There are 16 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Assyrian dictionary now free online (UChicago)
From: Matthew Martin
1b. Re: Assyrian dictionary now free online (UChicago)
From: Matthew Boutilier
2a. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
From: Nikolay Ivankov
2b. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
From: R A Brown
2c. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
2d. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
From: Michael Everson
2e. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
From: Roman Rausch
2f. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
From: Matthew Martin
2g. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
From: R A Brown
2h. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
From: R A Brown
2i. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
From: Michael Everson
2j. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
From: Matthew Martin
2k. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
From: R A Brown
2l. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
From: Michael Everson
3a. cuneiform (was: Assyrian dictionary now free online (UChicago))
From: R A Brown
3b. Re: cuneiform (was: Assyrian dictionary now free online (UChicago))
From: Alex Fink
Messages
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1a. Re: Assyrian dictionary now free online (UChicago)
Posted by: "Matthew Martin" matthewdeanmar...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2011 5:24 am ((PDT))
Don't forget apriori cuneiform. If I ever get around to it, I plan to design a
cuneiform that is suitable for writing toki pona with chopsticks on slabs of
mashed
potatoes.
Fonts and Typing tools
http://www.hethport.uni-wuerzburg.de/cuneifont/
http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/nepsd-frame.html
Last time I considered using Sumarian, I gave up because the # of symbols
seemed too high. I've heard that at any one time, a much smaller number were in
use. So it may not be as laborious as learning/using ideograms.
Matthew Martin
Messages in this topic (6)
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1b. Re: Assyrian dictionary now free online (UChicago)
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" mbout...@nd.edu
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2011 9:02 am ((PDT))
>
> Does it work like a normal logographic system -because I'm considereing the
> creation of a daughter (con)script.
>
i don't know exactly what you mean by "normal"...sumerian is the only
language for which cuneiform works remotely logographically. there are many
signs that together in themselves consist a single word or concept. on top
of that, signs can represent incomplete words or syllables or morphemes or
whatever. there are also determinatives that would not have factored into
the spoken message at all, e.g. the DINGIR sign that precedes divine names
and is usually transcribed with superscript "d."
note that for akkadian (babylonian/assyrian) and to the best of my knowledge
hittite, the cuneiform script is strictly a syllabary. in old persian it
even approaches alphabetical status. but i assume you're most interested in
sumerian owing to the logographic nature in your question.
unfortunately as far as sumerian i don't know of too many online resources
for learning the *script*. there's the (electronic) pennsylvania sumerian
dictionary:
http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/nepsd-frame.html
as well as the electronic text corpus of sumerian literature:
www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/
that might interest you, but as per the sumerian usages of the signs
themselves i can only recommend "a manual of sumerian grammar and texts" by
john hayes, not much good online.
for akkadian, john huehnergard's "akkadian grammar" is pricey but totally
unrivaled. but online you can actually get a good headstart with the *
akkadian* (i.e. syllabary) adaptation of cuneiform with the following
website:
http://knp.prs.heacademy.ac.uk/cuneiformrevealed/
and if you want to see the continuation into old persian, harvard has put
the following invaluable primer up:
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~iranian/OldPersian/index.html
which will fully immerse you in the old persian (again, necessarily
non-logographic) application of cuneiform.
matt
On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 8:17 AM, Matthew Martin <matthewdeanmar...@gmail.com
> wrote:
> Don't forget apriori cuneiform. If I ever get around to it, I plan to
> design a
> cuneiform that is suitable for writing toki pona with chopsticks on slabs
> of mashed
> potatoes.
>
> Fonts and Typing tools
> http://www.hethport.uni-wuerzburg.de/cuneifont/
> http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/nepsd-frame.html
>
> Last time I considered using Sumarian, I gave up because the # of symbols
> seemed too high. I've heard that at any one time, a much smaller number
> were in
> use. So it may not be as laborious as learning/using ideograms.
>
> Matthew Martin
>
Messages in this topic (6)
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2a. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
Posted by: "Nikolay Ivankov" lukevil...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2011 5:28 am ((PDT))
On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 1:50 PM, Matthew Martin <matthewdeanmar...@gmail.com
> wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 03:55:39 -0400, Roman Rausch <ara...@mail.ru>
> wrote:
>
> >>For me, putting Quenya on the 9'th place looks like a blasphemy
> >Yes, but the real vicitim of rankings of this kind is Sindarin, every
> time.
>
> I'm no expert in Elvish (yet), but isn't one a diachronic variation on the
> other?
Well, not exactly. AFAIK, Quenya and Sindarin used to have a
common ancestor, with Quenya being more conservative. Maybe You are right:
since the elves of the Middleearth are immortal, it is quite possible that
the ancient form has been preserved by the elder ones as it was. According
to Silmarillion, Quenya and Sindarin have been spoken simultaneously at some
point of history.
Messages in this topic (24)
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2b. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2011 6:42 am ((PDT))
On 23/06/2011 13:22, Nikolay Ivankov wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 1:50 PM, Matthew
> Martin<matthewdeanmar...@gmail.com
>> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 03:55:39 -0400, Roman
>> Rausch<ara...@mail.ru> wrote:
>>
>>>> For me, putting Quenya on the 9'th place looks
>>>> like a blasphemy
>>> Yes, but the real vicitim of rankings of this kind
>>> is Sindarin, every
>> time.
>>
>> I'm no expert in Elvish (yet), but isn't one a
>> diachronic variation on the other?
If one's going to argue like that one may as well say that
French is just a diachronic variation of Latin!
> Well, not exactly. AFAIK, Quenya and Sindarin used to
> have a common ancestor, with Quenya being more
> conservative.
Correct. Both Quenya & Sindarin are descended from
'Proto-Elvish'.
> Maybe You are right: since the elves of
> the Middleearth are immortal,
Though Elves can be slain, or die of grief and weariness.
But the point surely is that Quenya & Sindarin are different
languages and not variants of the same one.
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB]
Messages in this topic (24)
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2c. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" joerg_rhieme...@web.de
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2011 6:58 am ((PDT))
Hallo conlangers!
On Thursday 23 June 2011 09:55:39, Roman Rausch wrote:
> >For me, putting Quenya on the 9'th place looks like a blasphemy: it should
>
> share
>
> >the first position with Esperanto.
>
> Yes, but the real vicitim of rankings of this kind is Sindarin, every time.
> Almost all the film dialogues are (or supposed to be) in Sindarin; almost
> all the names and toponyms are Sindarin; it had a profound effect on future
> fantasy; yet no one remembers poor Sindarin when it comes to
> appreciation...
Yes. There indeed isn't that much Quenya in the films (in the
books, there is almost as much Quenya as Sindarin); most of the
foreign-language dialogue is in Sindarin. But many people perhaps
don't realize that there are two different (though related)
languages involved, and think the language heard so often in the
films was Quenya. (I have read at least one review of the films
which talked about lots of dialogue in the films being in Quenya.)
On Thursday 23 June 2011 11:05:42, R A Brown wrote:
> > Yes, but the real vicitim of rankings of this kind is
> > Sindarin, every time. Almost all the film dialogues are
> > (or supposed to be) in Sindarin; almost all the names and
> > toponyms are Sindarin; it had a profound effect on
> > future fantasy;
>
> This is all true. Personally I much prefer Quenya, but
> IME people Sindarin tends to be preferred as it supposedly
> has a more "Celtic" feel and I think Roman is right in
> saying Sindarin has had a greater effect on later fantasy
> languages.
Yes. As I have noted above, some people may simply confuse
the two languages. Surely, Sindarin has a more "Celtic" feel
(to the point that the publisher rejected the _Silmarillion_
because they thought the reader would be confused by the many
"Celtic" names, which of course really were Sindarin[1]),
but then, lots of utter hogwash is in circulation about the
Celts, and many things commonly attributed to them - from
Stonehenge to the Druidic Tree Alphabet - have nothing to do
with anything that can reasonably be called "Celtic".
[1] Actually, "Noldorin", but that was pretty much the same
language; Tolkien changed his ideas about who spoke which
language while he worked on _The Lord of the Rings_.
At least, I have seen conlangs which claimed to be "inspired
by Quenya", but looked more like being inspired by, or just
being rip-offs of, Sindarin.
> >> Newspeak doesn't belong because you can't actually
> >> translate the Bible (or any large document) into
> >> Newspeak. Not for any feature of Newspeak other than
> >> it is just a sketch for an idea of a conlang!
> >
> > You can't do it with Quenya/Sindarin and the attested
> > grammar and vocabulary either. I don't think that it
> > should matter at all how deeply a language is developed.
>
> Yes, but surely while potentially Quenya & Sindarin could
> be developed to do these things,
Which some people do - it is called "Neo-Quenya" and "Neo-
Sindarin". Some Tolkienists object to that, though, on the
ground that "we cannot know" - but that is just the reason
why the names of the expanded languages bear the prefix
"Neo-".
> the whole point of Newspeak
> is to prevent people from accessing literature
> or such 'dangerous' things as the Bible - it was to curb
> created thought. Newspeak was a severely cut down form of
> English so that "Big Brother" could exert control over
> people's thinking.
Of course, it is highly questionable whether that would
work at all; it presupposes a rather strong version of the
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. I don't know whether Orwell believed
in that; I'd rather guess that he simply satirized certain
notions on language engineering characterizing totalitarian
régimes.
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Êm, a Êm atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Êmel." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (24)
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2d. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
Posted by: "Michael Everson" ever...@evertype.com
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2011 7:01 am ((PDT))
On 23 Jun 2011, at 14:42, R A Brown wrote:
>> I'm no expert in Elvish (yet), but isn't one a diachronic variation on the
>> other?
>
> If one's going to argue like that one may as well say that French is just a
> diachronic variation of Latin!
But... that's what it is.
Neolatina neolatina est. ;-)
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Messages in this topic (24)
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2e. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
Posted by: "Roman Rausch" ara...@mail.ru
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2011 8:08 am ((PDT))
>But the author of the so=called 'top ten' invented
>languages doesn't give any indication of the criteria
>by which the languages are chosen
I suspect the criterion is general popularity.
>Well, the bible translation got started:
Here is an attempt at translating the Pater Noster into Quenya, published 20
years ago:
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/JPN-quenya.html
And here is how Tolkien's own translation, which was published 10 years ago,
turned out to be:
http://www.jrrvf.com/~glaemscrafu/texts/ataremma-a.htm
The point is that Quenya and Sindarin are basically dead languages; and this
is further aggravated by the fact that there is no ultimate grammar, but a
collection of thousands of notes, often contradicting each other, and anyone
who tries to make sense of it will inevitably interpret it in his own way;
which is why the prefix 'Neo-' is necessary.
Therefore I don't think that the limits of what you can do with a language
should be a criterion for anything. Everyone has his own style - some create
a complete definitive grammar along with 20000 words worth of vocabulary and
spend the rest of their time becoming fluent; others make sure that each
word and morpheme has a rich and detailed history, at the expense of their
amount.
I don't think that either of the two should be made an absolute goal of
aspiration, it's just a matter of style.
>Well then, my cat would like to add Wookie as top 10 language, which by all
>appearances is a series of sound effect, and a translated phrase list short
>enough to call it a remnant language.
It will be able to enter the top 10 if it's indeed a language and becomes
popular enough. I believe that popularity and recognition may be a good
sieve, as anything poorly done or developed below a certain level will never
become popular. But it's not an infallible guideline, of course.
Messages in this topic (24)
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2f. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
Posted by: "Matthew Martin" matthewdeanmar...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2011 12:29 pm ((PDT))
On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:42:42 +0100, R A Brown
<r...@carolandray.plus.com> wrote:
>>> I'm no expert in Elvish (yet), but isn't one a
>>> diachronic variation on the other?
>
>If one's going to argue like that one may as well say that
>French is just a diachronic variation of Latin!
It is! French is Modern Latin, and so is Spanish, Romanian, etc. But not Living
Latin, that's the revival project. As mentioned elsewhere, Sindarin and Elvish
actually should have been compared to modern Portuguese and French, daughter
languages. But outside of the fictional world, they're still just derivatives
of each
other. A really strong analogy would be Esperanto and Ido.
Which ever set of fans arms themselves first gets status as a language. The
other
side will become a dialect of Sindarin or Quenya as the case may be.
Matthew Martin
Messages in this topic (24)
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2g. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2011 12:45 pm ((PDT))
On 23/06/2011 16:08, Roman Rausch wrote:
>> But the author of the so=called 'top ten' invented
>> languages doesn't give any indication of the criteria
>> by which the languages are chosen
>
> I suspect the criterion is general popularity.
Popularity?
Solresol the 10th most popular invented language?
Somehow I doubt it very much.
And E_prime? Popular?
Indeed, as i think it has already been pointed out, it's
not an invented language - it's *English* without using any
form of the verb "to be". In other words it's just a word
game - a similar one is not using "yes" or "no."
If such variants of English are going to be counted as
"invented languages" then IME variants like 'Pig Latin',
'Oppish' etc. are _far more_ popular than E-prime.
If general popularity is the criterion, the surely after the
popularity of the 'Lord of the Rings' films Sindarin should
be there. And shouldn't Na'vi be there?
I suspect the sole criterion is the author's own whim.
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB]
Messages in this topic (24)
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2h. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:04 pm ((PDT))
On 23/06/2011 20:29, Matthew Martin wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:42:42 +0100, R A Brown
> <r...@carolandray.plus.com> wrote:
>
>>>> I'm no expert in Elvish (yet), but isn't one a
>>>> diachronic variation on the other?
>>
>> If one's going to argue like that one may as well say
>> that French is just a diachronic variation of Latin!
>
> It is!
No more than nearly all the languages of Europe, Iran &
North India are diachronic variants of Indo-European.
French isn't even descended from Classical Latin, and if you
apply some "Grand Master Plan' to Vulgar Latin you don't
finish up with modern (or for that matter, Old) French.
You've got at least to throw in the Gallic mixture and the
more extensive Germanic of the Franks - they gave the
country & language its name.
[snip]ach
> other. A really strong analogy would be Esperanto and
> Ido.
I disagree - Esperanto & Ido are so similar that one is
obviously a variant of the other. But Latin & French? They
don't exactly look the same still less sound the same -
and they are certainly not mutually comprehensible!
> Which ever set of fans arms themselves first gets status
> as a language. The other side will become a dialect of
> Sindarin or Quenya as the case may be.
I expect dialects to be sort of mutually comprehensible (I
know us southerners find Jordie & some Lowland Scots on the
difficult side) - but Sindarin & Quenya?
Tolkien himself treated them as different _languages_ - and
he was their creator. I find him not an unreliable
authority.
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB]
Messages in this topic (24)
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2i. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
Posted by: "Michael Everson" ever...@evertype.com
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:26 pm ((PDT))
On 23 Jun 2011, at 21:04, R A Brown wrote:
>>> If one's going to argue like that one may as well say
>>> that French is just a diachronic variation of Latin!
>>
>> It is!
>
> No more than nearly all the languages of Europe, Iran & North India are
> diachronic variants of Indo-European.
Quite so!
> French isn't even descended from Classical Latin, and if you apply some
> "Grand Master Plan' to Vulgar Latin you don't finish up with modern (or for
> that matter, Old) French. You've got at least to throw in the Gallic mixture
> and the more extensive Germanic of the Franks - they gave the country &
> language its name.
I did Old French and Romance linguistics at University and have known this for
decades.
> I disagree - Esperanto & Ido are so similar that one is obviously a variant
> of the other. But Latin & French? They
> don't exactly look the same
Sure they do.
> still less sound the same
Well, no. :-)
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Messages in this topic (24)
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2j. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
Posted by: "Matthew Martin" matthewdeanmar...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:01 pm ((PDT))
On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 21:04:18 +0100, R A Brown
<r...@carolandray.plus.com> wrote:
>No more than nearly all the languages of Europe, Iran &
>North India are diachronic variants of Indo-European.
Enlighten me about what you think diachronic means? If I can get used to
linguist being used to mean both "polyglot" and "monoglot language scientist" I
can get used to anything.
I'm going to make a wild guess and say you mean diachronic means strictly
words that change over time, like g to k to h to nothing. But the adjective
diachronic as applied to languages as it is bandied about on mailing lists and
forums, seems to mean "daughter languages" presumably by multiple processes
(loans, re-analysis and other things that aren't strictly g-goes-to-k-to-h-to
nothing)
So English is a diachronic variation of PIE and is a modern PIE. I don't think
people usually think of it as that because it isn't normally a useful grouping,
kind of like how living things including crystals and viruses can be
problematic.
Or a better metaphor, we are all all modern ardapithicines (or modern proto-
gorillas, there is some nit picking about if the fossil finds are close cousins
or
direct ancestors, but there is a common ancestor and we are the modern form
of that ancestor)
>French isn't even descended from Classical Latin, and if you
>apply some "Grand Master Plan' to Vulgar Latin you don't
>finish up with modern (or for that matter, Old) French.
This is a significant variation on the story one reads about where French came
from. Where did French come from? Is there something fundamentally wrong
about the standard language family trees that I should discard the very notion?
(Which makes me think, it would be an awesome alternative world sci-fi story if
French was a constructed language published by L'Académie française during
the French Revolution, in a world where the Roman Expansion hadn't happened)
>> other. A really strong analogy would be Esperanto and
>> Ido.
Esperanto is to Ido as Sindarin is to Quenya.
I meant to express that they are both made up. They didn't naturally evolve
from a previous language, except in a fictional context. The processes that
lead from one to the other have to do with art, fashion and engineering, less
so
lazy tongues and what ever else was been suggested to motivate diachronic
changes.
PIE is to English as Latin is to French.
Each of the above evolved by natural processes into the other.
Chinese is officially one language by government fiat. By government fiat,
Norwegian is two and by Swedish is yet another. But by several modest tests,
Chinese is a dozen and Swedish and Norwegian are one. For example, the so
called dialects of Chinese are not mutually intelligible. Both Norway and
Sweden have armies, so they are different languages even though most
learners of Swedish/Norwegian don't recognize they are speaking to someone
speaking a different language when they encounter the other "language".
Icelandic is a difficult case because they only have a coast guard, so it is
neither language nor dialect but something in between.
Matthew Martin
Messages in this topic (24)
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2k. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2011 11:22 pm ((PDT))
Oh dear, this sub-thread that developed from observations
made about a fairly meaningless list of "top ten invented
languages" is getting very tedious.
I am away next week so I was intending nomail this weekend -
but I think I shall be going nomail quite shortly and hope
all reference to this silly top ten list has stopped when I
return.
On 23/06/2011 22:01, Matthew Martin wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 21:04:18 +0100, R A Brown
> <r...@carolandray.plus.com> wrote:
>
>> No more than nearly all the languages of Europe, Iran&
>> North India are diachronic variants of Indo-European.
>
> Enlighten me about what you think diachronic means?
Not a question of what _I_ think. According to Larry Trask:
"*diachronic* /daɪÉ'krÉnɪk/ -adj._ Pertaining to linguistic
change across time."
["A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics,"
R.L. Trask, London & New York, 1993]
The Indo_European languages are the result of linguistic
changes over the past 3000 or so years (time) from a
common ancestor we call Proto-Indo-European.
[snip]
>
>> French isn't even descended from Classical Latin, and
>> if you apply some "Grand Master Plan' to Vulgar Latin
>> you don't finish up with modern (or for that matter,
>> Old) French.
>
> This is a significant variation on the story one reads
No, is is not - at least not in the books I read.
> about where French came from. Where did French come from?
It originated in the _Vulgar Latin_ of north Gaul. Vulgar
Latin was a _sister language_ to Classical Latin - both
developed from Old Latin.
[snip]
>
> Esperanto is to Ido as Sindarin is to Quenya.
>
> I meant to express that they are both made up. They
> didn't naturally evolve from a previous language, except
> in a fictional context.
This is not true.
I do *not* want to get involved in the tedious blame-game
of what did and did not happen at the Délégation pour
l'Adoption d'une Langue Auxiliaire Internationale in 1907;
but Ido resulted from a proposal to reform Esperanto. It
evolved from Esperanto in real time - _nothing fictional
about it_, as the interminable flame-wars I once witnessed
on Auxlang only too clearly demonstrated.
While Sindarin & Quenya were constructed by the same author
(which Esperanto & Ido certainly were not), Tolkien quite
clearly intended them to be _different_ (tho related)
languages. I quote from JRRT himself:
"... the living language of the Western Elves (_Sindarin_ or
Grey-Elven) is the one usually met [in Lord of the Rings],
especially in names. This is derived from an origin common
to it and _Quenya_, but the changes have been deliberately
devised to give it a linguistic character very like (though
not identical with) British-Welsh: because that character is
one I find, in some linguistic moods, very attractive; and
because it seems to fit the rather 'Celtic' type of legends
and stories told of its speakers."
[Letters, 176 - 1954]
Tolkien refers to Quenya variously as "the book-tongue",
"the high speech (of the Noldor", "High Ancient Elven",
"Elf-Latin", "Elven Latin" etc.
It seems fairly clear to me that if some analog of the
relationship of Quenya & Sindarin is needed then Latin and
French are reasonable ones. Both are ultimately derived from
a common Proto-Latin ancestor. One became a formal literary
language; the other has changed considerably over the
centuries picking up elements of other languages to produce
something quite different.
If you know either Esperanto or Ido, you can generally read
languages without much problem. That is not true of either
Latin or French, nor is it true of Quenya and Sindarin -
there's far too much difference.
Therefore to say of Quenya & Sindarin "one [is] a
diachronic variation on the other" is not true even in
their own fictitious world; both, if you must, are
diachronic variations of a common proto-language. But if I
say the same of IE languages , you object!
I give up :(
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB]
Messages in this topic (24)
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2l. Re: Top Ten Invented Languages
Posted by: "Michael Everson" ever...@evertype.com
Date: Fri Jun 24, 2011 1:14 am ((PDT))
On 24 Jun 2011, at 07:22, R A Brown wrote:
> I am away next week so I was intending nomail this weekend - but I think I
> shall be going nomail quite shortly and hope all reference to this silly top
> ten list has stopped when I return.
Do what you like, but Matthew Martin's criticism of your argument was
well-founded.
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Messages in this topic (24)
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________________________________________________________________________
3a. cuneiform (was: Assyrian dictionary now free online (UChicago))
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2011 7:14 am ((PDT))
On 23/06/2011 13:02, Iuhan Culmærija wrote:
> 2011/6/14 Eugene Oh<un.do...@gmail.com>
>
>> Check out this BBC news article:
>>
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13715296
>>
>>
> On a related-ish note: Does anyone know of a Cuneiform
> resource? Does it work like a normal logographic system
> -because
No. Originally logographic - but as used for most of its
history it was mainly phonetic representing syllables, both
CV and VC, which meant certain conventions were needed for
dealing with consonant clusters. There were, however, a
certain number of logograms retained for commonly occurring
words.
Old Persian developed a mixed syllabic & single-sound
(alphabetic) form of cuneiform. The people of Ugarit
developed a cuneiform alphabet.
> (BTW, what is List policy on con-script discussions?)
No problem.
========================================================
On 23/06/2011 13:17, Matthew Martin wrote:
> Don't forget apriori cuneiform.
Yes, indeed - many a time I've pondered on a_priori
cuneiform systems ;)
Cuneiform was never a single monolithic form of writing -
it developed and changed over the centuries as it was
adapted for quite different languages.
The people of ancient Ugarit showed a great deal of
originality. Why not go the whole way and do an
a_priori cuneiform?
> If I ever get around to it, I plan to design a
> cuneiform that is suitable for writing toki pona with
> chopsticks on slabs of mashed potatoes.
:-D
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB]
Messages in this topic (6)
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3b. Re: cuneiform (was: Assyrian dictionary now free online (UChicago))
Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2011 7:45 am ((PDT))
On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 15:14:46 +0100, R A Brown <r...@carolandray.plus.com> wrote:
>On 23/06/2011 13:02, Iuhan Culmærija wrote:
>> 2011/6/14 Eugene Oh<un.do...@gmail.com>
>>
>>> Check out this BBC news article:
>>>
>>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13715296
>>>
>>>
>> On a related-ish note: Does anyone know of a Cuneiform
>> resource? Does it work like a normal logographic system
>> -because
>
>No. Originally logographic - but as used for most of its
>history it was mainly phonetic representing syllables, both
>CV and VC, which meant certain conventions were needed for
>dealing with consonant clusters. There were, however, a
>certain number of logograms retained for commonly occurring
>words.
Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform also had determinatives: signs with only semantic
value, no phonetic content, classifying an adjacent word. And there was
some use of phonetic complements as well: when a logogram that could've
stood for multiple words came up, sometimes one would phonetically spell a
portion of the intended word to disambiguate.
If you know how Egyptian hieroglyphs work, the old cuneiform scripts were
nearly identical in function, modulo Egyptian's complete disregard for Vs.
"Complex script" is the term that used around here for the class they belong
to, I think.
On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:02:18 +0200, Iuhan Culmærija <culm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>And how is the phrase "He who saw the deep" (from Gilgamesh) written in
>Cuneiform?
AFAICT it's Akkadian _s^a nagba i:muru_, seemingly written _s^a nag-ba
i-mu-ru_ with syllabic signs.
Alex
Messages in this topic (6)
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