Re: Comparison of philosophical languages

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Nowicki" <andrew@...>


> Andreas Johansson wrote:
> AJ> Quite possibly it doesn't concern you at all,
> AJ> but a language in which (apparently) most nouns
> AJ> are lengthy compounds, without any actual
> AJ> derivational morphemes, strikes me as unnatural.
> You sound like a conservative person.
> aUI and Lojban conlangs also use compound words.
> Each aUI root word is a single letter. Lojban root
> words are 3 or 4 letters long.
But Lojban, nay any philosophical or logical language, is not "natural."
Andreas may have missed the point of your type of conlang, a possibility he
admits to; but his remark has some validity: many languages, natural or
invented, don't turn most of its word into a description.  With such a small
root base, Ygyde gets vague, I've noticed, when it starts building words,
especially since compounds can't be repeated for different meanings.  Most
natural languages have quite a number of compound words, but a sizeable
number of basic words whose original prehistorical components cannot be
detected within them anymore, even though they may have cognates in other
languages: foot, man, look, see, root, go, do, get, horse, ground, God,
love, ship, file, grind, wolf, bear, birch, but, I, give, get, ill, mean,
boast, BIRD just to mention a few of hundreds of English words whose origins
in Indo-European (if we can find them) don't break down into compounds.
Others have suggested that you greatly expand your root base.  If the human
brain can learn English, and the adult human brain can learn Esperanto, how
is it that having only 180 words makes Ygyde any easier, when finally it's
the compounds that you have to memorize and their vague suggestings?

> If you have memorized 180 root words of Ygyde, it is
> easy to memorize "money craftsman." The word "accountant"
> is meaningless to someone who learns the English language.
Not if he knows some Latin via French:  ad + compt + -ant.  "One who counts
toward," or "counts up."
"Money craftsman" could be a lender of money.  A banker, a usurer, a maker
of counterfeit money.  To get refinements on your words, your phrases will
have to get longer and longer.  How is that simple?

And by the way, calling somebody "conservative" is an ad hominem attack,
Andrew--the very thing that some conlangers have apologized or been
chastized for when you came on list.  You can call a person's argument
conservative, but calling him a "conservative person" is arrogant.


Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net

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