Re: Intergermansk

On Tuesday, January 25, 2005, at 09:04 , Pascal A. Kramm wrote:

> On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 18:43:07 +0000, Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
> wrote:
[snip]
>> So basically the same goal as Folkspraak? The Folkspraak Charter had:
>> "Folkspraak is a model language being designed as a common Germanic
>> language (an "Intergerman", if you will)."
>
> Pretty much. I already took a closer look at it, but didn't like it too
> much, so I decided do give it a try myself.
Fair enough.

>> I think if Danish & Norwegian are counted among the most used languages,
>> then Afrikaans should also be included. Way back in 1996, the Folkspraak
>> Charter listed the following estimated numbers of speakers for spoken
>> Germanic languages:
> <snip>
>> I dare say there are more up to date numbers available.
>
> Well, Danish has still more, and Norwegian about as much. I took a look at
> it already (not too easy finding stuff on it), and it seems like a Dutch
> dialect to me, with a few grammatical differences...
Um - hope we haven't got any Afrikaaner members of the list. I do not
think they would agree about its being a "Dutch dialect"   :)

I know the distinction between dialect & language is not precisely defined.
  There are, for example, some people who maintain that Swedish, Norwegian
& Danish are not really different languages - merely dialects of
'Continental Scandinavian'. IMO the differences between Dutch & Afrikaans
are greater than those between the continental Scandinavian languages.

> Also, I have to draw the line somewhere. When including too much
> languages,
> the result will end up having too few similarities to the individual
> languages.
True - tho the similarities I think are not too dissimilar in tis case.

[snip]
>>  I was a bit disappointed to find that there does not seem to be any
>> Folkspraak version Babel Text - maybe the language never reached a state
>> where it could do so. It was one of those languages being created 'by
>> committee'. A pity - it would have been interesting to compare a
>> Folkspraak Babal Text with the Intergermansk one.
>
> The whole thing made a very unfinished impression to me when I took a look
> at it... looks like it's been abandoned now.
I think you are right - this seems too often to be the fate of languages
designed by 'committee' or a group of people. Voksigid never got completed,
  and it would appear that the same has happened to Folkspraak. The only
successful language designed by a group that I can think of is lojban.

[snip]
>>> 1 Nu ganz werld hafte en sproch med sam words.
>>
>> But one difference I can spot immediately: sproch ~ spraak    :)
>
> Well, spro-/språ-  is the most universal part, whereas the ending is
> either
> -k, -g or -ch, of which I decided for the ch.
Yes - I think either -k or -ch is what is wanted as the final.

The Folkspraak Charter stated: "The primary design principle is that
Folkspraak omit any linguistic feature not common to most of the modern
germanic languages."  So it /x/ as it doesn't occur in English (and indeed
seems to present the same sort of problems to my fellow countryman as /T/
and /D/ do to yours) nor the continental Scandinavian languages (tho it
does occur in Afrikaans :)

>
>> One thing surprised me when I read the McGuffey sentences. Intergermansk
>> does not appear to have any articles, yet all the most commonly spoken
>> Germanic languages have both definite and indefinite articles.
>>
>> Just curious.
>
> Well, creating a common lang is a good occassion to get rid of all the
> superfluent deadwood which serves no real purpose and only makes a
> language
> more complicated than it would need to be. This not includes stuff like
> verb
> conjugations for person (English does fine without them),
..and Afrikaans  :)
Also the Scandinavian languages have very little also. Yes, I agree
entirely.

>  but also the
> articles - they are several natural languages which do fine without them.
There are - but no modern Germanic languages does without them. Certainly
if I was commissioned or compelled to created an auxlang for global use, I
definitely would not include articles. If I was commissioned or compelled
to create a rival to Eurolang, Eurolengo or any of the other 'European
Community auxlang hopefuls', I might either have no articles or have
invariable nouns with variable articles in the French manner   :)

(But don't worry, folks. I am not about to do either. The commission would
have to be *very* large  :-)

But while I agree that things like the -s at the end of the English 3rd
pers. sing. verb is superfluous deadwood and can go, I do not think the
Germanic articles are in the same category. But it is your conlang.

You may be interested to know - if you do not already know - there was an
American guy called Elias Molee who published a language called 'Tutonish'
  in 1901 as a "Teutonic international language". It would seem the
language must have changed a bit over the years since while in his 1902 &
1904 publications he still called it Tutonish, in his 1906 book he called
it 'Neuteutonish' and in 1915 'Alteutonik'.

I have a copy of the opening of the Pater Noster in the 1902 version:
Vio fadr hu bi in hevn,
holirn bi dauo nam,
dauo reik kom,
dauo vil bi dun an erd,
	as it bi in hevn.

Ray
=======================================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com
=======================================================
"If /ni/ can change into /A/, then practically anything
can change into anything"
          Yuen Ren Chao, 'Language and Symbolic Systems"

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