There are 11 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Language that Don't Change
From: Matthew Turnbull
1b. Re: Language that Don't Change
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
1c. Re: Language that Don't Change
From: Patrick Dunn
1d. Re: Language that Don't Change
From: Nikolay Ivankov
2a. Re: Endangered Languages
From: MorphemeAddict
2b. Re: Endangered Languages
From: George Corley
2c. Re: Endangered Languages
From: Matthew Turnbull
3a. Re: Language Families
From: Matthew Turnbull
3b. Re: Language Families
From: Patrick Dunn
4a. Re: No Songs To Sing
From: Eugene Oh
5. Re: Page makeover, see the before/after
From: taliesin the storyteller
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Language that Don't Change
Posted by: "Matthew Turnbull" ave....@gmail.com
Date: Sun Feb 5, 2012 9:11 pm ((PST))
Often it's quoted that the only language that doesn't change is a dead one.
For modern Humans, if people speak a language, it will change. Dead
languages on the other hand, don't change, since they are more like
reconstructions of a particular language from the past at one moment in
time, or a confluence of patterns from a period of that languages history.
On Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 10:58 PM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
goldyemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Are there languages that don't change? If Yardish doesn't change, how
> could that affect the Yemorans? Since they're mostly telepaths, does that
> make telepathy a language or a sense?
> Nicole Andrews
>
> Pen name Mellissa Green
> Budding novelist
> Tweet me
>
>
>
> @greenNovelist
>
Messages in this topic (6)
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1b. Re: Language that Don't Change
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" goldyemo...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Feb 5, 2012 9:56 pm ((PST))
So that could be one of its laws?Sounds cool! What do you mean by an idealic
society?
Nicole Andrews
Pen name Mellissa Green
Budding novelist
Tweet me
@greenNovelist
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matthew Boutilier" <bvticvlar...@gmail.com>
To: <conl...@listserv.brown.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 12:11 AM
Subject: Re: Language that Don't Change
> >
>> Are there languages that don't change?
>>
>
> no. not spoken languages. not real ones.
> but that's not a rule that's consistently followed in fantasy, or
> necessarily ought to be.
>
> Since they're mostly telepaths, does that make telepathy a language or a
>> sense?
>>
>
> i think telepathy would be a *medium* for their language. like speech, or
> writing, or signing. assuming their telepathy involves pronounceable
> yardish words, and isn't some kind of mental logographic morse code where
> a
> certain frequency of signal means "tree."
>
> If Yardish doesn't change, how could that affect the Yemorans?
>>
>
> this is an interesting question. obviously real-world history can't answer
> it for you, since this isn't a real situation. personally, i would be more
> interested in knowing what cultural factors are responsible for the
> language not changing. i'm picturing a kind of idyllic lothlorien of
> timeless creatures who are impervious to the passage of time and somehow
> have minds that transcend it, whatever that means. on the other hand, you
> could have a society whose penalty for grammar-rule-breaking is immediate
> decapitation.
>
> cheers
> matt
>
> On Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 10:58 PM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
> goldyemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Are there languages that don't change? If Yardish doesn't change, how
>> could that affect the Yemorans? Since they're mostly telepaths, does that
>> make telepathy a language or a sense?
>> Nicole Andrews
>>
>> Pen name Mellissa Green
>> Budding novelist
>> Tweet me
>>
>>
>>
>> @greenNovelist
>>
Messages in this topic (6)
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1c. Re: Language that Don't Change
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" pwd...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Feb 5, 2012 10:07 pm ((PST))
On Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 11:11 PM, Matthew Boutilier
<bvticvlar...@gmail.com>wrote:
> >
> > Are there languages that don't change?
> >
>
> no. not spoken languages. not real ones.
> but that's not a rule that's consistently followed in fantasy, or
> necessarily ought to be.
>
> Since they're mostly telepaths, does that make telepathy a language or a
> > sense?
> >
>
> i think telepathy would be a *medium* for their language. like speech, or
> writing, or signing. assuming their telepathy involves pronounceable
> yardish words, and isn't some kind of mental logographic morse code where a
> certain frequency of signal means "tree."
>
> If Yardish doesn't change, how could that affect the Yemorans?
> >
>
> this is an interesting question. obviously real-world history can't answer
> it for you, since this isn't a real situation. personally, i would be more
> interested in knowing what cultural factors are responsible for the
> language not changing. i'm picturing a kind of idyllic lothlorien of
> timeless creatures who are impervious to the passage of time and somehow
> have minds that transcend it, whatever that means. on the other hand, you
> could have a society whose penalty for grammar-rule-breaking is immediate
> decapitation.
>
>
If the Yemorans have human nervous systems, this will quickly lead to
negative population growth and eventual extinction.
Language change is hard-wired into the human brain. Or at least, so seems
the most likely explanation. (The one I prefer is that it's hard-wired
into the very structure of information itself, but we Platonists don't get
much room in academia these days)
--Patrick
--
Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
order from Finishing Line
Press<http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
and
Amazon<http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2>.
Messages in this topic (6)
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1d. Re: Language that Don't Change
Posted by: "Nikolay Ivankov" lukevil...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Feb 6, 2012 1:30 am ((PST))
On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 5:58 AM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
goldyemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Are there languages that don't change? If Yardish doesn't change, how
> could that affect the Yemorans? Since they're mostly telepaths, does that
> make telepathy a language or a sense?
> Nicole Andrews
>
> Pen name Mellissa Green
> Budding novelist
> Tweet me
>
>
>
> @greenNovelist
>
There has already been a discussion about a language that does not change.
If You do not mind looking the archives of the list, you may probably find
it.
In fact, the speed of changing of the language depends on many factors. The
less people speak it, and the less contacts they have with people speaking
other languages. That's how it was with, say, Lithuanian, Romanian or
Arabic. These language sound much closer to Proto-Indoi-European, and Latin
then Proto-Semitic other languages of their groups, because they were
separated by foresrs, desert and mountians form the rest of the word.
However, it worth saying that the terms "Lithuanian", "Romainan" or
"Arabic" are a bit artificial here. The first two were made by sort of
averaging of different dialects. As for Arabic, the literature and spoken
norm was sort of fixed by the Quran, and the modern dialects differ from
this language much less then, say, modern French or Spanish from Latin. But
still, even Arabic has diversified in many ways, so (being no champion in
it, of course) I presume that it would be not so easy for two people from?
for instance, Egipt and Yemen to understand each other when they speak
their common languages. though not completely impossible, of course.
Still, even these languages have changed. Even the dead language may
change, for as far as I know the history knew different fashions in Latin,
which, by far, was not really learned by anyone as a first language.
If you want to STOP the change, you have to be aware of similar processes
that go simultaneously:
1. The pronounciation changes. The speaker tends to chew the words in order
to lose less energy while speaking. Some people hearing them may start
pronouncing things sililarily - say, when the children imitate their
parents, or just wehen the other thinks that this person's speech sounds
"sorta cool". But speaking is something about sharing the information with
the listener, and at some point the listener, you know, misses the point.
At this moment the speaker should clarify her/himselves. He/she can do it
by just returning back to what is supposed to be the norm. Or
2. The speaker may clarify the meaning by something new. That is one of the
reasons why the structure of the sentences changed. For instance, at some
point in history the People speaking English "found" that it's too boring
to pronounce cases. So the cases were abandoned, but the price they had to
pay to understand each other was fixing the word order.
3. Finally, the meaning of words changes constantly, even if no new words
are invented. You can see the patterns of constructed change of meanings
now and then in the mailing list. For the examples in natlang, the Latin
"calidus" - "warm" is cognate with English "cold". In a few centuries the
russian word for "residence" became "cemetry", and in few decades the word
for "definitely" became "maybe". Everyone knows the meaning of cool as not
only being "not too warm" by now, but how long ago has it became into play.
The less people You talk to, the less is the probability that You'll catch
something new and chang your own language. For even the speech of the same
person changes within time. But that is all just about the speed of change,
not about the stop.
So, well, for the third problem, You really can have an army of grammar
nazi inquisition who check whether the word is used in a "righteous" way.
Thogh, Lois XIV, who tried to fix the norm for French for eternity, failed.
As for the first two - I don't know how could it be possible.
So, I've already written a bit too much, I suppose, but there is two more
things to add in general.
First of all, alongside with trying to understand how to make a language,
it is worth pay an attention to what a language actually is. For this
purpose I'd recommend You the books by S. Pinker: "The Language Instinct"
and "The Stuff of Thought". Though they may be quite questionable, they can
give a first understanding of WHAT a language is for the ones who are far
(or just still far) from lingustics (like me).
Seconly, as a novelist who faded without blooming, I'd say that telepathy
is... well... became a mark of budding novelist. Like rhyming "love" and
"blood", Y'know. It doesn't mean that thelepathy is stricly forbidden now,
but in order to make an impressin on the reader, You need to make it really
indispensible in your novel. And this, as the professor said, requires
"some kind of elvish craft".
Best,
Kolya
Messages in this topic (6)
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2a. Re: Endangered Languages
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" lytl...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Feb 5, 2012 9:14 pm ((PST))
People stop thinking in it. Usually a result of not speaking and/or hearing
it.
stevo
On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 12:01 AM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
goldyemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> How can a language become endangered?
> Nicole Andrews
>
> Pen name Mellissa Green
> Budding novelist
> Tweet me
>
>
>
> @greenNovelist
>
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Endangered Languages
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Feb 5, 2012 9:16 pm ((PST))
An endangered language is one that is likely to go extinct in the near
future. I would say standard signs of an endangered language:
- the language has less than 1,000 speakers
- children are not learning the language
- the language is used almost exclusively at home
On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 12:01 AM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
goldyemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> How can a language become endangered?
> Nicole Andrews
>
> Pen name Mellissa Green
> Budding novelist
> Tweet me
>
>
>
> @greenNovelist
>
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: Endangered Languages
Posted by: "Matthew Turnbull" ave....@gmail.com
Date: Sun Feb 5, 2012 9:18 pm ((PST))
A language becomes endangered when people stop speaking it to their
children for the most part. That means that the children never learn it as
a first language and they then never teach their children. As each
generation contains fewer and fewer speakers the language gets less and
less until finally almost no one speaks it anymore.
One thing that can make this happen is a massive cultural change, for
example lots of immigrants from northern Europe in Manitoba never taught
their children how to speak their language, so that the children wouldn't
have a social stigma from not speaking English well (or so the story goes).
Also massive deaths can cause the population of speakers to become so small
that they are absorbed by the surrounding culture and lose their language.
On Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 11:01 PM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
goldyemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> How can a language become endangered?
> Nicole Andrews
>
> Pen name Mellissa Green
> Budding novelist
> Tweet me
>
>
>
> @greenNovelist
>
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3a. Re: Language Families
Posted by: "Matthew Turnbull" ave....@gmail.com
Date: Sun Feb 5, 2012 9:20 pm ((PST))
Language families are groups languages are sorted into based on their
similarity to other languages. These groups theoretically represent the way
that the languages evolved from their parent languages.
Technically Yardish would not need a language family. Languages without a
family are called isolates.
On Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 11:00 PM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
goldyemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What are language families, and Yardish function without one?
> Nicole Andrews
>
> Pen name Mellissa Green
> Budding novelist
> Tweet me
>
>
>
> @greenNovelist
>
Messages in this topic (3)
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3b. Re: Language Families
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" pwd...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Feb 5, 2012 9:31 pm ((PST))
On Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 11:00 PM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
goldyemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What are language families, and Yardish function without one?
> Nicole Andrews
>
> Pen name Mellissa Green
> Budding novelist
> Tweet me
>
>
You may enjoy and find some enlightenment from How Language Works, by David
Crystal. It's set up in FAQ form, and can probably answer a lot of your
questions. If you want a more formal introduction, I'd suggest you pick up
The Study of Language, by George Yule. It's the textbook I use in my
introductory class. It's not perfect, but it's a good, brief introduction
to a lot of fundamental linguistic concepts, and is easy to read. The
Power of Babel is also a good introduction to some fundamental concepts,
especially how languages change. That one's by John McWhorter. It gets
mixed reviews, but I found it entertaining and interesting, if not terribly
scholarly.
To answer your question in brief, a language family is a collection of
related languages, which descend from a common ancestor. The Romance
language family for example descends from Latin (hence, Rome, hence,
Romance). The Germanic language family descends from Proto-Germanic.
These two language families, the Romance and the Germanic, both descend in
turn from a common ancestor, Proto Indo-European.
You can tell languages are related by noticing similarities, such as the
fact that "me" in German is "mich," "me" in Latin, and so on. Of course,
you can't rely on similarities alone, since some can happen by coincidence
(such as Japanese "nama" and English "name") and some can happen from
borrowing (the fact that they have the word "alcatraz" in Spanish doesn't
mean that they're in the same language family as Arabic).
Are there languages on earth without families? Indeed. The linguistic
isolates have no known relatives. I say "known" because it's almost
certain that they did, at one time, have an entire family, but all the
other members died out. They're orphans, you might say. Basque, for
instance, is a linguistic isolate, but probably belonged to a very large
family that was wiped out by the Indo-European invasion. Other famous
isolates are Japanese and Sumerian.
So can your conlang do without a family? Sure. It could be an isolate, or
the only surviving member of the family.
Probably, all languages on earth are members of the same large family, or
at least most of them. We can't know for sure, and we can't reconstruct
back that far, despite some psychceramic attempts to do so.
--Patrick
--
Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
order from Finishing Line
Press<http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
and
Amazon<http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2>.
Messages in this topic (3)
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________________________________________________________________________
4a. Re: No Songs To Sing
Posted by: "Eugene Oh" un.do...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Feb 5, 2012 11:32 pm ((PST))
Ben, I'm interested in the 4-character method you're using - mind giving us an
example of how you've adapted it?
Eugene
Sent from my iPhone
On 5 Feb 2012, at 22:26, Ben Scerri <psykieki...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Parallelism works really well for languages high in synonyms. Languages
>> with a sparse lexicon would simply produce a repetition of lines with the
>> same words:
>
> Not necessarily. All you need to do is give several examples of a SIMILAR
> concept. Therefore, all your language needs is the possibility of metaphor
> or simile, and I can see no reason why any conlang trying to be
> naturalistic could not fit this need.
>
> Artlangs and the like might have a bit more of a problem, but then, not all
> types of poetry and suited to every type of language.
>
> In my most recent project (about which I've already mentioned the Wave
> Pattern), I've borrowed a modern Chinese practice of giving things
> nicknames of 4 characters (4 syllables). This also exists in lots of old
> idioms, but the modern version is what intrigues me as they have a trend of
> translating English words into Chinese characters with similar sounds and
> then turning them into a 4 character nickname based on these sounds.
> Therefore, those who know the English word have a funnier way of saying it
> (as the combination of the 4 Chinese characters would invariably mean
> something TOTALLY different in Chinese). Therefore, your language could
> 'make fun of' or be influenced by an old or revered language (similar to
> English revering Latin) by having your people write poetry to SOUND like
> the old language (or the new) whilst using syllables and roots from the new
> (or old) to fit in with the sounds. However, the ACTUAL meaning is
> completely different. I urge you to try this out, as it makes some very
> humorous results!
>
> On 6 February 2012 02:15, Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> --- On Sun, 2/5/12, Charles W Brickner <tepeyach...@embarqmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> You might also consider parallelism,
>>> a device used in Hebrew poetry. There
>>> are several variations. If you are interested I'd be
>>> glad to tell you of them.
>>>
>>> Psalm 37:1-2
>>> Be not vexed over evildoers,
>>> Nor jealous of those who do wrong;
>>> For like grass they quickly wither,
>>> And like green herbs they wilt.
>>
>> Parallelism works really well for languages high in synonyms. Languages
>> with a sparse lexicon would simply produce a repetition of lines with the
>> same words:
>>
>> Be not upset about wrongdoers
>> nor upset about those wrongdoers;
>> like plants they quickly wilt,
>> like plants they wilt.
>>
>>> I will be using parallelism when I attempt some poetry in
>>> Senjecas.
>>> Senjecas is not conducive to rhyme.
>>
>> Parallelism is found in many poetic forms in the World as well. Never hurts
>> to say the same thing five different ways -- after all, before there was
>> writing and before you could just look up a line of poetry online, if you
>> stop paying attention during an epic recitation, you can easily miss a
>> key portion of the plot if it weren't repeated.
>>
>>> Charlie
>>
>> Padraic
>>
>>
Messages in this topic (12)
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________________________________________________________________________
5. Re: Page makeover, see the before/after
Posted by: "taliesin the storyteller" taliesin-conl...@nvg.org
Date: Mon Feb 6, 2012 4:21 am ((PST))
* Herman Miller said on 2012-02-06 01:02:46 +0100
> On 2/5/2012 10:43 AM, taliesin the storyteller wrote:
>>
>> http://taliesin.nvg.org/taruven/compare2.html
>>
>> the old page is on the left and the new page on the right.
>>
>> Would you say that the new page is an improvement over the old? What
>> could be made better on the new page?
>
> It looks like an improvement in general. The description of {ř} is a bit
> confusing. It sounds like you're describing a sequence [ʀr] or [xr], but
> you have it symbolized as /rʀː/ or /ʀʁː/.
Thx, should end with [r] yes. As for the length-mark, I'm not sure it is
redundant. The ř is in itself always long but there is no agreed-upon
way to use one length-mark for one sound that is written with two
symbols :)
> Is there any reason to leave the ASCII transliteration on the main
> chart?
There are still bits of texts on the net and in my files that haven't
been utf8-ified so *I* need to look it up sometimes. I removed the
latin-1 column, which might have been a mistake, but it was mostly
identical to utf8 anyway save for vowels with macrons and the consonants
with hachek.
> Has the sandhi table for vowels been moved to another page or is
> it just redundant because of the content of the "long vowels" chart?
Sandhi is too dialect-dependent so I will save it for the
dialects-section, to be written Real Soon Now[tm] =D
t.
Messages in this topic (1)
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