Re: McGuffey Readers now available in Tatari Faran!

On Wed, Mar 09, 2005 at 04:02:24PM -0500, Sally Caves wrote:
> Taking time out to reply to this...
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>
[...]
> >Hmm, I'm not sure I understand what you intended to refer to.
>
> I need to understand a little better how complements work.
The (allegedly stolen) draft of the "new Tatari Faran book" should
help. I've just written a section describing how complements work.


> I was attempting to say that Tatari, your "language," is "funny" as
> in pleasing, fun.  But clearly I didn't get there! :)
Hmm. In that case, there's a glaring hole in my lexicon: there's no
adjective for "funny"! (Even though there's a complement.) But since
it's a conlang after all, I shall coin the word right now:

	tatari   tsen    kueras nari.
	language 2sp-GEN funny  COMPL


[...]
> >>Tse sa nari ei. :)
> >
> >Interesting use of a complement as a verb. ;-) I get the gist, though.
> >:-)
>
> Again, I need to look at this more closely.  Which is why I was nagging you
> about repetition! :)  Basically, I think you're a scream.
:-)


> >OK OK, I realize from what you wrote below that my current
> >presentation style for Tatari Faran isn't quite working. So this is no
> >fault of yours. If it's any comfort at all, your TF greeting is
> >impeccable. :-)
>
> Well, I just copied that, after all!!  It's right up front. (You ARE a
> scream).
:-)


[...]
> >I've been meaning to write an introductory tutorial
[...]
> It just needs tables and repetitions, and lots of examples with
> translations... you know, the kind of stuff that's real time-consuming, but
> is in aid of dummies like me.  Tatari Faran for Dummies.
Ahh. A phrasebook, perhaps?


[...]
> >Yes, I know yall's expectations were all up recently, what with
> >Arthaey recording Asha'ille (which is really quite pretty) and all
> >that. Maybe I should invest in a microphone so that I can, uh, cope
> >with the changing standards of the modern world. ;-)
>
> I know the feeling.  I've got the microphone, but need to download Audacity.
> And learn Cakewalk.
And being an unrepentant Linux-only user, or Unix-only luser, as the
case may be, I've a whole 'nother set of software to learn to use. But
first I need the hardware.


[...]
> >For a moment, I thought you said "complement", and wondered if there
> >was somehow a glaring hole in my explanation of TF complements which
> >I'm unaware of. :-)
>
> Right... I should beware complimenting people in their own invented
> languages.
But the effort counts! Mike Ellis was telling me some time ago about
how one fine day he suddenly received an email written in (almost)
impeccable Rhean. A pleasant surprise, but a bit scary nevertheless.
:-)

Have you ever received emails in Teonaht?


[...]
> >In my case, though, additional webspace isn't really a problem. The TF
> >pages are served from a colocated webserver which I administer, and I
> >have a total of 2GB of space to squand^H^H^H^H^H^Hmake use of.
>
> I'm jealous.  How can I get a colocated webserver? :)
Well, if you can afford $75/month and know how to run a Unix server,
you can pay a visit to http://johncompanies.com/ and get one.
Unfortunately, they don't provide Windows-based servers. Not
surprising, considering the reputation of Windows in the area of
network security, but that does limit the audience somewhat... Now, I
actually got a hefty discount (~40%) from them because I contributed
to open source software (in particular, Linux). But this is getting
more and more unrealistic for your case, so unfortunately you'll
probably have to look elsewhere.

But lest I leave you with the feeling of futility, I should say that
my colocated server is actually a full server, not just a webserver,
in the sense that I have administrator access and can run anything I
want on it, a webserver being but one of the many possibilities. So it
is not as though that particular price tag is representative if all
you want is some additional webspace.


[...]
> >I think it would greatly help if I wrote an Introduction to Tatari
> >Faran which is geared towards teaching the language to L2 learners,
> >:-P rather than expect people to digest the grammar without any aids.
> >This has been on my TODO list for a while now; I guess I just needed a
> >little push to get going on it. :-)
>
> Nisimol!  ("push")
Thanks, in retrospect. :-)


[...]
> >Hmm. I think I made the cardinal mistake of assuming that the reader
> >would know how to put the pieces together. Probably another reason I
> >need to write an introductory tutorial.
>
> Knowing how to teach something you know intimately is a rare skill;
> second-guessing the average Dummie is difficult to do.  It's easier to
> brilliantly create, oddly enough. :)
Indeed. OTOH, I've found the adage true which says that until you're
able to teach something to someone, you don't *really* know it yet.

> I think that if I just printed all your pages out and spread them
> out on the floor in front of me, I could *get* it; it was my efforts
> to produce something on the cuff, and in such short a time, that
> made me fail.
Ahh. Now that tempts me to write an automatic English-to-Tatari-Faran
translator, but after seeing such engineering feats as:

	http://www.tashian.com/multibabel/

I think I shall refrain. :-)


> That's why a RELAY would be good for me and Tatari Faran.
Interestingly, David Peterson told me that he found Tatari Faran quite
pleasant, and my haphazard notes quite helpful. I guess I'm doing
*something* right somewhere. :-)


> Even so, it's easier to translate than compose in a foreign
> language, don't you agree?
Certainly, until you acquire fluency in that language. The coarse of
foreign language acquisition usually passes through a stage where
you're essentially translating from your L1, until the foreign
language begins to 'click', and then you start thinking natively. My
goal (or rather, hope) is to acquire fluency in Tatari Faran so that I
can compose as easily as translate in it. I find that I can grasp its
grammar very well, but the vocabulary eludes me.


[...]
> >>Couldn't find "your" at all;
> >
> >That is odd. I just tried searching for "your" and it turned up the
> >entry for _tsen_ correctly. Did you by any chance tick the checkbox
> >that says "exclude pseudo-entries"?
>
> Nope.  I'll try it again.  Maybe put instructions at the top of the page?
I tested it with the default settings. So unless you've already
changed the settings around, it *should* have turned up the correct
entry.


[...]
> >Speaking of which, are the remaining lessons in the Teach Yourself
> >Teonaht page up yet?
>
> Nooooooo... :(
Oh.


> >I was all hooked and eager after reading the
> >first (few?) page(s), but was rather disappointed to find that the
> >remainder of the tutorial was not available yet.
>
> Well, as someone else said, it is very difficult to write a Teach Yourself.
> What components in your language are to come first, especially when
> everything depends on everything else?  It's like trying to find the
> beginning of a circle.
Yes, I'm facing that problem right now in writing that fabled Tatari
Faran tutorial. I've decided to adopt the approach Donald Knuth took
in writing his books. In the earlier parts of his books, he would
shamelessly declare as universal statements which really only hold for
the examples at hand. But as the reader progresses through the book
and begins to understand how things work, Knuth progressively refines
his over-broad statements to be, in his words, "closer approximations
to the truth".

In other words, rather than try to explain all the exceptions and
terms and conditions all at once, he says just enough to get the point
across and shamelessly sweeps the other details under the carpet,
until the reader is finally prepared enough to look underneath.

Nevertheless, it's still by no means easy. Right now I'm finding
myself getting dangerously close to reproducing the topical sequence
of the reference grammar in colloquial language.


> I was trying to be very clever with the Teach Yourself... the
> pictures, the little story, the intrigue... J.A.J. was going to
> enter this city and we'd find out about Teonaht culture as well as
> language, and there would be social infringements, a romantic
> encounter, trouble with the police, things purchased and stolen,
> that sort of thing.  The project was WAY too time-consuming, but
> ultimately worth doing, eventually.
Sounds very interesting! When can I expect to read more of it? ;-)


> But to make it a story and a lesson at the same time got me in over
> my head, and increased the "circular" dilemma even more.  How do you
> combine a story with a grammatical introduction, when all parts of
> speech are needed all the time?
That's indeed the difficulty. Language can barely function with only 1
or 2 parts of speech except in scattered interjections, yet one has to
somehow teach each part in sequence to the reader. The best idea I can
think of is to begin with phrases, and to explain them away without
any in-depth analysis, until the reader is ready to understand how it
*really* works.

Incidentally, this is the approach I'm taking with the Tatari Faran
tutorial. Do let me know how (un)successful it is. :-)


> I've seen Heini's "Welsh is FUN-tastic, where he does something like
> this with cartoons, but it's another thing to do it in your own
> language.
Yep. No mean feat.


> I had thought of going back to the boring old system of providing a
> "quiz" at the end of every chapter in the Grammar, but that's no
> fun.  There's no story.
Yeah. That's the nagging difficulty I'm facing with my tutorial right
now. It seems like at the end of every section it's just another
arbitrary leap to another topic, without much connection between them.
And certainly no story to captivate the reader's attention. I'm not
sure how to fix that.


> When I'm freed up for pursuing creative endeavors, I'll get back to
> that.  It might make a very nice hypertext, an artform I'm exploring
> in other dimensions of my life.  Tremendous hard work, and needing a
> real domain--I'd like to get a domain name and purchase more than
> just 20 megabytes.
[...]

As far as domain names go, unless you have some irrational craving for
.org, .net, or .com, you can probably get one for free from
http://dyndns.org/ . They do have quite a reasonable list of suffixes
to choose from. But they don't provide any webspace so you'll still
have to look around for one. I'm sure there are webspace providers out
there with reasonable prices.

For geekier people like me, though, we don't even bother with webspace
providers; we just run our own webserver on our cable internet
connection and point the domain name at it (e.g. Arthaey's domain,
http://arthaey.mine.nu:8080/ ). :-)


T

--
The diminished 7th chord is the most flexible and fear-instilling chord. Use
it often, use it unsparingly, to subdue your listeners into submission!

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