Re: Thoughts - Conlangs and culture

On Fri, Oct 04, 2002 at 11:50:46AM +0200, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> En réponse à "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>:
>
> >   _gii'j3li_ comes from a time in the history of the Ebisedi
> > characterized
> >   by a group of "scientists" who, frustrated with the lack of progress
> > and
> >   apparently impossibility of advance in their field, became
> > entertainers
> >   and stage actors, using their scientific knowledge to perform "magic
> >   tricks" and other stunts.
>
> Scientists that become entertainers by despair of ever advancing in their field
> of study? What the heck were they studying?! ;))))
Hehe :-) Well, I'm sure you recall the period in modern science before the
advent of quantum theory, when people thought they had discovered
everything there is to discover, and it's just a matter of working out the
details. Of course, there were still unexplained things like the observed
distribution of blackbody radiation vs. the (incorrect) theoretical
prediction; but for the most part, people had the feeling that physics
would soon come to its perfection and there would be nothing further to
study  in that area.

Well, there was a similar period in the history of the Ebisedi, where
there was a general perception that the existing physical theories were
more or less "complete". Except that, unlike the history of modern
science, there were big glaring holes in the theories, and Ebisedi
scientists have studied it to the death, but were completely unable to
come up with a satisfactory theory. (The problem in question concerned the
teleportals, which at the time were only naturally-occurring. Although at
the time there were more-or-less complete theories of how everything else
worked, there wasn't a single satisfactory theory, not even to a rough
approximation, of the behaviour of the teleportals.) For at least a few
generations, there were no advancements whatsoever in that area, and many
scientists became quite disillusioned.

Of course, there were still the few hard-core scientists who persisted in
tackling the problem (coming up with increasingly bizarre and unlikely
theories in the meantime), but there was a general perception that physics
was a field not worth getting into, because it was going nowhere. And so,
many previous physicists gave up theoretical research and contented
themselves with using existing knowledge to earn a quick buck by
impressing the crowds.

(I don't want to spoil the story here, but eventually, thanks to the
increasing demands audiences require of the entertainers (what with their
feared cries of _h0'n3ri_, which meant career shipwreck in those days),
the entertainers had to look for increasingly bizarre phenomena in order
to impress the crowds. It wasn't very long before they realized that some
of the stuff they were depending on could not be adequately explained by
existing physics theories. Eventually, this led to a major breakthrough...
but I'll stop right there. :-P)

[snip]
> > - the distinguishing of the frame of a container vs. the fillings of
> > the
> >   frame (gii'bi) vs. the actual contents (jii'bi) -- both _gii'bi_ and
> >   _jii'bi_ are best translated as "substance" or "constituent", but
> > they
> >   refer to two different kinds of "constituent".
> >
>
> I admit not understanding this one. Can you explain a bit more?
Take, as a rough example, the human body. The skeleton serves as the
"frame"; and the flesh which fills the skeleton is the _gii'bi_. But the
food contained in the stomach (and perhaps also the individual organs) are
the _jii'bi_.

Or, as another example, you have the supporting pillars and beams in a
building, which serve as a structural frame. The walls, wiring, plumbing,
ventilation systems, etc., are the _gii'bi_; the contents of the building,
the furniture, the people, etc., are the _jii'bi_.

Yet another example: the body of a car serves as the "frame"; the engine,
wheels, windows, are the _gii'bi_; the seats and passengers are the
_jii'bi_. The basic idea of _gii'bi_ is that which fills out and completes
a framework; but the actual contents are _jii'bi_.

[snip]
> I wish I had that! I come to great pains and lengths to find the right
> pronunciation and orthography (since those two things are nearly
> independent ;))) ) for words in Maggel. My last nice find is the clitic |-jn|,
> which means "and/or" and is used only with adjectives. It's pronounced [zd] or
> [zdI] ;)))) .
[snip]

No!!! Not another Maggelity! :-)


T

--
Elegant or ugly code as well as fine or rude sentences have something in
common: they don't depend on the language. -- Luca De Vitis