There are 19 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Exquisite corpse
From: neo gu
1b. Re: Exquisite corpse
From: Peter Bleackley
1c. Re: Exquisite corpse
From: neo gu
1d. Re: Exquisite corpse
From: John Campbell
1e. Re: Exquisite corpse
From: Amanda Babcock Furrow
1f. Re: Exquisite corpse
From: Douglas Koller
1g. Re: Exquisite corpse
From: kechpaja
1h. Re: Exquisite corpse
From: Roman Rausch
2a. Re: Tolkien example
From: Matthew Turnbull
2b. Re: Tolkien example
From: Amanda Babcock Furrow
3. 30-Day conlang: day 26
From: Gary Shannon
4a. Re: OT: Techno [was Re: what is the meaning of "vs" in music?]
From: Daniel Bowman
5a. Re: Diacritics
From: Jean-François Colson
5b. Re: Diacritics
From: Douglas Koller
5c. Re: Diacritics
From: Patrick Dunn
5d. Re: Diacritics
From: R A Brown
6a. Re: Diacritics (was: Tolkien example)
From: J. 'Mach' Wust
6b. Re: Diacritics (was: Tolkien example)
From: Philip Newton
7a. Re: Verbs-of-motion-centric language
From: Roman Rausch
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Exquisite corpse
Posted by: "neo gu" qiihos...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2010 7:55 am ((PST))
On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 15:41:35 +0000, Peter Bleackley
<peter.bleack...@rd.bbc.co.uk> wrote:
> Anyone for a game of Conlang Exquisite Corpse?
>
> I'll send a sentence in Khangaþyagon to somebody.
> Each person in turn translates the sentence they receive,
> writes a new sentence that would follow on from it, and
> translates the followon sentence into their own conlang.
> They then send the followon sentence to the next participant.
>
>Pete
Would it be ok if my followon sentence was a non-sequitur?
--
neo gu
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Exquisite corpse
Posted by: "Peter Bleackley" peter.bleack...@rd.bbc.co.uk
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2010 8:02 am ((PST))
On 26/11/2010 15:52, neo gu wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 15:41:35 +0000, Peter Bleackley
> <peter.bleack...@rd.bbc.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Anyone for a game of Conlang Exquisite Corpse?
>>
>> I'll send a sentence in Khangaþyagon to somebody.
>> Each person in turn translates the sentence they receive,
>> writes a new sentence that would follow on from it, and
>> translates the followon sentence into their own conlang.
>> They then send the followon sentence to the next participant.
>>
>> Pete
>
> Would it be ok if my followon sentence was a non-sequitur?
>
>
That's stretching it a bit, I think. Non-sequiturs are meant to happen
by serendipity in this game.
Pete
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Exquisite corpse
Posted by: "neo gu" qiihos...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2010 8:50 am ((PST))
On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 15:57:33 +0000, Peter Bleackley
<peter.bleack...@rd.bbc.co.uk> wrote:
>On 26/11/2010 15:52, neo gu wrote:
>> On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 15:41:35 +0000, Peter Bleackley
>> <peter.bleack...@rd.bbc.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> Anyone for a game of Conlang Exquisite Corpse?
>>>
>>> I'll send a sentence in Khangaþyagon to somebody.
>>> Each person in turn translates the sentence they receive,
>>> writes a new sentence that would follow on from it, and
>>> translates the followon sentence into their own conlang.
>>> They then send the followon sentence to the next participant.
>>>
>>> Pete
>>
>> Would it be ok if my followon sentence was a non-sequitur?
>
>That's stretching it a bit, I think. Non-sequiturs are meant to happen
>by serendipity in this game.
>
>Pete
ok I'll have to try hard.
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Exquisite corpse
Posted by: "John Campbell" campbell.2...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2010 1:04 pm ((PST))
What if your conlang isn't publicly documented? Could you use someone
else's?
On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 11:57 AM, Peter Bleackley <
peter.bleack...@rd.bbc.co.uk> wrote:
> On 26/11/2010 15:52, neo gu wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 15:41:35 +0000, Peter Bleackley
>> <peter.bleack...@rd.bbc.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> Anyone for a game of Conlang Exquisite Corpse?
>>>
>>> I'll send a sentence in Khangaþyagon to somebody.
>>>
>>> Each person in turn translates the sentence they receive,
>>> writes a new sentence that would follow on from it, and
>>> translates the followon sentence into their own conlang.
>>> They then send the followon sentence to the next participant.
>>>
>>> Pete
>>>
>>
>> Would it be ok if my followon sentence was a non-sequitur?
>>
>>
>>
> That's stretching it a bit, I think. Non-sequiturs are meant to happen by
> serendipity in this game.
>
> Pete
>
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1e. Re: Exquisite corpse
Posted by: "Amanda Babcock Furrow" la...@quandary.org
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2010 5:49 pm ((PST))
On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 03:41:35PM +0000, Peter Bleackley wrote:
> Anyone for a game of Conlang Exquisite Corpse?
I'm in!
Amanda
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1f. Re: Exquisite corpse
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" lao...@comcast.net
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2010 6:07 pm ((PST))
On 11/25/2010 10:41 AM, Peter Bleackley wrote:
> Anyone for a game of Conlang Exquisite Corpse?
>
> I'll send a sentence in Khangaþyagon to somebody. Each person in turn
> translates the sentence they receive, writes a new sentence that would
> follow on from it, and translates the followon sentence into their own
> conlang. They then send the followon sentence to the next participant.
Sounds like Telephone/Chinese Whispers with an extra twist (there is a game
where you read sentence and add more; the paper ends up looking like a fan;
can't remember the name). I'll play.
Kou
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1g. Re: Exquisite corpse
Posted by: "kechpaja" kechp...@comcast.net
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2010 8:18 pm ((PST))
I'll play!
-Kelvin
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1h. Re: Exquisite corpse
Posted by: "Roman Rausch" ara...@mail.ru
Date: Sat Nov 27, 2010 1:10 am ((PST))
>Anyone for a game of Conlang Exquisite Corpse?
Count me in. Just please, organize humanely timed intervals between
translations. Postings on this list sometimes seem incredibly rapid.
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Tolkien example
Posted by: "Matthew Turnbull" ave....@gmail.com
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2010 10:48 am ((PST))
digraphs and trigraphes can be confusing too though, I do chose digraphs
more often than not in my romanisations, otherwise I find myself saying
"what do you mean your keyboard doesn't have an accute accent, we're in
Canada for crying out loud!" far too often for my taste. They do tend to
make a text longer though, and I can see the appeal if diacritics when it
comes to trigraphs, just because they make a text so much longer per phone.
I don't really have anything against trigraphs though, Jorayn spells it's
velar ejectives <kka> and <kko> for unround and round respectivly,
unfortunatly [kʼʷ] is a fairly common sound :(
Messages in this topic (19)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Tolkien example
Posted by: "Amanda Babcock Furrow" la...@quandary.org
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2010 5:49 pm ((PST))
On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 06:38:29PM -0800, Arthaey Angosii wrote:
> Funny, I see all the diacritics as pretty, exotic decoration. Like
> Christmas tree ornaments, not bristling spines. :)
I agree. This somewhat explains my longest-running conlang :)
tylakèhlpë'fö,
Amanda
Messages in this topic (19)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3. 30-Day conlang: day 26
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2010 11:03 am ((PST))
As of day 26 I have 99 McGuffey sentences translated. The grammar is
becoming more stable and the lexicon is growing slowly. There are 474
Txtana words in the dictionary now. Nothing really new to report.
Original 30-day page: http://fiziwig.com/conlang/thirty_day.html
McGuffey page: http://fiziwig.com/conlang/txtana_mcguffey.html
--gary
Messages in this topic (1)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4a. Re: OT: Techno [was Re: what is the meaning of "vs" in music?]
Posted by: "Daniel Bowman" danny.c.bow...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2010 8:42 pm ((PST))
> >> Bit of a tangent here, but Darude and Oakenfold play trance, not techno.
> >> Sorry, bit of a pet peeve of mine. :P
>
Mea culpa. I know there's a difference, but when I was getting into trance
I thought it was "techno." Furthermore, I included all electronic-ish music
under the "Techno" supercategory. So I considered trance, house, etc as a
subset of "techno" and only later did I learn that techno is apparently a
subcategory of its own.
I suppose using "electronica" would be more appropriate.
For some reason, though, I can't usually identify what genre of electronica
most songs belong to and I share Logan's frustration.
--
Ayryea zakayro al Gayaltha
Messages in this topic (3)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5a. Re: Diacritics
Posted by: "Jean-François Colson" j...@colson.eu
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2010 10:20 pm ((PST))
On 26/11/10 12:37, R A Brown wrote:
> Personally I find the Alexandrians' invention far more elegant: just
> the seven basic symbols with marks to show, when needed, a difference
> of pitch.
>
> IMHO when _properly_ used, diacritics are a neat and elegant solution
> to a problem.
>
> Of course, when you don't keep control of the critters and let them
> run riot as, for example, in Vietnamese, it's a whole different matter!
>
I don't understand what you find wrong in the Vietnamese spelling. IMO
it's a very well thought system.
The breve is used to distinguish two values commonly associated to the
letter a: a = /ɑ/, ă = /a/.
The circumflex means the vowel is closer: a = /ɑ/, â = /ɐ/; e = /ɛ/, ê =
/e/; o = /ɔ/, ô = /o/.
The horn means a back vowel is unrounded: o = /ɔ/, ơ = /ɤ/; u = /u/, ư =
/ɯ/.
And finally there are five diacritics to mark five of the six tones:
- an acute for the high rising tone (/˧˥/),
- a grave for the low falling tone (/˧˩/),
- a hook above for the dipping tone (/˧˩˧/),
- a tilde for the glottalized rizing tone (/˧˥ˀ/),
- a dot below for the glottalized falling tone (/˧˩ˀ/).
The mid tone (/˧/) is left unmarked.
That's clear, neat, easy to master.
Of course, it'd have been possible to use six IPA characters instead of
ă, â, ê, ô, ơ and ư. But the diacritics do their job very efficiently.
Messages in this topic (19)
________________________________________________________________________
5b. Re: Diacritics
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" lao...@comcast.net
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2010 11:06 pm ((PST))
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jean-François Colson" <j...@colson.eu>
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2010 1:18:11 AM
Subject: Re: Diacritics
I don't understand what you find wrong in the Vietnamese spelling. IMO
it's a very well thought system.
The breve is used to distinguish two values commonly associated to the
letter a: a = /ɑ/, ă = /a/.
The circumflex means the vowel is closer: a = /ɑ/, â = /ɐ/; e = /ɛ/, ê =
/e/; o = /ɔ/, ô = /o/.
The horn means a back vowel is unrounded: o = /ɔ/, ơ = /ɤ/; u = /u/, ư =
/ɯ/.
And finally there are five diacritics to mark five of the six tones:
- an acute for the high rising tone (/˧˥/),
- a grave for the low falling tone (/˧˩/),
- a hook above for the dipping tone (/˧˩˧/),
- a tilde for the glottalized rizing tone (/˧˥ˀ/),
- a dot below for the glottalized falling tone (/˧˩ˀ/).
The mid tone (/˧/) is left unmarked.
That's clear, neat, easy to master.
Of course, it'd have been possible to use six IPA characters instead of
ă, â, ê, ô, ơ and ư. But the diacritics do their job very efficiently.
I don't disagree that it works. But can you imagine initial printing presses?
Grocery lists on the door or teen diaries must have some form of shortened
forms, or you'd be there for days. Knowing I left an "i" undotted back in the
sentence makes me apoplectic.
Kou
Messages in this topic (19)
________________________________________________________________________
5c. Re: Diacritics
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" pwd...@gmail.com
Date: Fri Nov 26, 2010 11:08 pm ((PST))
Diacritics annoy me much less than weird Englishy digraphs like <ee> for
/i/.
On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 1:04 AM, Douglas Koller <lao...@comcast.net> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jean-François Colson" <j...@colson.eu>
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2010 1:18:11 AM
> Subject: Re: Diacritics
>
> I don't understand what you find wrong in the Vietnamese spelling. IMO
> it's a very well thought system.
>
> The breve is used to distinguish two values commonly associated to the
> letter a: a = /ɑ/, ă = /a/.
> The circumflex means the vowel is closer: a = /ɑ/, â = /ɐ/; e = /ɛ/, ê =
> /e/; o = /ɔ/, ô = /o/.
> The horn means a back vowel is unrounded: o = /ɔ/, ơ = /ɤ/; u = /u/, ư =
> /ɯ/.
> And finally there are five diacritics to mark five of the six tones:
> - an acute for the high rising tone (/˧˥/),
> - a grave for the low falling tone (/˧˩/),
> - a hook above for the dipping tone (/˧˩˧/),
> - a tilde for the glottalized rizing tone (/˧˥ˀ/),
> - a dot below for the glottalized falling tone (/˧˩ˀ/).
> The mid tone (/˧/) is left unmarked.
>
> That's clear, neat, easy to master.
>
> Of course, it'd have been possible to use six IPA characters instead of
> ă, â, ê, ô, ơ and ư. But the diacritics do their job very efficiently.
>
> I don't disagree that it works. But can you imagine initial printing
> presses? Grocery lists on the door or teen diaries must have some form of
> shortened forms, or you'd be there for days. Knowing I left an "i" undotted
> back in the sentence makes me apoplectic.
>
> Kou
>
--
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 (19)
________________________________________________________________________
5d. Re: Diacritics
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Sat Nov 27, 2010 12:43 am ((PST))
First of all, an apology. It seems I forgot to reset the
"Reply to" on my original email to Conlang.
On 27/11/2010 07:04, Douglas Koller wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jean-François
> Colson"<j...@colson.eu> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2010 1:18:11 AM Subject: Re:
> Diacritics
>
> I don't understand what you find wrong in the Vietnamese
> spelling. IMO it's a very well thought system.
[snip]
>
> I don't disagree that it works.
Exactly. I did *not* say the system was illogical or that it
doesn't work. Of course it does. But IMO it has resulted in
a system where diacritics are overloaded and, again in my
opinion, I think things could have been done more elegantly.
------------------------------------------
I've also received replies from Gary and Lars. I'm not sure
whether they were really meant for the list or not and came
to me privately because of my own careless with the "reply
to" setting.
But, I admit I was a bit over-zealous in my reply to Gary's
mail which, with its mention of bow-ties & chihuahuas, was
obviously a bit tongue-in-cheek. :(
I was intending to comment specifically on their
_invention_. Indeed, my "I agree that having a new letter
is the preferred option for denoting a different sound"
shows, I think, that I am not over-impressed at the later
used that has often been made of them.
I also made the point in my reply to Gary's email - and Lars
made the same point in his email to me - the Alexandrians
invented their diacritics as _aids_ to learning. Originally
AIUI they were actually developed to aid the correct
pronunciation of Homer - the Iliad & Odyssey being as close
as the ancient Greeks got to a sacred text - and then were
used for those learning Greek as an L2. It was not until the
Byzantine period that the Greeks came to use them on all texts.
In my original email I did say I considered diacritics a
neat way of representing prosodic and/or suprasegmental
features. After reading Gary's reply to me, I have changed
my opinion somewhat.
I can well see that in our modern script the differences
between ì, í, î, and ï are not easily distinguished if light
is poor or one's vision is less than perfect. If prosodic
features are to be distinguished regularly, and not just on
texts for learners (probably written in larger or bolder
print), I think, all things being equal, it is better to
have distinct symbols for them. In other words, rather than
put an acute, grave and circumflex over vowels to show
different pitch or intonation, it would be better to use
symbols, such as ˦ ˩ etc, before the vowel.
Of course, in a language that uses only one diacritic, e.g.
Italian, there ain't a problem; we know what the "smudge"
over the letter is! Even in Spanish, which does have three
of the critters, there's not a great problem because of the
way they are used. But if a language does meaningfully use
two or three different diacritics over the same letters,
then I think Gary has a very valid point.
My point is that the _invention_ itself was not "a bad
thing" - but the application of the invention has often been
less than satisfactory (nothing new in that, alas).
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"Ein Kopf, der auf seine eigene Kosten denkt,
wird immer Eingriffe in die Sprache thun."
[J.G. Hamann, 1760]
"A mind that thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language".
Messages in this topic (19)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6a. Re: Diacritics (was: Tolkien example)
Posted by: "J. 'Mach' Wust" j_mach_w...@yahoo.com
Date: Sat Nov 27, 2010 1:47 am ((PST))
On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 11:37:06 +0000, R A Brown <r...@carolandray.plus.com> wrote:
>While I agree that having a new letter is the preferred
>option for denoting a different sound,
I'm not so sure about that. I think it's a good thing when adapting a script
to a new language, this would often be solved without adding new letters in
modern times. Changing letters basically means creating a new, incompatible
script, while keeping the old letters and using marks on them means that a
certain kind of intelligibility remains.
It seems that in ancient times, inventing new letters was the natural thing
to do when adapting a script to a new language. Just think of the dozens of
rather obscure language-specific scripts like the Gothic script, the
Etruscan script, the Oscan script, the Lycian script, the Lydian script, the
Coptic script, just to name a few.
Of course, the new way of (mostly) not creating new letters is due to the
influence of the Scriptures, which in Western Europe were written in the
Latin script, while in ancient times, there was nothing comparable to that.
--
grüess
mach
Messages in this topic (19)
________________________________________________________________________
6b. Re: Diacritics (was: Tolkien example)
Posted by: "Philip Newton" philip.new...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Nov 27, 2010 4:51 am ((PST))
On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 10:45, J. 'Mach' Wust <j_mach_w...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Of course, the new way of (mostly) not creating new letters is due to the
> influence of the Scriptures, which in Western Europe were written in the
> Latin script, while in ancient times, there was nothing comparable to that.
Reminds me of what I read one about orthographical tradition in Niue:
McEwen's 1970 _Niue Dictionary_ spelled /ŋ/ as <ng> (as in Tongan),
but that spelling never caught on popularly, apparently because of an
influential Bible translation which used <g> for this sound (as in
Samoan).
End result: /ŋ/ is still spelled as <g> today, and that's the spelling
used in the 1997 _Tohi Vagahau Niue_ dictionary.
(I wonder whether the popular lack of use of the macron for vowel
length is also due to that Bible translation. Certainly both the
dictionaries I have use the macron consistently - yet nearly all other
text I've come across in my (limited) exposure to the language omits
the diacritic.)
Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <philip.new...@gmail.com>
Messages in this topic (19)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
7a. Re: Verbs-of-motion-centric language
Posted by: "Roman Rausch" ara...@mail.ru
Date: Sat Nov 27, 2010 1:49 am ((PST))
>In short, location and motion are a large and important subset
>of the information with which language concerns itself. So I started
>thinking, why not have a language where the only true verbs are
>locative and motive? Abstract concepts could be largely represented
>as states one can metaphorically be in; alternatively, many of them
>(like emotions) could be metaphorically in or on the experiencer.
>Verbs denoting change could be phrased in terms of motion from one
>state to another.
All languages already use locational/motional metaphors and derivations very
eagerly. Some interesting examples that come to mind are 'to be under sth.'
for 'to have sth.' in Middle Egyptian; Japanese compounds with _dasu_ 'take
out', e.g. 'think + take out = remember', 'see + take out = discover'; Greek
_metaballo_ 'throw into a different position = change'; PIE *wert- 'turn,
wind' yielding words for 'become' in Germanic, 'time/weather' in Slavic; and
so forth...
Having (almost) exclusively locational/motional verbs seems like an
interesting idea, and not too implausible.
Maybe not quite what you're looking for, but in Talmit, I'm toying with dual
verbs like inhale/exhale, memorize/remember, find(unexpectedly)/lose,
find(after a search)/give up, eat/vomit; which behave like motional verbs
(after the prototype come/go).
>One of the less likely semantic fields
>to be expressed in terms of location might be speech acts, but that
>seems to me more because of what we would judge as basic and
>fundamental rather than due to any problem phrasing it as "put words
>in their ears".
Why not? I thought the idea was to regard only motion as basic and
fundamental. And speech has a kinetic component to it. Constructions like
'raise words', 'move words', 'make words flow', 'words in mouth/on top of
tongue' seem perfectly plausible to me.
I would rather say that emotional and stative verbs which lack a kinetic
component are more difficult to paraphrase motionally, unless one does
things like using 'shake' instead of 'be afraid'.
Messages in this topic (3)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/
<*> Your email settings:
Digest Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
conlang-nor...@yahoogroups.com
conlang-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
conlang-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
