Disclaimers:
1. I am sure that a damn decent IAL can be constructed; I say at the end of
this message only why I think no "perfect" one can be.
2. I express no opinion of any of the countries or religions mentioned here.
I've been looking at things like these, and wonder what the prospective new
speakers of Ygyde will think when they come across a description of
themselves in the language:
>France = tocaty = "proper noun middle artistic country"
>Italy = nacaty = "proper noun religious artistic country"
So Italy is just a religious France?
>Argentina = panuty = "proper noun cold random country"
Most of it isn't that cold. Although how much of it is random, I don't know.
>Egypt = byfity = "proper noun dry old country"
>Iraq = fibyty = "proper noun old dry country"
"Whoops, we sent the UN inspectors to the dry old country instead of the
old dry country."
>Christianity = ybonate = "noun wet religious organization"
Doesn't sound too flattering. Neither does the name of their "wet religious
publication".
>Islam = yminate = "noun political religious organization"
You could really get in trouble with this one!
>Judaism = yfinate = "noun old religious organization"
Hinduism is older. Some say Zoroastrianism is as well.
>Mormonism = yfunate = "noun new religious organization"
There's a lot of newer ones (Baha'i for example by a couple of decades),
and Mormonism has been around for about a hundred and seventy years. Will
this term be relevant in a hundred more years?
>pope = ytenatu = "noun top religious manager"
Well, he's top manager of one sect of the "wet religious organization".
He's not top manager of the rest of them.
>Poland = jytoty = "proper noun dirty middle country"
!!! Do you think this language will catch on in Poland?!
And also:
>Some spoken languages are better than other spoken languages.
Better in your subjective opinion. Is a language "better" which puts more
vowels between its consonants, for "ease" of pronunciation? Or which allows
more clusters, therefore more possible monosyllables?
"Better" which requires that you mutate one end or the other of a word to
add shades of meaning, tense, function? Or "better" which requires that you
add whole other words to do this? Or "better" where you leave such
differences out?
>My intuition tells me that the perfect language...
There is no perfect language. Any step you make to give "ease" of learning
to the speakers of one language necessarily causes difficulty for the
speakers of another. For example: shall tone convey emphasis within an
utterance, or the mood of the entire utterance? Or shall tone be an
inherent part of the word as in Chinese? Pick one of these and you create
difficulty for those who grew up speaking a language of the other kind.
There cannot be a "perfect" auxiliary language (remember, I said above that
ther could still be a good one). Every person learning a new language
encounters SOME difficulty, even if only minor. Given the wild differences
between the phonologies and grammars of the world, this difficulty can
never be eliminated, only shifted.
M