Re: CHAT: Using cats for practice

In a message dated 12/7/98 8:40:21 AM, james@ZEUGMA.FORCE9.CO.UK writes:

>H=EFlad,
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>I am coming to the opinion that a good way to practise speaking one's
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>conlang is to use it when talking to the cat. Such conversations have a
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>number of benefits:
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>* It is essentially one-sided, so there is no need to spend time trying
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>  to work out what the other person is saying; this gives more time to
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>  concentrate on getting the right case, word order, etc for one's own
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>  next sentence. Cat speech, while somewhat ambiguous (see Conlang
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>  passim) is easy to parse.
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>* The cat doesn't mind how long it takes to formulate each sentence.
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>* Nor does it care what language you speak in (unlike humans, who are
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>  wont to react unreliably in response to anything 'foreign').
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>* One finds the flaws in a language when speaking it - what bits are
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>  nigh-on impossible to work out on the fly, what sound combinations are
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>  just too difficult, where elision would naturally occur - and such
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>  experimentation is of no consequence to a cat, who won't be keeping
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>  track of changes.
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>I wonder whether any other listmembers do something similar...
Well I talk to my dog in Eloshtan.

>James/=C4lvard
Josh