There are 15 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: In the Land of Invented Languages From: And Rosta 1.2. Re: In the Land of Invented Languages From: MorphemeAddict 1.3. Re: In the Land of Invented Languages From: Patrick Dunn 1.4. Re: In the Land of Invented Languages From: R A Brown 2.1. Re: Transcription system for Books From: Michael Everson 3a. Re: A new direction in loglangs? From: And Rosta 3b. Re: A new direction in loglangs? From: Logan Kearsley 3c. Re: A new direction in loglangs? From: Jim Henry 3d. Re: A new direction in loglangs? From: Logan Kearsley 3e. Re: A new direction in loglangs? From: MorphemeAddict 4.1. Re: Dscript for conlangers From: And Rosta 5a. Re: Siye: A Joke In the Market From: Anthony Miles 6a. Re: Conjunction Curiosity From: Padraic Brown 6b. Re: Conjunction Curiosity From: A. da Mek 7a. Re: If you only had 16 characters per day... (a language for Streetp From: Anthony Miles Messages ________________________________________________________________________ 1.1. Re: In the Land of Invented Languages Posted by: "And Rosta" and.ro...@gmail.com Date: Thu Aug 2, 2012 11:36 am ((PDT)) R A Brown, On 25/07/2012 17:57: > I notice that And correctly referred to Livagian being > publicated in 1991, not published. Actually I said "It is a conlang that has been much mentioned on Conlang (almost always by me, of course) but never publicated", meaning that even if you distinguish between formal publication (publishing) on the one hand and merely making something available to the public (publicating) on the other hand, Livagian does not even satisfy the laxer criteria. > There are some fine Conlangs published on the web which do not get > mentioned; I just give two above I too am fond of Liva and Kinya and their authors (tho I wonder if that's partly a consequence of my having encountered them at a time when conlangs were rare enough that I had time to study each new conlang I encountered). > (tho sadly I find that the Kinya site is no longer maintained) I think a pdf with built-in permission to recirculate is better than webpages, for this sort of reason. --And. Messages in this topic (62) ________________________________________________________________________ 1.2. Re: In the Land of Invented Languages Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" lytl...@gmail.com Date: Thu Aug 2, 2012 11:49 am ((PDT)) On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 9:58 AM, Roman Rausch <ara...@mail.ru> wrote: > >One of the things I really liked about the book is that > >Arika did not just describe languages - she got involved. > >She doesn't, e.g. just tells us about Wilkins' "Real > >Character" - she tells us about her attempts at using. she > >actually joins the strange world of Esperantoland and so on. > > Indeed, and for that reason I can forgive that the book is not > comprehensive enough - actually learning the languages and diving headfirst > into their communities is not what everyone is prepared to do. > I also like that she doesn't just talk around a bit, but brings an > analysis straight to the point: Williams has created a thesaurus, > Blissymbolics is a way to express English, Esperanto has achieved success > as a language of a certain community with shared ideals; The Esperanto community is not one of shared ideals, despite its characterization as the language of peace. It's just a language, simple, easy, fun. stevo > and so on. > Messages in this topic (62) ________________________________________________________________________ 1.3. Re: In the Land of Invented Languages Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" pwd...@gmail.com Date: Thu Aug 2, 2012 12:33 pm ((PDT)) I was particularly impressed with the serious with which she took Klingon. I kind of sympathized with her fascination and insistence that she was going to do it right and learn the language. As a person who has flashcards on him at all times, I kind of respect that. On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 8:58 AM, Roman Rausch <ara...@mail.ru> wrote: > >One of the things I really liked about the book is that > >Arika did not just describe languages - she got involved. > >She doesn't, e.g. just tells us about Wilkins' "Real > >Character" - she tells us about her attempts at using. she > >actually joins the strange world of Esperantoland and so on. > > Indeed, and for that reason I can forgive that the book is not > comprehensive enough - actually learning the languages and diving headfirst > into their communities is not what everyone is prepared to do. > I also like that she doesn't just talk around a bit, but brings an > analysis straight to the point: Williams has created a thesaurus, > Blissymbolics is a way to express English, Esperanto has achieved success > as a language of a certain community with shared ideals; and so on. > -- 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 (62) ________________________________________________________________________ 1.4. Re: In the Land of Invented Languages Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com Date: Fri Aug 3, 2012 12:26 am ((PDT)) On 02/08/2012 17:50, And Rosta wrote: > R A Brown, On 25/07/2012 17:57: >> I notice that And correctly referred to Livagian being >> publicated in 1991, not published. > > Actually I said "It is a conlang that has been much > mentioned on Conlang (almost always by me, of course) but > never publicated", OOPS! That'll reach me to check the original and not rely on memory alone. > meaning that even if you distinguish between formal > publication (publishing) on the one hand and merely > making something available to the public (publicating) > on the other hand, Livagian does not even satisfy the > laxer criteria. Tho a couple of sample in Conlang relays did subsequently appear - but they were later than the 1991 quoted by Arika Okrent. By her own admission the criteria for including pre-Internet conlangs is stricter than that of Internet conlangs. But even so, i think it is fairly from other mails in this thread that there are some bizarre omissions as well as inclusions in both categories of conlangs. >> There are some fine Conlangs published on the web >> which do not get mentioned; I just give two above > > I too am fond of Liva and Kinya and their authors (tho I > wonder if that's partly a consequence of my having > encountered them at a time when conlangs were rare enough > that I had time to study each new conlang I > encountered). Maybe - but I think what attracted me most to Liva (which, for those who don't know it, is a loglang) was its phonology. As many know, that is possibly the aspect of language I find most interesting. Claudio has a eight-fold vowel system, reminiscent of Turkish, which he arranged in two ranks of four: four high vowels and four low vowels. He follows this grouping of four through his series of consonants: voiced plosives, unvoiced plosives, nasals, laterals, voiced fricatives, unvoiced fricatives. Thus he has a matrix of 8 x 4 = 32 phonemes. But revisiting this, I'm not so happy about his 'laterals'. The IPA chart gives symbols for his dental/alveolar, palatal and velar laterals, the spaces for labial (and labiodental) lateral is blanked out, meaning the sound is not humanly possible. Claudio described his 'labial lateral' thus: "[the sound] is obtained by putting the tongue tip between the lips and pronouncing a sort of 'L'." His phonotactics were interesting - but I won't go into them here, except to say that they meant that "a string of phonemes is completely parsable both in written and spoken speech. Blank spaces or pauses thus are not necessary, and words can be written as a continuous string." But he did add: "Nevertheless, bland spaces are okay as a visual help." It is the sort of thing I have attempted in BrSc and its various descendants. Also I have long adopted, and quite independently, the same principle as Claudio: "There are two main word classes: semantic words and syntactic words .... Semantic words are not distinguished as nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc." As for Kinya, I find this language even more attractive. For those who do not know it, Kinya is an artlang with its fictional speakers, con-history etc. such that it could belong to the League of Lost Languages (it does not, because the LLL did not exist when Maurizio Gavioli created the language. I like the detail that Maurizio spent on describing the language. It also had vowel harmony, which is a feature I've always liked. Indeed, some may remember that it featured in early versions of BrSc. Once again we find "[a] major peculiarity of Kinya is its lack of any morphological distinction between categories like verbs, substantive or adjective." However, the language does have inflexions and the grammar is original and described in some detail. I particularly liked his attention to metrics, which so few conlangers seem to bother about. On researching further, I find that Kinya was around at least by 1996. >> (tho sadly I find that the Kinya site is no longer >> maintained) > > I think a pdf with built-in permission to recirculate is > better than webpages, for this sort of reason. Yes - I ordinary text copy of Maurizio's description of the language which I could easily put into pdf format and post on my website. I'll try to contact Maurizio, as IMO not having a version of Kinya available on the web is a great loss. -- 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 (62) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 2.1. Re: Transcription system for Books Posted by: "Michael Everson" ever...@evertype.com Date: Thu Aug 2, 2012 11:39 am ((PDT)) On 2 Aug 2012, at 16:02, And Rosta wrote: >> I'm going my best: http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n4297.pdf > > To me the serif on the descender of the capital beta looks wrong; since only > J is normally found with a descender in nonswash caps, I would do the > descender like a J's. Or does this canonical glyph follow some Gabonese norm? See Figures 13-15 for the local practice. > The capital chi looks odd too, tho it's less obvious to me what its form > should be. Maybe no descender, and the thick stroke from top left to bottom > right with a strong reverse-S shape curve? What was the rationale for the > glyph chosen? These questions might be made clearer in http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n4296.pdf Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/ Messages in this topic (54) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 3a. Re: A new direction in loglangs? Posted by: "And Rosta" and.ro...@gmail.com Date: Thu Aug 2, 2012 11:45 am ((PDT)) Logan Kearsley, On 01/08/2012 21:17: > On 1 August 2012 06:33, Alex Fink<000...@gmail.com> wrote: >> On Thu, 26 Jul 2012 15:58:56 -0600, Logan Kearsley<chronosur...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >>> One of the things that has always bugged me about Palno being based on >>> predicate calculus is the awkwardity of adverb constructions. >> The first way I would think to handle these classes (in fact, what >> we do in UNLWS) is as predicates whose argument is the Davidsonian >> event argument for the verb (there's a word I've learned from >> And). > > That's effectively what Palno so far has always done. Rather than > explicitly stating a Davidsonian event argument, though (which would > seem to me rather Lojbanish), Why Lojbanish? The Lojban method is clunkier than the Palno--Liva or the Livagico-UNLWS systems: it uses a dyadic predicate, _nu_, "x1 is the event of x2", where x2 is syntactically and semantically a predication. > the event argument is equivalent to the > implicit return value of a non-top-level predicate. That's what allows > nesting such that the result of one predicate can be the argument of > another. > > Many of the existing problems with Palno (like correctly handling > relative clauses) stem from manipulating that return value so that > it's something *other* than the Davidsonian. E.g., top-level > predicates have to actually be logical predicates that assert a truth > value, like "there exists e such that e satisfies this predicate", > rather than the bare argument value itself, "some e such that e > satisfies this predicate". I don't see why the top-level case is a problem: you could say that the syntactic predication returns an event argument, as usual, and that there is an implicit quantifier binding it. (In the case of Livagian, implicit narrow-scope existential quantification is the default for all arguments; I expect UNLWS is the same.) --And. Messages in this topic (9) ________________________________________________________________________ 3b. Re: A new direction in loglangs? Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" chronosur...@gmail.com Date: Thu Aug 2, 2012 12:54 pm ((PDT)) On 2 August 2012 09:24, And Rosta <and.ro...@gmail.com> wrote: > Logan Kearsley, On 01/08/2012 21:17: >> >> On 1 August 2012 06:33, Alex Fink<000...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> On Thu, 26 Jul 2012 15:58:56 -0600, Logan >>> Kearsley<chronosur...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>> One of the things that has always bugged me about Palno being based on >>>> predicate calculus is the awkwardity of adverb constructions. >>> >>> The first way I would think to handle these classes (in fact, what >>> >>> we do in UNLWS) is as predicates whose argument is the Davidsonian >>> event argument for the verb (there's a word I've learned from >>> And). >> >> That's effectively what Palno so far has always done. Rather than >> explicitly stating a Davidsonian event argument, though (which would >> seem to me rather Lojbanish), > > Why Lojbanish? The Lojban method is clunkier than the Palno--Liva or the > Livagico-UNLWS systems: it uses a dyadic predicate, _nu_, "x1 is the event > of x2", where x2 is syntactically and semantically a predication. Well, yes, that's precisely what I meant. Palno does not explicitly state the Davidsonian, while Lojban does (or at least, can). Thus, if Palno did so, I would find it to be rather Lojbanish. >> the event argument is equivalent to the >> implicit return value of a non-top-level predicate. That's what allows >> nesting such that the result of one predicate can be the argument of >> another. >> >> Many of the existing problems with Palno (like correctly handling >> relative clauses) stem from manipulating that return value so that >> it's something *other* than the Davidsonian. E.g., top-level >> predicates have to actually be logical predicates that assert a truth >> value, like "there exists e such that e satisfies this predicate", >> rather than the bare argument value itself, "some e such that e >> satisfies this predicate". > > I don't see why the top-level case is a problem: you could say that the > syntactic predication returns an event argument, as usual, and that there is > an implicit quantifier binding it. (In the case of Livagian, implicit > narrow-scope existential quantification is the default for all arguments; I > expect UNLWS is the same.) That is essentially the interpretation that I do use, most of the time. The trouble with it is that it results in an asymmetry in the interpretation of top-level vs. embedded clauses, which means that the interpretation of a clause can change if an additional clause is built around it (e.g., if adverbials are added), and structures are then needed to specify when an embedded clause actually is intended to return a truth value rather than an event. I would much prefer context-independence. -l. Messages in this topic (9) ________________________________________________________________________ 3c. Re: A new direction in loglangs? Posted by: "Jim Henry" jimhenry1...@gmail.com Date: Thu Aug 2, 2012 6:41 pm ((PDT)) On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 12:22 AM, Logan Kearsley <chronosur...@gmail.com> wrote: > one which binds looser and so would attach to the clause). But while > this works well for math, with a limited number of operators, it > wouldn't work so well for a language with an open class of predicates. > It would be like the animacy hierarchy from hell, having to memorize > the relative positions of every possible pair of predicates in the > entire language, and you could never define enough different synonyms > for every predicate to cover ever possible binding order you might > ever want. Why not use derivational morphology to turn one type of predicate into another, or to derive several types of predicates from more general roots? I think one of the versions of Larry Sulky's Konya used different derivational operation to turn roots into noun-oriented prepositions or verb-oriented prepositions. -- Jim Henry http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/ Messages in this topic (9) ________________________________________________________________________ 3d. Re: A new direction in loglangs? Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" chronosur...@gmail.com Date: Thu Aug 2, 2012 7:33 pm ((PDT)) On 2 August 2012 19:41, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 12:22 AM, Logan Kearsley <chronosur...@gmail.com> > wrote: >> one which binds looser and so would attach to the clause). But while >> this works well for math, with a limited number of operators, it >> wouldn't work so well for a language with an open class of predicates. >> It would be like the animacy hierarchy from hell, having to memorize >> the relative positions of every possible pair of predicates in the >> entire language, and you could never define enough different synonyms >> for every predicate to cover ever possible binding order you might >> ever want. > > Why not use derivational morphology to turn one type of predicate into > another, or to derive several types of predicates from more general > roots? > > I think one of the versions of Larry Sulky's Konya used different > derivational operation to turn roots into noun-oriented prepositions > or verb-oriented prepositions. That is one of the options, but first I have to know what kinds of predicates to create the morphology for! Just having noun/value-oriented vs. verb/function-oriented predicates, e.g., doesn't solve the binding problem with more than 1 adverbial predicate, because binding the first still results in a verb/predicate phrase, leaving it ambiguous as to whether the second adverbial predicate was supposed to bind before or after the first. -l. Messages in this topic (9) ________________________________________________________________________ 3e. Re: A new direction in loglangs? Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" lytl...@gmail.com Date: Thu Aug 2, 2012 7:46 pm ((PDT)) Try several different kinds. stevo On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 10:33 PM, Logan Kearsley <chronosur...@gmail.com>wrote: > On 2 August 2012 19:41, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 12:22 AM, Logan Kearsley <chronosur...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> one which binds looser and so would attach to the clause). But while > >> this works well for math, with a limited number of operators, it > >> wouldn't work so well for a language with an open class of predicates. > >> It would be like the animacy hierarchy from hell, having to memorize > >> the relative positions of every possible pair of predicates in the > >> entire language, and you could never define enough different synonyms > >> for every predicate to cover ever possible binding order you might > >> ever want. > > > > Why not use derivational morphology to turn one type of predicate into > > another, or to derive several types of predicates from more general > > roots? > > > > I think one of the versions of Larry Sulky's Konya used different > > derivational operation to turn roots into noun-oriented prepositions > > or verb-oriented prepositions. > > That is one of the options, but first I have to know what kinds of > predicates to create the morphology for! Just having > noun/value-oriented vs. verb/function-oriented predicates, e.g., > doesn't solve the binding problem with more than 1 adverbial > predicate, because binding the first still results in a verb/predicate > phrase, leaving it ambiguous as to whether the second adverbial > predicate was supposed to bind before or after the first. > > -l. > Messages in this topic (9) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 4.1. Re: Dscript for conlangers Posted by: "And Rosta" and.ro...@gmail.com Date: Thu Aug 2, 2012 11:48 am ((PDT)) Matthew DeBlock, On 24/07/2012 16:20: > It was in response to you guys arguing over "poly/omni directional" > > I had missed this aspect > > I dont see how this writting system adds anything that coulnt be achieved > more effeciently than pre-exisitng alphabet letters encapusalted within a > "cell" > > I mean it doesnt seem to provide any significant advantages The main goals of the script are compactness and ease/speed of writing, and roman letters within cells would be less compact and less easy to write. The multidirectionality is not a goal in itself but rather an incidental property of the solution. > and more, your whole "never lifting the pen" principle further looses > justification.. > > isnt the whole point of alowing multi directional writting to use the > wrtitting space in more innovative and efficient ways? Efficiency is a goal of the script. > are you going to dis-allow principles "forking", "intersections", "nodes", > etc..? is it still just purely linear? It is purely linear. Forking, intersections, nodes seem less efficient. --And. Messages in this topic (62) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 5a. Re: Siye: A Joke In the Market Posted by: "Anthony Miles" mamercu...@gmail.com Date: Thu Aug 2, 2012 2:19 pm ((PDT)) I invented it in February 2012, so you can look on here. I'm also going into more depth at http://linguavore.livejournal.com/ Currently I'm writing a series of post on the verbal structure. Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 6a. Re: Conjunction Curiosity Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com Date: Thu Aug 2, 2012 5:12 pm ((PDT)) --- On Wed, 8/1/12, Charles W Brickner <tepeyach...@embarqmail.com> wrote: > David Brumbley wrote: > >He who knows not and knows not he knows not > > Is that all there is to the proverb? Chap. iiij of the "Sutra of the Great Sharma Master" (Book of the Noble Way*) has: "He said: “There are four kinds of man: the Sleeping man, the Ignorant man, the Foolish man and the Wise man. Recognise them, and ye shall surely prosper in all things. He who knows, but knows not that he knows is asleep: wake him. He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not can be taught: teach him. He who knows not but thinks that he knows is a fool: avoid him. He who knows, and knows that he knows is a wise man, a prophet: follow him.”" > The subject "he" doesn't have a verb. I think the subject here is "he who knows". Likewise with the other "he who" phrases. > There's just "he" and three dependent clauses. * This is a classic book of religious and philosophical texts from the Eastlands. It is largely Christian, but the Noble Way applies equally to all paths, including those without gods. In the World, Yeshue is considered (apart from those who believe him to be God incarnate) the paragon and embodiment of the Way. Religions are generally sorted into those that teach the Way and those that don't. "Sharma" is the Talarian word for "action of the Way", so right action in all things, living a godly life. Could be related to Dharma or descended from it -- since other Aryan *dh- words end up with sh- in Talarian, it could well predate their contact with ancient Sanskrit speakers. Padraic > Charlie Messages in this topic (10) ________________________________________________________________________ 6b. Re: Conjunction Curiosity Posted by: "A. da Mek" a.da_m...@ufoni.cz Date: Fri Aug 3, 2012 4:19 am ((PDT)) > I've been using two versions of the coordinating conjunction in > Hsassiens without really thinking too much about it. In the case of > one subject linked to two different verbs, the conjunction is 'sin.' > When two or more nouns, adjectives or adverbs are being listed, the > conjunction is 'zem.' So, to HsassiEnglish an example, "He is walking > SIN talking at the same time," but "Tommy ZEM Rebecca are fighting > again." Just curious if other languages distinguish in the same way, > and if so, how. Ja¨lak wudbar. or: Ja¨lak wu judbar. Ti¨omum wa Ribqatum ja¨baqan. Gd¨h conjunction "W" is vocalised: 1) "wa" when there are several entities: malku wa kohinu king and priest (two different persons) 2) "wu" when there is only one entity with several attributes or states or actions: malku wu kohinu king and priest (one person with two professions) 3) it can replace the subject prefix if the subject of the werb is the same as the subject of the previous werb. Jahwuj kohinum wa kalbum. (There was a priest and a dog.) Kalbum ja¨kul bas^ram wa kohinum fam jaqtul. (The dog ate a meat and the priest killed it.) Kohinum kalbam jaqtul waqbur. or: Kohinum kalbam jaqtul wu jaqbur. (The priest killed and burried the dog.) >He who knows not and knows not he knows not, he is a fool. Shun him. >He who knows not and knows he knows not, he is a student. Teach him. >He who knows and knows not he knows, he is asleep. Wake him. >He who knows and knows he knows, he is wise. Follow him. Fu, malojdaºh, walojdaºh fotam, mo¨ jalojdaºh, fum t¸apshum; manaºh fa. Fu, malojdaºh, wajdaºh fotam, mo¨ jalojdaºh, fum lamdhum; durush fa. Fu, majdaºh, walojdaºh fotam, mo¨ jajdaºh, fum s¸allum; faºharar fa. Fu, majdaºh, wajdaºh fotam, mo¨ jajdaºh, fum ªhakmum; ºhaqab fa. Messages in this topic (10) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 7a. Re: If you only had 16 characters per day... (a language for Streetp Posted by: "Anthony Miles" mamercu...@gmail.com Date: Fri Aug 3, 2012 10:15 am ((PDT)) If you use one-character words, how do you distinguish them from multiple-character words that also contain the same letter? \ Messages in this topic (7) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yahoo! 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