There are 18 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: proto-Europic From: Peter Cyrus 1.2. Re: proto-Europic From: Roger Mills 1.3. Re: proto-Europic From: And Rosta 1.4. Re: proto-Europic From: Padraic Brown 2.1. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden From: Gary Shannon 2.2. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden From: George Corley 2.3. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden From: Gary Shannon 2.4. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden--AND some good n From: Roger Mills 2.5. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden From: Carsten Becker 2.6. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden From: Padraic Brown 3a. Re: Word lists based on order of language acquisition From: Gary Shannon 4a. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language From: David Peterson 4b. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language From: Michael Everson 4c. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language From: Arthaey Angosii 4d. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language From: David Peterson 4e. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language From: Alex Fink 5a. Re: THEORY: Loss of allophonic variation From: Eric Christopherson 6. Another vocabulary test From: taliesin the storyteller Messages ________________________________________________________________________ 1.1. Re: proto-Europic Posted by: "Peter Cyrus" pcy...@alivox.net Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 2:42 pm ((PDT)) The two ideas are not exclusive : they could have lived all over Europe before the Celts, and been pushed by them into the corners. On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 11:26 PM, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhieme...@web.de>wrote: > Hallo conlangers! > > On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:08:11 +0200 Peter Cyrus wrote: > > > I thought the Elves were the pre-Germanic inhabitants of Scandinavia, the > > ones who sacrificed to Freyr and Freya in Elfblots. > > Maybe; some scholars say so. But AFAIK the tradition of "Elves" > was much more vigorous among the Anglo-Saxons who perceived the > Elves as sharing their country (I recommend reading _Elves in > Anglo-Saxon England_ by Alaric Hall), while in Norse myth the Elves > just live in a faraway country "between Heaven and Earth" (perhaps > Britain as it appeared when the Germanic people were not yet the > formidable mariners of later ages, and the North Sea seemed large > to them?), and they don't figure prominently in the Eddas. And the > Insular Celts definitely believed that Elves lived in their country, > too. > > It is thus my hypothesis that the "real" Elves were a civilization > in the British Isles. But I know that it is just a hypothesis; it > could have been otherwise. > > -- > ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf > http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html > "Bęsel asa Ęm, a Ęm atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Ęmel." - SiM 1:1 > Messages in this topic (33) ________________________________________________________________________ 1.2. Re: proto-Europic Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:56 pm ((PDT)) Better watch out-- sound like something that could easily get promoted to natlanghood :-)))) I recall Jan van Steenbergen's Hattic tjhat elicited at least one such response from some researcher..........they thought it was Anatolian IIRC ----- Original Message ----- From: And Rosta <and.ro...@gmail.com> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu Cc: Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 3:59 PM Subject: Re: proto-Europic George Corley, On 28/03/2012 20:22: > Wait, what? I suppose you could ask the creator. Or are you creating this > "Old European" yourself? Old Albic (and the hypothesized Hesperic and Europic families) is Joerg's creation. As a conlang it is IMO quite conspicuously interesting because it fuses orthodox linguistic scholarship with conlanging: Joerg tries to make Old Albic consistent with what we know about Old European and Insular Celtic and with what we might expect Early Europic lgs to be like. (It also has a secondary aim of fashioning a 'real world' -- conhistorical -- counterpart of the Eldar, which to my thinking conflicts with the other aim somewhat unsatisfactorily (tho certainly no less unsatisfactorily than the conflicting aims of my own conlang).) It's similar to Brithenig and its ilk -- conlanging that is consistent with a body of facts about particular natlangs. I've thought over the years about doing something akin to Proto-Europic, but I don't have the dedication to do the project justice, and in my hands the project would involve larger imaginative leaps away from the terra firma of established scholarship that Joerg's Old Albic rests more securely on; it's the comparative conservatism of Joerg's approach that makes it more interesting to the audience. (I.e. I'd have more fun doing Proto-Europic my way than Joerg's, but the results are more interesting when things are done Joerg's way.) --And. > On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 3:15 PM, And Rosta<and.ro...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Europic is a conjectural language family that contains Indo-European and >> Old European (the language of Old European hydronymy). Within Old European >> is the Hesperic family, which contains Albic. The similarities between Old >> Albic and internally reconstructed (pre-)Proto-Indo-European are very >> striking -- far more than could be attributed to areal influence from >> Celtic, so one must assume that only a rather shallow time distance >> separates Proto-Europic from PIE and Old Albic. Given the relatively >> shallow time distance and the testimony of PIE and Old Albic, a >> reconstruction of Proto-Europic should be practicable? Does one yet exist? >> >> I haven't been able to find an Old Albic lexicon, so my observations are >> based on a description of Old Albic grammar and the vocables used in its >> examples. >> >> --And. >> Messages in this topic (33) ________________________________________________________________________ 1.3. Re: proto-Europic Posted by: "And Rosta" and.ro...@gmail.com Date: Thu Mar 29, 2012 12:10 am ((PDT)) Jörg Rhiemeier, On 28/03/2012 22:26: > It is thus my hypothesis that the "real" Elves were a civilization > in the British Isles. But I know that it is just a hypothesis; it > could have been otherwise. Do you have views on whether the _alb_ elements of _Albion_ and _Albany_ mean "Elf", "mountain (alp)" or "white (cliffs of Dover)"? (IMO the sole drawback of the Chunnel is that when returning from the Continent one no longer looks, with leaping heart, upon the high white cliffs of Albion.) --And. Messages in this topic (33) ________________________________________________________________________ 1.4. Re: proto-Europic Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com Date: Thu Mar 29, 2012 3:59 am ((PDT)) --- On Thu, 3/29/12, And Rosta <and.ro...@gmail.com> wrote: > (IMO the sole drawback of the Chunnel is that when returning > from the Continent one no longer looks, with leaping heart, > upon the high white cliffs of Albion.) You can still take the LD Lines ferry...and let your heart leap with joy upon seeing the white cliffs of Albion! Though at fifty nicker each way, it's an expensive way of letting your heart leap! Padraic > --And. Messages in this topic (33) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 2.1. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 2:52 pm ((PDT)) On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 1:27 PM, Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > I think by now this number must be vanishingly small, espècially among the > younger generations. Twenty-five years ago, there was Quenya, and that > was about it. Then came Klingon which I think laid the foundation for > the mainstreaming of constructed languages.--- Don't forget the movie "Caveman" with Ringo Starr, filmed entirely in the conlang created for the movie. ;-) And it didn't even use subtitles! --gary Messages in this topic (33) ________________________________________________________________________ 2.2. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 2:55 pm ((PDT)) I have never seen the movie, but from I read, that movie's language mostly consisted of "ugh" and "zugzug". On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 5:52 PM, Gary Shannon <fizi...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 1:27 PM, Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com> > wrote: > > > > I think by now this number must be vanishingly small, espècially among > the > > younger generations. Twenty-five years ago, there was Quenya, and that > > was about it. Then came Klingon which I think laid the foundation for > > the mainstreaming of constructed languages.--- > > Don't forget the movie "Caveman" with Ringo Starr, filmed entirely in > the conlang created for the movie. ;-) And it didn't even use > subtitles! > > --gary > Messages in this topic (33) ________________________________________________________________________ 2.3. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:15 pm ((PDT)) On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 2:55 PM, George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com> wrote: > I have never seen the movie, but from I read, that movie's language mostly > consisted of "ugh" and "zugzug". >> >> Don't forget the movie "Caveman" with Ringo Starr, filmed entirely in >> the conlang created for the movie. ;-) http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/cavespeak.html In some theaters they passed out pamphlets containing a dictionary of all 30 or so words. --gary Messages in this topic (33) ________________________________________________________________________ 2.4. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden--AND some good n Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:50 pm ((PDT)) From: Gary Shannon fizi...@gmail.com Don't forget the movie "Caveman" with Ringo Starr, filmed entirely in the conlang created for the movie. ;-) And it didn't even use subtitles! ======================================= And IIRC, " Quest for Fire" had some conlangy moments (some sort of IE devised by ....Anthony Burgesss, I think?) BTW I am leaving this therapy place on Friday morning 3/30/2012-- will be at my friend Kim's (= Virginia Shotwell) probably for a couple months-- can't go to my own house because I'm not up to stairways yet :-((((( Kim has a computer that functions better than this public one, plus I have to find some way to load some files from my desktop onto a laptop to work on while I'm away from home....... Messages in this topic (33) ________________________________________________________________________ 2.5. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden Posted by: "Carsten Becker" carb...@googlemail.com Date: Thu Mar 29, 2012 12:43 am ((PDT)) On Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:45:10 -0500, Wm Annis <wm.an...@gmail.com> wrote: >I mean, absent a few paragraphs (and >the domain name), I would have no problem seeing Okuna as >a natlang. Same with Ayeri. Very kind of you ;) Let's see what happens once I'm done writing the grammar (will I ever be?) Anyway, you all assume that the inclusion of Denden there was as a natlang and by mistake, but what if the editors of the handout actually included it as an example regardless, for reasons that have been pointed out? After all, we don't have the presentation that the handout went with, just the handout. Carsten Messages in this topic (33) ________________________________________________________________________ 2.6. Re: another conlang promoted to natlanghood: Denden Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com Date: Thu Mar 29, 2012 4:01 am ((PDT)) --- On Thu, 3/29/12, Carsten Becker <carb...@googlemail.com> wrote: > Anyway, you all assume that the inclusion of Denden there was as a > natlang and by mistake, but what if the editors of the handout > actually included it as an example regardless, for reasons that have > been pointed out? After all, we don't have the presentation that the > handout went with, just the handout. I thìnk someone contacted the author(s) about this ... perhaps we'll find out soon enough! Padraic > Carsten Messages in this topic (33) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 3a. Re: Word lists based on order of language acquisition Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:05 pm ((PDT)) There are a lot of word lists based on elementary grade levels, but that may be further advanced than what you're looking for: http://www.mrsperkins.com/dolch.htm http://sb058.k12.sd.us/Vocabulary/click_on_the_grade_level_to_find.htm http://www.paec.org/itrk3/files/pdfs/readingPdfs/coreVoc.pdf --gary On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 1:37 PM, Matthew Martin <matthewdeanmar...@gmail.com> wrote: > I've been kicking around the idea of a small family conlang (a fake language > with a small fixed vocab, for use in a home setting among parents and > children). > > I read somewhere that there exists a list of the order in which words are > typically acquired by infants. (mom and dad first, then 'want', etc). That > list, if I could find it, would be very handy. > > I suppose that the same list could also be useful to the people who have > been using the Basic English list, Swadesh or X most common words in a large > corpus lists as the basis of their initial conlang vocabularies. > > So far, I've found this one for English: > > http://teachmetotalk.com/2008/02/12/first-100-words-advancing-your-toddlers-vocabulary-with-words-and-signs/ > > Does anyone know of a better list, or cross cultural lists, especially one > with some research behind it? > > Thanks, > > Matthew Martin Messages in this topic (2) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 4a. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language Posted by: "David Peterson" deda...@gmail.com Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:38 pm ((PDT)) On Mar 28, 2012, at 2:18 PM, Arthaey Angosii wrote: > On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 2:03 PM, David Peterson <deda...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Opposition isn't purely political, remember. I think SW is an awful system >> for >> a variety of reasons�none of which have anything to do with who invented >> it or why. > > Can you share your objections? I'd love to hear them! > > My objections are largely aesthetic, to be honest. It looks so blocky! > So gif-y! It doesn't look like a real writing system to me. (As a side > note, I am asking on the SignWriting list about the "shorthand" > version of it, because I'm hoping that will behave more like a usable > script without being [too] lossy.) > > I also dislike the lack of density. Not many sentences fit on a > standard sheet of paper, or above the fold. (Again, I'm hoping the > "shorthand" version will help.) Lord, where to start... I agree with both of your objections, but the first is, of course, completely subjective. We need not go that far. SW is both too precise and not precise enough�both in very bad ways. Its lack of precision can be seen right on the home page with the sign DEAF. Hopefully everyone knows what the sign DEAF looks like: the signer touches their ear and then their mouth (or in the other order; I think both work [though order is also a problem for SW]). If you look at the SW version, though, you have no idea where to touch. It looks like it's just the general area around the bottom right-hand side of the face (receptive), and then the top of the head. Of course, there's a reason you touch the mouth and ear specifically. If this is just a conventional sign that we're meant to memorize, that's fine, but then there should be *less* detail so it's easier to write and more iconic. SW has the same problem with signs with subtle place distinctions like APPLE and ONION. In that case, it's a lack of precision. I also think there's entirely too much precision with the eyebrows. Personally, I don't think they should be written at all. There are signs where the eyebrows do something for the sign, but, again, it's not contrastive. Much more often the eyebrows convey intonational information. So imagine you have two sentences: She drove the car today. Did she drive the car today? In ASL, both of those sentences use exactly the same signs in exactly the same order. In SW, you'd need to specify different facial expressions with something that could just as easily be done with a question mark (after all, if it's a yes/no question, you *know* where the eyebrows are supposed to be). It would pose further problems for yes/no questions with multiple facial signs, e.g. "Do you like apples and onions?" It'd be something like doing this: How? are? you? doing? today? Even topics could be specified just with, say, a comma (setting off an NP or phrase at the beginning followed by a comma indicates well enough that it's a topic, and a signer knows where the eyebrows go with all topics). An option (if SW use it) is to use the "phrase" marking for eyebrows and then with signs that use the face, don't write anything for the eyebrows; not sure if that's standard. SW is a phonetic system (by intention), but it can't encode innovative signs (e.g. where the sign just utilizes a class marker and does, basically, whatever it wants. One of the best I saw was a little kid's description of something that was happening in a Ninja Turtles episode, where the Turtle Van plunges off of a freeway overpass and then a parachute comes out of the top, and the van floats to the ground. All of this was done with one sign and two handshapes. It can't, at present, be encoded by SW�and there's a lot of spontaneous signing like this in sign languages). If it attempts to, it will require new movement glyphs�potentially an infinite number of them�which isn't something that makes sense for a writing system. For a handwritten system, SW requires too much drawing�and coloring. Off the top of my head, I can't think of another writing system that requires you to fill in shapes�let alone halfway. It's far too time-consuming for regular communication (e.g. writing e-mails back and forth). It'd make more sense to just record a video and post it to YouTube. For longterm transcription, it makes more sense, but again: video! Ultimately, SW is a 20th century solution and doesn't make much sense in the 21st century. My uncle, for example, would never use it because the iPhone doesn't support it for texting�and even if it did, it's more cumbersome than using English or FaceTime. That's a very specific objection, but it's a real world objection. It's the world we live in now. A Unicode encoding is a step in the right direction if implementation is desired, but it's a bit like having a way for your beeper to forward pages to your cell phone via text message. People are still going to use Word to write documents and still use standard e-mail clients or the web to write e-mails. Even if they support the new Unicode encoding, will they support top-to-bottom writing? And then the system itself is full of way too many glyphs whose distinctions are often too fine (such as the distinction between a finger attached directly to the hand and not directly attached to the hand). I think, in fact, that'd cause more problems with handwriting than typesetting. It's too small a space to require that level of detail with respect to the rest of the glyphs in the system. Speaking of typesetting, how are you going to be able to take handshapes and position them as precisely as is required to make the various signs? Forget using their program: I mean in regular, day-to-day programs (Word, e-mail, chat, Facebook, etc.)�stuff that people use. Either it's not going to be possible to position handshapes with respect to one another (e.g. to do signs like HOUSE vs. APPLE vs. DEAF vs. MARRIED), or it's going to require a whole series of pre-arranged glyphs in Unicode, which would defeat the purpose of having a phonetic system (unless the font had ligatures so that you could conventional [again, defeating the point of a fully phonetic system] type in a series of signs that would then produce the larger glyph). To sum it up: -SW is too precise. SW is also not precise enough. -SW is too phonetic. SW is also not phonetic enough. -SW is too logographic. SW is also not logographic enough. -SW is too difficult to write. SW is too difficult to type. About the only thing that isn't difficult is reading, which makes it a not-so-bad method of longterm storage. Otherwise, the system really needs to be reconceptualized with a modern audience in mind, and utilizing modern technology. David Peterson LCS President presid...@conlang.org www.conlang.org Messages in this topic (13) ________________________________________________________________________ 4b. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language Posted by: "Michael Everson" ever...@evertype.com Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:59 pm ((PDT)) On 28 Mar 2012, at 23:38, David Peterson wrote: > And then the system itself is full of way too many glyphs whose distinctions > are often too fine (such as the distinction between a finger attached > directly to the hand and not directly attached to the hand). Some of these are phonemic in some languages even if not in ASL. Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/ Messages in this topic (13) ________________________________________________________________________ 4c. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language Posted by: "Arthaey Angosii" arth...@gmail.com Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:25 pm ((PDT)) On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 3:38 PM, David Peterson <deda...@gmail.com> wrote: > Lord, where to start... WOW! I love seeing this detailed commentary! One thing I've gathered from the (152-page!) document "A Cross-Linguistic Guide to SignWriting" at http://www.signwriting.org/archive/docs7/sw0617_Cross_Linguistic_Guide_SignWriting_Parkhurst.pdf is that SW can be more or less phonetic, depending on your needs. > SW has the same problem with signs with subtle place distinctions like APPLE > and ONION. I didn't know the sign for either of these words, but based on reading the SW entries for each, I ended up doing the signs the same way that AslPro.com's videos look: APPLE: http://www.signbank.org/SignPuddle1.5/searchsign.php?sid=1384 ONION: http://www.signbank.org/SignPuddle1.5/searchsign.php?sid=7208 Similarly, DEAF, underspecified: http://www.signbank.org/SignPuddle1.5/searchsign.php?sid=7398 DEAF, detailed: http://www.signbank.org/SignPuddle1.5/searchsign.php?sid=7297 (Not sure why the second DEAF entry uses the left hand — perhaps that means the transcriber was left-handed?) So I think this is a matter of whether the *writer* is transcribing a sign with enough detail, perhaps? My current interpretation is that the "underspecified" DEAF entry would be like writing English without vowels — if you already speak English, it can (generally) be sufficient, although rather lossy. > I also think there's entirely too much precision with the eyebrows. > Personally, I don't think > they should be written at all. There are signs where the eyebrows do > something for the > sign, but, again, it's not contrastive. Much more often the eyebrows convey > intonational > information. So imagine you have two sentences: > > She drove the car today. > Did she drive the car today? > > In ASL, both of those sentences use exactly the same signs in exactly the > same order. > In SW, you'd need to specify different facial expressions with something that > could just > as easily be done with a question mark (after all, if it's a yes/no question, > you *know* > where the eyebrows are supposed to be). It would pose further problems for > yes/no > questions with multiple facial signs, e.g. "Do you like apples and onions?" > It'd be > something like doing this: > > How? are? you? doing? today? I like your suggestion of not repeating this information and perhaps relegating it to a clause/sentence-level symbol. I wonder whether folks who actually use SW have already made this optimization... > SW is a phonetic system (by intention), but it can't encode innovative signs > [snip] > If it attempts to, it will require new movement glyphs—potentially an infinite > number of them—which isn't something that makes sense for a writing system. New movement symbols wouldn't be as much a problem in handwriting, but I agree that it wouldn't work for computerized writing. > For a handwritten system, SW requires too much drawing—and coloring See http://www.signwriting.org/lessons/cursive/handwriting/symbols.html for suggested handwritten versions that don't fill in shapes. It still strikes me as something that is not well-suited to writing at speed, which is why I'm interested in finding an explanation of SW shorthand: http://www.signwriting.org/lessons/cursive/shorthand/ > Ultimately, SW is a 20th century solution and doesn't make much sense > in the 21st century. My uncle, for example, would never use it because > the iPhone doesn't support it for texting—and even if it did, it's more > cumbersome than using English or FaceTime. That's a very specific > objection, but it's a real world objection. It's the world we live in now. No arguments here. > About the only thing that isn't difficult is reading, which makes it a > not-so-bad method of longterm storage. This is why I'm liking it, I think — I want it for notes on new signs in my ASL class, and for flashcards. In both cases, it's write-a-single-sign-once, read-many-times. -- AA http://conlang.arthaey.com Messages in this topic (13) ________________________________________________________________________ 4d. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language Posted by: "David Peterson" deda...@gmail.com Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 5:03 pm ((PDT)) Couple comments to clarify: On Mar 28, 2012, at 3:58 PM, Michael Everson wrote: > Some of these are phonemic in some languages even if not in ASL. ...and... On Mar 28, 2012, at 4:24 PM, Arthaey Angosii wrote: > See http://www.signwriting.org/lessons/cursive/handwriting/symbols.html > for suggested handwritten versions that don't fill in shapes. It still > strikes me as something that is not well-suited to writing at speed, > which is why I'm interested in finding an explanation of SW shorthand: > http://www.signwriting.org/lessons/cursive/shorthand/ Both of these are, I think, steps in the right direction. In order to make sense as a system that one *uses* (as opposed to just one that one reads), the symbol count needs to be reduced (more phonemic, less phonetic), and the symbols themselves need to wear a little bit�need to make themselves suitable for handwriting. Right now it looks like a conscript that someone creates without thinking about how it would evolve in the hands of its users over a period of years. In this case, there's a real (potential) group of users, and they simply need to use it and evolve it, and the system itself should accommodate and adapt to that evolution. > This is why I'm liking it, I think � I want it for notes on new signs > in my ASL class, and for flashcards. In both cases, it's > write-a-single-sign-once, read-many-times. Indeed, it might work for your purposes specifically. I hope you don't have to take stuff down quickly, though! Often we'd get so much vocab at once that I had to make a choice between watching and writing. That's also a uniquely difficult thing about learning ASL�or any signed language. With a spoken language, you can be looking down and still get the word. If you look up, you get more information (lip movement, etc.), but looking down isn't a detriment. With ASL, if you look down, well, that's it! David Peterson LCS President presid...@conlang.org www.conlang.org Messages in this topic (13) ________________________________________________________________________ 4e. Re: Sutton SignWriting (Was: Written Form of American Sign Language Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com Date: Thu Mar 29, 2012 4:40 am ((PDT)) On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 13:58:13 -0700, Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com> wrote: >> - when Deaf people want to write, they write in English; >> they don't want or need to learn yet another writing system > >Makes sense also, and I think this is the strongest argument against SW or >any similar scheme -- it seems like this SW is to ASL what the IPA is to >English. That is, trying to record ever more detailed nuances of a >language. > >> - writing is what hearing people do; signing is what deaf >> people do > >No -- speáking is what hearing people do. Anyone, hearing, deaf or blind, >can write. What I find curious is how these two arguments didn't turn out instead to be "English is what hearing people use; ASL is what deaf people use". Is there no sort of sense among Deaf people that their own language is being subjugated to the hearing folks' language by English being the only form that is writable? Alex Messages in this topic (13) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 5a. Re: THEORY: Loss of allophonic variation Posted by: "Eric Christopherson" ra...@charter.net Date: Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:33 pm ((PDT)) On Mar 26, 2012, at 10:40 AM, Alex Fink wrote: > On Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:24:21 +0200, BPJ <b...@melroch.se> wrote: > >> On 2012-03-26 02:46, Eric Christopherson wrote: >>> Oh, yeah. Does anyone know how the*onset* of such a syllable was > affected by the closedness of it? >> >> Yes, that's what I described: if the syllable was closed >> > [...] >> Apparently the onset, and probably also the nucleus, >> became relatively shorter when there was a coda. > > Right, presumably the *how* of the matter was some sort of isochrony rule: > (non-initial) syllables were tendentially all kept at the same length (with > perhaps some exception for proto-long onsets). So if there was a coda > consonant, that entailed less room for the onset (or the V). OK, so the stops that would end up as fricatives were originally short stops; and I'm guessing they contrasted with the forerunners of the stops that now are either short or long. Is that assumption correct? If so, it reminds me of Sami's system of three distinctive lengths. I've been trying to wrap my head around consonant gradation in Sami today, but I haven't been able to discern if it's directly correlated to the Finnish gradations or not. Messages in this topic (9) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 6. Another vocabulary test Posted by: "taliesin the storyteller" taliesin-conl...@nvg.org Date: Thu Mar 29, 2012 4:59 am ((PDT)) Instead of picking words you know a definition for, in this one you select one of four possible meanings for each word. http://my.vocabularysize.com/ t. 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