Languages with the essential parts removed (was: Greek plosives)
From: | John Vertical <johnvertical@...> |
Date: | Thursday, February 2, 2006, 21:19 |
> > Graeca sine flexione, now that's a language that needs to be made!
>
>On the same subject, how about Finnish without agglutination? (John,
>this is where you come in.)
Whomewhatta?
...
Okay, is fusionality allowed (giving something Estonian-like), or are you
talking full-scale isolating? 'Coz the latter would turn into either
oligosynthesis or some sort of a rural pidgin. I can't really see a way to
express, for example, all of { kirja, kirjo, kirje, kirjoa, kirjasto,
kirjailija, kirjallisuus, kirjoittaa, kirjava, kirjain, kirjuri, kirjoitin }
isolatingly with sensible effort while still sticking with Finnish roots
only. The corresponding English words are { book, spectrum, letter,
embroider, library, author, literature, write, colorful, glyph, scribe,
printer } : One root versus about a dozen.
Not that there's anything wrong with oligosynthesis or rural pidgins.
Alternatively, one could sack a whole load of Finno-Ugric languages plus
their history for a wider base of roots.
John Vertical
(PS. I can't be the only Finnish person on the list, can I? Julia probably
doesn't count, but I don't remember off the top off my head if Markus's L1
were Finnish or Swedish. Also, lurkers.)
Reply