://uss.utoronto.ca/
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*assoc. prof. Vojtěch Merunka, Ph.D.*
vmeru...@gmail.com <mailto:vmeru...@gmail.com>
http://sites.google.com/site/vmerunka
*Department of Information Engineering*
/Faculty of Economics and Management/
Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague
*Department of Software Engineering in Economy*
/Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering/
Czech Technical University in Prague
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Messages in this topic (10)
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2b. Re: classification of slavic languages, old slavonic etc.
Posted by: "Jan van Steenbergen" ijzeren_...@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 6:24 pm ((PST))
--- Vojtěch Merunka skrzypszy:
> In this formula, the higher value has isoglossa limited to only two
> languages and the lower number has isoglossa, which is common for more
> languages.
Just curious: does this refer to reading or to listening? Because there is
quite a huge difference in perception. I can read Czech, Sorbian and even
Serbian (language I've never learned) and understand most of it, but when I
hear them...
> Polish-Bulgarian has only 0.93 etc.
Yepyep, that is true. For the average Pole, and for me as well, Bulgarian is
completely alien. Those languages are very, very different. Although there are
also a few strange similarities between them two.
> If languages have proximity at least 1.1, they can be assigned into one
> group, but this approach goes intoa lot of such similar solutions.
Just curious, any idea what would be the value for standard Serbian and
Croatian?
> For mutual understanding of ordinary people You need to have at least
> 1.2. Old Slavonic has value 1.15 (to Polish) or better (1.27 to Czech,
> for example) to modern slavic languages.
Yeah, sounds about right. So well, this formula is some kind of "voting
machine" in its own right. :) Do you also have the figures for O(C)S vs. the
other Slavic languages?
Because when I read all this, the conlanger in me wakes up. My first thought
it: so what can be done to pump up the result for Polish to some 1.25 or so,
and how would that affect understandability for Bulgarians, for example?
Ideally, the results should be as balanced as possible. And that is, basically,
what Slovianski is about.
> I do not thing so. In circle You do not have inner relations.
> Belarussian and Polish are not connected only through Rusyn and
> Ukraininan, for example.
Of course not, this was just a rough simplification. Polish is not connected
with Lower Sorbian via Cashubian either. BTW, I forgot to add Polabian and
Silesian!
> Yes, Novgorodian is assigned as the independent group. But total number
> of literary heritage is very small as far I know.
If you have that book, I'd really appreciate it if you could give me a
reference. There has been an ongoing discussion about this at Wikipedia. I am
certain I've read something about a hypothesis regarding an extinct fourth
Slavic branch (North Slavic), based on Old Novgorodian, but when I started
looking for it, I couldn't find it anywhere.
> Another good candidate would be Old Ruthenian
> (a.k.a. Old Belorussian). Belorussian? Why?
This language is known under several names. It was the administrative language
of the Grandduchy of Lithuania, and the vernacular language of Kievan Rus. A
very interesting language, and definitely the common ancestor Ukrainian,
Belarussian and Rusyn. It was in some sort if diglossic opposition to Church
Slavonic, much like Dhimotiki vs. Katharevousa in Greece. It was also called
"Prosta mova". And indeed, it is remarkably easy to understand (at least for
me). You should really take a look at it! :)
So probably, the ideal Interslavic language would be a compromise between Old
Ruthenian and O(C)S! :)
> Protoslavic is yet more archaic than old slavonic. In protoslavic You
> have constructs, which are not present in any current slavic language
> except Polish.
Well, when I refer to Common Slavic as a source, I don't mean copying it
blindly, of course. In fact, it's pretty much a non-issue. OCS and CSl. are
very similar indeed, it's mostly a matter of taking it one step back in order
to get rid of OCS's distinctly Southern flavour, and take it from there.
> > IMO an Interslavic language should avoid forms that are not
> > understandable at all to over 75% of the Slavic population.
>
> Who says? Simply say, this is not true. Maybe it is based on some
> polish perception of the surrounding languages, which I do not know.
> Southern people feel it differently.
Sure, but that's the point: South Slavs are only 10% of the entire Slavic
population. That doesn't mean they should be neglected or something, but just
that South Slavic is not in the position to dictate everything. Hence the
solution used by Slovianski of treating all three or six branches equally.
> Maybe this is the explanation: except Polish, any other slavic nation
> has its closely related and easy understandable language of another
> slavic nation. But who knows...
Probably because Polish itself was quite a prestige language as well. Poles are
a difficult case anyway, because "Slavic consciousness" is far less developed
in Poland than in other countries. To the average Pole, the Russians are
enemies; the Ukrainians are difficult neighours, but perhaps not so bad after
all; the Czechs and Slovaks are nice neighbours; and all the rest are savages.
But it is also true that there is a particular interest among Poles for
Interslavic languages, and for conlangs in general. And for that reason I think
it's really wiser to take Polish into consideration as well.
> BTW. Our results with Neoslavonic in polish forums are also not so bad,
> eh?
To tell you the truth, apart from the Polish Conlanger Forum I haven't seen any
of them.
> If Your simply transcript OSl into latin and pronounce it with modern
> accent, understandability dramatically improves. This is the approach
> of these canadian guys, whom I collaborate with: http://uss.utoronto.ca/
Absolutely, I'll be the last person in the world to deny that! All I am saying
is: you can improve it even further if you want to. And I'm offering you my
help in that.
> And moreover, if You fix the language (grammar, morphology, phonetics,
> orthography, add modern words, ) according to evolutionary changes
> which have also occurred in spoken slavic languages, You obtain well
> working Neoslavonic. This is it.
Agreed. Fully agreed. And for the record, I can also see the advantage of
taking an existing language as a starting point. The only thing where I really
disagree with you, is that the evolutionary changes you apply are quite
specific for everything between Czech and Bulgarian, but also quite the
opposite of what Polish and East Slavic do. Mind you, this is feedback, not
criticism. I'm quite fond of NS, as you know very well! :) But I also think it
can be improved at some points.
For the record, I also invite you to tell me how Slovianski should or could be
improved in your opinion.
> > Therefore, to be useful as a real Interslavic language, it needs lots
> > of adjustments.
>
> You are wrong again, sorry.
> Any form of jazyk, jezik, jezyk, jazik or cviet, cvet, kviet, kvet or
> mezhdu, medzhu is well understandable at the almost same level within
> Slavic community. This is my practical experience. I do not like
> neverending internet debates on it at our slavic conlang forums. We do
> not work really with our interslavic languages, but only solve again and
> again matter of secondary importance in English.
That's your choice. To me, picking the right sound changes is quite essential
in giving people a feeling of familiarity - and it's not so difficult at all.
There's no need for neverending debates here, because in most cases it's just a
little bit of comparative linguistics. Anyway, most of this can be handled by
flavouring.
Besides, the research has already been done and the neverending debates have
already taken place.
> The biggiest problems we have are different:
> 1) false friends and
> 2) different grammars (mostly verbal tenses, conditionals, etc.)
As for 1, yes, this is a recurring problem.
As for 2, well... I think all this can be handled. I tell you, the Slavic
imperfect won't be understood by most Poles, Ukrainians and probably Russian,
too. That's why Slovianski (just like the Northern languages), uses a past
tense based on the L-participle only, because it is understood everywhere. But
sure, you can teach it to people by means of receptive learning, that's true. I
am not opposed against including it at all - it's just that it should be
optional and with a big warning sign on it. ;)
Because don't misunderstand Slovianski: it is NOT a closed set of rules that
tell people what they must do and what they are forbidden to do. It is just a
set of recommendations that people can apply in varying degrees, and therefore,
it doesn't exclude anything. Ideally, it should only tell people what happens
if they'll apply some word or form.
Cheers,
Jan
Messages in this topic (10)
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3a. Re: Fight Linguistic Extinction
Posted by: "Jan van Steenbergen" ijzeren_...@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 6:15 am ((PST))
--- Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets skrzypszy:
>On 23 September 2010 01:55, Mario Bonassin <tar_sa...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
>
>> http://www.conlang.net/conlangs/conlist.html
Wow, that looks cool!
>Mmm... Although entry 35 is nestled among my entries, it's not from me, and
>I can't recognise it. I thought it might be Wenedyk but it's not...
Nope, it ain't. I guess that was before Wenedyk had even been started. But
two of the other entries are mine, actually:
70 - Askaic (still not online...) :(
71 - Hattic
Cheers,
Jan
Messages in this topic (25)
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4a. theory of old slavonic as a medieval conlang
Posted by: "Vojtěch Merunka" vmeru...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 11:51 am ((PST))
Hi everybody.
This is my reaction to earlier posts by Jan van Steenbergen. I do not
want to waste my and Your time, so I will write just some comments to
explain the direction and put You references, where to read more.
I. Proto-slavic, old slavonic, old church slavonic, old slavonic,
neoslavonic
Simply said, this story is very similar to the case with Old Anglo-Saxon
and medieval English and modern English, Classical Greek, Byzantium
Greek, modern Katharevousa Greek and modern Greek, or with Hebrew
languages or Arabic languages etc. It is quite normal, that languages
change in centuries.
1) Proto-slavic is a hypothetical common ancestor of all Slavic
languages from about 1500 BC to 500. We do not exactly know, if it does
really existed, because Slavic language group may be mixture of more
ancestors having balanced influences (venetian, thracian, iranian, ...?)
and never was with absolutely single language. But majority of linguists
work with this hypothesis of the only one proto-slavic language.
2) Old Slavonic is the first known Slavic literacy language from IX
century. It has been created by sts Kyrillos and Methodios and their
partners for the mission to Moravian Empire.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moravia) This language served about
2-3 centuries not only as liturgical language, but also as the official
common written "high language" for general usage not only in Moravia,
but also Bulgaria and other slavic countries. Alphabet was Glagolitic.
This language influenced national languages (e.g. information flow from
OS to national languages).
3) Old Church Slavonic is the medieval and the only liturgical language
(from about XIII to XVIII centuries) of the medieval orthodox church. It
was direct ancestor of OS and kept almost identical orthography with OS,
but was written in Cyrillic, had limited dictionary and reduced grammar.
This language lost its universality, because non religious communication
has been started in evolving national languages. This language had many
dialects (UK, RUS, SRB, BG, ...), because it has been strongly
influenced. (e.g. information flow from national languages to OCS)
4) Church Slavonic is the current unified official liturgical language
of the orthodox church and greek-catholic church. Of course, it is
pronounced with several accents (BG, SRB, RUS, UK, ...) but it has
unified cyrillic orthography, grammar and modernized dictionary, which
is most influenced by Russian.
5) Neoslavonic is our conlang. It is artificial extrapolation and fixing
of the language 2) - OS (not OCS nor CS at all). Neoslavonic conlang
project assumes an alternative history where OS language has been
evolved parallely with the evolution of national languages and did not
stop to play the role of a "high standard understandable language for
all Slavic nations".
II. Does OS belong to the southern branch of languages?
1) There are two myths about OS:
a) OS is old Bulgarian - this is very popular in Bulgaria.
b) OS is old Macedonian - this is very popular in Macedonia
(Slavomacedonia).
I do not want to offend anyone at all, but this question is really not
simple:
a) The oldest literacy heritage of OS from IXc. proves, that OS is not
only very close to the old bulgarian and macedonian, but also has many
non "bulgaro-macedonian" elements coming from another archaic slavic
populations in Greece, Asia minor, Panonia (this is now Hungary) and
Corutania (this is now part of Austria). We exactly know, that there
were 7 creators (or first writers) in this language: Kyrillos, his
brother Methodios and 5 colleagues (Naum, Kliment, Sava, Angelar and
Lazar). They were probably monks together with st. Methodios in the
monastery at mount Olympos in Bythinia (Asia minor) and they were from
miscellaneous nations - definitely not only pure Bulgarians.
b) Next, OS language coherence (based on the lexicostatistical analysis
I described in previous mail) to the modern Bulgarian/Slavomacedonian is
less than the coherence between OS and modern Czech, for example. (Czech
has very similar noun, pronoun and adjective declention patterns and
also has closer vocabulary and closer prepositions. The only feature,
where Czech is less coherent with OS than Bulgarian is the verbal
system, but early medieval Czech had also the same verbal system, which
still exists in Bulgarian.) The same very high level of coherence with
CS has also Slovak, Rusyn and Slovenian.
c) More intensive OS language use in southern slavic coutries started
later - after the death of st. Methodios when slavic liturgy in Moravia
has been disabled and replaced by latin by the Pope and OS awared people
(priests, students, ...) were expelled from Moravia away. This started
intensive usage of OS in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia and other south
slavic states. And yet bit more later also in east slavic countries.
Here this language has been changed through phase OCS to CS.
d) We know, that glagolitic alphabet has been created artificially by
st. Kyrillos. This alphabet is very original, some characters are coming
from miscelaneous oriental alphabets and byzantic astrological and
philosophical symbols (for example letter S (S means slovo=word=logos)
is a vertical combination of a triangle (the God) over a circle (the
Earth) and it looks like a fish (another christian symbol). The letter I
is vertically reversed S and two letters IS (Jesus) creates nice picture
of two fishes = astrological constellation of the Christian age, etc.
etc.) This new original alphabet was directly ordered by the moravian
ruler Rostislav, who asked to build a strong and independent state and
therefore could not directly take either Latin or Greek alphabet. In
early medieval it was not like today: Taking alphabet of somebody else
significantly weakens the independence on him. It also explains, why
Bulgarians (which were dependent on Byzantium) changed the alphabet to
Cyrillic (which is in fact the almost unchanged Greek alphabet with some
additions). So, if we know, that the OS alphabet has been designed by an
extra reason, why would be the language itself the same as the language
in Bulgaria - language of the good neighbor, but still competitive state
to Moravia!?
III. conclusion
All these arguments convinces me that OS was kind of something, which
today we call an conlang and initially fulfilled its role very well. :o)
Later, unfortunately, this concept has been interrupted and Slavic
nations were separated into different cultural areas (e.g. roman
catholic - orthodox schism, Islam invasion into the Europe, ...) without
the possibility of wider cooperation among them.
These thoughts are not mine. I got them from various readings, and
especially from my private discussions with one of the greatest experts
on the history and Slavonic Studies - greek professor Antonios-Aimilios
Tachiaos. He studied almost all slavic and byzantium sources in original
and wrote many books about it:
http://www.protoporia.gr/author_info.php/authors_id/908134 This one is
really excellent: If You can, read it:
http://www.perizitito.gr/product.php?productid=143936
cheers
Vojta
Messages in this topic (3)
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4b. Re: theory of old slavonic as a medieval conlang
Posted by: "Jan van Steenbergen" ijzeren_...@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 1:49 pm ((PST))
--- Vojtěch Merunka skrzypszy:
> I. Proto-slavic, old slavonic, old church slavonic, old
> slavonic, neoslavonic [...]
Thank you for all this interesting information, Vojta. There's only one thing,
and that's terminology. None of my sources (either in English or in Polish)
actually mention a language called "Old Slavonic". But the descriptions they
give of "Old Church Slavonic" actually matches your description of "Old
Slavonic", while their descriptions of "Church Slavonic" match yours of "Old
Church Slavonic".
What my books say actually matches Wikipedia:
"Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic (abbreviated as OCS), also known as
Old Bulgarian or Old Macedonian was the first literary Slavic language, based
on the old Slavic dialect of the Thessaloniki region, employed by the 9th
century Byzantine missionaries, Saints Cyril and Methodius [...]. It played a
great role in the history of Slavic languages and served as a basis and model
for later Church Slavonic traditions, where Church Slavonic is used as a
liturgical language to this day by some Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Churches of
the Slavic peoples.
The language was standardised for the mission of the two apostles to Great
Moravia in 863 (see Glagolitic alphabet for details). For that purpose, Cyril
and his brother Methodius first codified Old Church Slavonic from the Slavic
dialect spoken in the hinterland of Thessaloniki, in the region of Macedonia
[...].
The language and the alphabet were taught at the Great Moravian Academy
(Veľkomoravské učilište) and were used for government and religious documents
and books between 863 and 885. The texts written during this phase contain
characteristics of the Slavic vernaculars in Great Moravia.
[...] Much later, local redactions of Old Church Slavonic were created for
ecclesiastical and administrative use, and are collectively known as Church
Slavonic."
See also here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Church_Slavonic#Nomenclature
In other words, what you call "Old Slavonic" is the very same thing that
English speakers call "Old Church Slavonic". To avoid misunderstandings, it's
important that both of us are aware of that.
As for its classification, Comrie & Corbett write: "Old Church Slavonic is
basically a Balkan Slavonic language, though even within this characterization
there is geographical variation between Eastern (Bulgarian) and Western
(Macedonian) forms; the use of the language for missionary activity in Great
Moravia show up in the occurrence of some West Slavonic features, even in the
major canonical texts."
And now the question: was Old [Church] Slavonic a conlang? I guess this depends
pretty much on how you define a "constructed language". First, let's establish
that every natural language or dialect has artificial, "created" elements, and
also that every constructed language has natural elements. Therefore, you can't
just say: "This is a constructed language and that is a natural language",
because in reality it is a scale with a huge gray area. Besides, the question
what makes an element "constructed" is determined by two things: a) how was it
developed (behind a desk, within a committee etc.), and b) where does the
material come from. One typical example of such a gray area are standardised
literary languages based on multiple dialects. In part, these languages were
indeed composed, but only on the basis of pre-existing, closely related
material. And of course, this process of composing involved choices, and these
choices are indeed made "behind a
desk". Yet, nobody would call these languages "conlangs", even though their
level of artificiality is undoubtedly higher than the very dialects they were
based on.
So how does this relate to OCS? Well, the answer is quite simply: we cannot
tell, because we don't know what the vernacular of those days looked like. But
given the descriptions I have read, my impression is that C&M basically tried
to codify an existing, but previously unwritten language. Later in Moravia they
added some couleur locale to it. That is no so strange if you consider that in
those days, OCS was still essentially a foreign language, even though the
Slavic languages were significantly less different from each other than today.
Thus, a few adaptations were made. Whether these adaptations were the result of
natural development or conscious planning, nobody knows. But do note that also
Medieval Latin had local differences, albeit minor ones. All in all, OCS most
definitely had artificial elements, just like every new standardisation effort
does. But calling it a conlang is an over-simplification, to say the least.
Cheers,
Jan
Messages in this topic (3)
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4c. Re: theory of old slavonic as a medieval conlang
Posted by: "Vojtěch Merunka" vmeru...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 2:35 pm ((PST))
Hi!
Only a very small comment:
>> I. Proto-slavic, old slavonic, old church slavonic, old
>> slavonic, neoslavonic [...]
>>
> Thank you for all this interesting information, Vojta. There's only one
> thing, and that's terminology. None of my sources (either in English or in
> Polish) actually mention a language called "Old Slavonic". But the
> descriptions they give of "Old Church Slavonic" actually matches your
> description of "Old Slavonic", while their descriptions of "Church Slavonic"
> match yours of "Old Church Slavonic".
In my sources (university materials, books, lingustic papers, etc. ) in
Czech, Croatian, Slovenian and Greek are these three names quite normal.
I am surprised, that it is not the same in Polish materials. (And I am
not very surprised about English sources in Wikipedia ;-) ) For example
in Czech, Croatian and Greek:
1. klasická staroslověnština, staroslověnština, staroslovenski jezik,
παλαιά σλαβική = old slavonic. There is no word like "church".
It is obvious, that this language was not only for religious purposes,
but general. This proves the book of civil lexicon: "Zakon sudnij
ljudem" by Methodius , etc.
2. stará církevní slovanština, stari crkvenoslovenski jezik, αρχαία
εκκλησιαστική σλαβονική = church slavonic (medieval).
3. církevněslovanský jazyk, crkvenoslovenski jezik, εκκλησιαστική
σλαβονική = church slavonic (from 20th century till today).
Regardless this confusion of names, everyone must recognize that during
period of 1200 years a language cannot remain unchanged.
bye
V.
Messages in this topic (3)
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________________________________________________________________________
5a. Equisite Corpse Status...
Posted by: "Tony Harris" t...@alurhsa.org
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 5:51 pm ((PST))
Just in case anyone's wondering where this is, I have received the
sentence torch from Patrick. I will try to pass it on to Arthaey by end
of day tomorrow (Sunday).
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
5b. Re: Equisite Corpse Status...
Posted by: "Larry Sulky" larrysu...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 5:55 pm ((PST))
Is an "equisite corpse" a nicely built dead horse?
On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 8:49 PM, Tony Harris <t...@alurhsa.org> wrote:
> Just in case anyone's wondering where this is, I have received the sentence
> torch from Patrick. I will try to pass it on to Arthaey by end of day
> tomorrow (Sunday).
>
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
5c. Re: Equisite Corpse Status...
Posted by: "Tony Harris" t...@alurhsa.org
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 6:09 pm ((PST))
Sorry, I'm apparently on an X-free diet today...
On 12/04/2010 08:52 PM, Larry Sulky wrote:
> Is an "equisite corpse" a nicely built dead horse?
>
> On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 8:49 PM, Tony Harris<t...@alurhsa.org> wrote:
>
>> Just in case anyone's wondering where this is, I have received the sentence
>> torch from Patrick. I will try to pass it on to Arthaey by end of day
>> tomorrow (Sunday).
>>
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
5d. Re: Equisite Corpse Status...
Posted by: "Jan van Steenbergen" ijzeren_...@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 6:35 pm ((PST))
--- Tony Harris skrzypszy:
> Just in case anyone's wondering where this is, I have received the
> sentence torch from Patrick. I will try to pass it on to Arthaey by end
> of day tomorrow (Sunday).
Torch? Is there a relay going on here? Strange, I haven't had a single
message from the Relay List for quite a while now! But if anything, I wouldn't
mind participating...
Cheers,
Jan
Messages in this topic (8)
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5e. Re: Equisite Corpse Status...
Posted by: "neo gu" qiihos...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 7:42 pm ((PST))
On Sat, 4 Dec 2010 21:32:55 -0500, Jan van Steenbergen
<ijzeren_...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>--- Tony Harris skrzypszy:
>
>> Just in case anyone's wondering where this is, I have received the
>> sentence torch from Patrick. I will try to pass it on to Arthaey by end
>> of day tomorrow (Sunday).
>
> Torch? Is there a relay going on here? Strange, I haven't had a
> single message from the Relay List for quite a while now! But if
> anything, I wouldn't mind participating...
>
>Cheers,
>Jan
More of a corpse than a torch. Instead of passing on your translation of
the received sentence, you pass on a sentence (in your language)
which might naturally follow it.
Actually, why _is_ this game called "Exquisite Corpse"?
As for relays, the last one has never finished.
--
neo gu
Messages in this topic (8)
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5f. Re: Equisite Corpse Status...
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" pwd...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 8:38 pm ((PST))
It's called exquisite corpse because it resembles a surrealist game of the
same name, in which each person contributes blindly to a sentence and then
shares the sentence. I play this game with my creative writing students,
when I have the luck to teach a class of them, to show them how unexpected
and even random juxtapositions can be interesting.
On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 9:36 PM, neo gu <qiihos...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 4 Dec 2010 21:32:55 -0500, Jan van Steenbergen
> <ijzeren_...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >--- Tony Harris skrzypszy:
> >
> >> Just in case anyone's wondering where this is, I have received the
> >> sentence torch from Patrick. I will try to pass it on to Arthaey by end
> >> of day tomorrow (Sunday).
> >
> > Torch? Is there a relay going on here? Strange, I haven't had a
> > single message from the Relay List for quite a while now! But if
> > anything, I wouldn't mind participating...
> >
> >Cheers,
> >Jan
>
> More of a corpse than a torch. Instead of passing on your translation of
> the received sentence, you pass on a sentence (in your language)
> which might naturally follow it.
>
> Actually, why _is_ this game called "Exquisite Corpse"?
>
> As for relays, the last one has never finished.
>
> --
> neo gu
>
--
I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; garlands from window to
window; golden chains from star to star, and I dance. --Arthur Rimbaud
Messages in this topic (8)
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5g. Re: Equisite Corpse Status...
Posted by: "Garth Wallace" gwa...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 9:13 pm ((PST))
On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 7:36 PM, neo gu <qiihos...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Actually, why _is_ this game called "Exquisite Corpse"?
Because it was invented by surrealists.
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
5h. Re: Equisite Corpse Status...
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" chronosur...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 9:56 pm ((PST))
On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 9:36 PM, Patrick Dunn <pwd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It's called exquisite corpse because it resembles a surrealist game of the
> same name, in which each person contributes blindly to a sentence and then
> shares the sentence. I play this game with my creative writing students,
> when I have the luck to teach a class of them, to show them how unexpected
> and even random juxtapositions can be interesting.
I used to play it with ESL students, to demonstrate how meaning is
encoded in word order and prosody (although, I didn't tell them that).
Each person is only allowed to add one word at a time, and if someone
realizes that they've screwed up, they're allowed to alter
punctuation, but have to keep going until they can turn it back into a
complete grammatically correct sentence.
The most common "mistake" was that someone would get too excited to
use a noun despite their predecessor not providing a suitable article,
and then you hoped that someone is the group knew how to use noun
adjuncts to save it. You could get some really convoluted stuff if
that person was five or ten turns away.
-l.
Messages in this topic (8)
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6a. Diacritics vs. extra letters vs. digraphs
Posted by: "Herman Miller" hmil...@io.com
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 7:55 pm ((PST))
As I've been going over the Jarda documentation, I've been wondering
whether it might be better to use digraphs or extra letters in some
cases where I'm currently using diacritics. In particular, I don't see
any reason not to use "gh" for [ɣ] instead of "ğ" (it's too easy to
confuse "ğ" with "ģ"). And I'm still unsatisfied with the way I write
the voiced lateral fricative as "ḽ" (l with a wedge below), but I can't
think of a suitable digraph. I can't use "dl" since /dl/ is a valid
cluster (e.g. dlôź "month"), and "ll" exists in compounds (e.g. trillaz
"Year of the Wren").
I've gone back and forth on how to represent the sounds of my languages.
Although many of them (like Jarda) have their own writing systems, it's
tedious and error-prone to use those for the actual language
documentation. I almost always use some form of Roman-alphabet
representation. Lately I've been leaning in the direction of diacritics,
which have the advantage of being able to create "ad hoc" letters for
unusual phonemes. It's also good for series of related sounds, e.g.
using a comma below for palatal consonants. One problem is that
diacritics don't work well for all letters (e.g., above tall letters
like "l" or below letters with descenders like "g"). Another is that
words can become cluttered with diacritics and awkward to read when both
consonants and vowels can have them. Examples from Jarda:
ģêła "against"
ğôļ "red"
ğŭģag "law"
pağŏ "baboon"
An older romanization used digraphs (and even trigraphs) to represent
single sounds in Jarda. In some ways I like the old system better, but
in other ways it's a little more awkward. Examples:
Thlar mrruvis khar zunthlom no citra byanag Oastena
Łaṛ mruvis xaṛ zunłôm nô ķitṛa bjanag Ostêna
"Celebration set tonight for Austin's bat colony"
Sha peandhlikhad, nyet Teakseosvoa zeunid kekhtiadma
Śa penḽixad, njêt Teksŏsvo zŭnid kêxtiadma
"Texas thirsts for hint of relief"
Javka zheam zlamada gerrkueneol karrvoe khrraksani
Ģavka źem zlamada gêrkünŏl karvö xraksani
"Raft keeps downed balloonist afloat in shark-infested sea"
Certainly the old system is easier to type! The third alternative, using
new letters, is one that I've used only occasionally, as for example in
Zharranh (which also uses some diacritics and one digraph). I use IPA
letters for the retroflex sounds in Zharranh (ʈ ɳ ʂ ʐ ɭ), and to
distinguish between /e/ and /ɛ/. An older Zharranh romanization used a
number of digraphs for consonant sounds, and represented /e/ as "y"
(with the justification that [ɨ] is one of the allophones of that
phoneme in Zharranh). In a short-lived version of Minza, I used yogh (ȝ)
for a phoneme with allophones [ʝ] and [ɣ]. But in general, using extra
letters seems like more trouble than it's worth bothering with.
Messages in this topic (2)
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6b. Re: Diacritics vs. extra letters vs. digraphs
Posted by: "David Peterson" deda...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 9:21 pm ((PST))
On Dec 4, 2010, at 7◊52 PM, Herman Miller wrote:
> And I'm still unsatisfied with the way I write the voiced lateral fricative
> as "ḽ" (l with a wedge below), but I can't think of a suitable digraph. I
> can't use "dl" since /dl/ is a valid cluster (e.g. dlôź "month"), and "ll"
> exists in compounds (e.g. trillaz "Year of the Wren").
Not sure if it'll help, but in the past, I've used "zlh" for the voiced lateral
fricative (and "lh" for the voiceless). I figure if the reader can do a
voiceless lateral fricative, pronouncing [z] and [ɬ] in sequence comes pretty
close to [ɮ] (or at least it does when I try it).
-David
*******************************************************************
"Sunlü eleškarez ügrallerüf üjjixelye ye oxömeyze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.com/
LCS Member Since 2007
http://conlang.org/
Messages in this topic (2)
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7a. Re: the concept of slavic conlangs Slovio, Slovianski, Slovioski and
Posted by: "neo gu" qiihos...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Dec 4, 2010 7:58 pm ((PST))
On Fri, 3 Dec 2010 19:02:56 -0500, Jan van Steenbergen
<ijzeren_...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Hi everybody, it's been a while! :)
>
>
> But don't you worry, I'm alive and kicking. Still spending more than
> half of my time working on conlanging in some way. And while I've
> been working almost exclusively on Slovianski for the last two years,
> I'm still and artlanger at heart.
>
>Cheers,
>Jan
Working on my own auxlangs lately, I believe it helps to have worked
on a lot of artlangs first.
--
neo gu
Messages in this topic (10)
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8a. A birthday list?
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" joerg_rhieme...@web.de
Date: Sun Dec 5, 2010 3:44 am ((PST))
Hallo!
As today is my 41st birthday, I ask you how about assembling a list
of conlangers' birthdays? We could, for instance, enter them into
the calendar at http://calendar.conlang.org/ .
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
Messages in this topic (2)
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8b. Re: A birthday list?
Posted by: "Carsten Becker" carb...@googlemail.com
Date: Sun Dec 5, 2010 4:23 am ((PST))
Bavesangas mino vayam! :)
/ˌba.ve.ˈsɑŋɑs ˈmi.no va.ˈjɑm/
Ba(his)-vesang-as mino va-yam
day-birth-P happy 2S-BEN
Happy birthday to you!
Carsten
Am 05.12.2010 12:39, schrieb Jörg Rhiemeier:
> As today is my 41st birthday,
--
Ayeri Grammar (under construction): http://bit.ly/9dSyTI (PDF)
Der Sprachbaukasten: http://sanstitre.nfshost.com/sbk
Messages in this topic (2)
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