From: "Christophe Grandsire" <christophe.grandsire@...>
Subject: Re: my proposals for a philosophical language
> En réponse à Joseph Fatula <fatula3@...>:
> Well, Classical Arabic (and many dialects as well) lacks the /p/ and
borrow it
> as /b/. It would probably not be too difficult for them to get it, but
it's only
> for principle that I'm saying that ;))) . But at least it's not true that
all
> Arabic speakers have the /p/.
True, but as you'll note, there are no distinctions between voiced and
unvoiced consonants. So a /b/ is just as likely as a /p/.
> OK, not much to say against it, although final consonants may be difficult
for
> some (Mandarin or Japanese speakers as first). Japanese speakers, for
instance,
> will invariably pronounce |chuk| as [tSMkkM] which may create a confusion
with
> |chuk ku|. And I know by experience that it takes long and difficult years
for
> Japanese to learn to master final consonants other than /n/ (not that I am
> Japanese, but I've had to cope with a series of presentations by a
Japanese
> professor and Japanese students, and none was able to pronounce English
without
> making a mess of the final consonants. I can tell you it made the whole
thing
> ununderstandable).
I know what you mean. I was thinking about that at the time, and perhaps I
have a solution. If the rules somehow prohibit -a or -e from ever ending a
word, it could be an epenthetic vowel for those who cannot pronounce the
consonant as final.
> I am not arguing against your choice, it's quite reasonable. But it does
put
> quite a few people in difficulty. At the same time, I cannot see any way
around
> it though, if you want so many one-syllable roots without adding too many
> sounds. Maybe instruct that the simple vowels should be pronounced long.
> Japanese people have a long-short distinction which is quite easy to hear,
even
> for people who don't have that distinction in their speech, and their
dummy
> syllables always have short vowels. By having the meaningful single vowels
long,
> you may help prevent misunderstandings. Also, it would make for a nice
symmetry,
> since the single vowels would suddenly be pronounced as long as
diphtongues.
Sounds good. The short-long distinction would be a phonetic one, not a
phonemic one. But then again, that's only if I were actually interested in
making an IAL, which I'm not.
> > fan hand
> > su joint, pivoting like the wrist, neck, shoulder
> > laut hinge, pivoting like the elbow, knee
> > chuk appendage, arm/leg
> > li upper
> > pa lower
> > tian head, chief
>
> You may have to be careful that some languages (like, once again,
Japanese) have
> difficulties with diphtongues and replace them with syllables in hiatus.
For
> those people |tian| would be pronounced as |ti an|, and |laut| as |la ut|.
Once
> again, if you adopt the convention that single vowels must be pronounced
long,
> the problem can be solved (|tian| and |ti an| will be different again:
[ti.an]
> and [ti:.a:n]). Of course, this is not a perfect solution, but seen the
problem,
> I dare say it's an optimal one.
It generally wouldn't matter much if |tian| sounded like |ti an|. If the
two syllables were separate words, then using them as compounds or
adjective-noun would mean the same thing. If it were a genuine ambiguity
(as is unavoidable in language), it would probably be pretty clear which was
meant from context.
> > Also remember that a term can have different meanings, so long as they
> > are
> > in different fields. Consider the English word "head". You can speak
> > of
> > the head of an animal, of a bed, of a table, of an organization, and
> > it's
> > always clear. "Head" means the top and most important part,
> > specifically
> > that of the body, but generally that of the specified thing. Each of
> > the
> > words here has a specific meaning that can be more generally applied.
> >
>
> Be careful with this part. Often secondary meanings are strongly
culturally
> related, and may cause problems of understanding if they are not exactly
> defined. And even when they *are* well defined, they may sound silly for
other
> cultures. Now it's not a problem with an artlang, but if the language has
to
> become an IAL, silliness is one of the things that would kill it. People
in
> general are quite skeptic concerning IALs, and if the one you propose
sounds
> silly to them, they will just refuse to learn it. Attractiveness doesn't
lie
> only on technical features...
That's part of why I don't think the whole idea of an IAL is actually
plausible. What sounds fine in one language might be silly or obscene in
another.
> > tian head
> > tiansu neck (head-joint)
> > lisu shoulder (upper-joint)
> > lichuk arm (upper-appendage)
> > kis lichuk upper arm (inner-upper-appendage)
> > lilaut elbow (upper-hinge)
> > nal lichuk lower arm (outer-upper-appendage)
> > fansu wrist (hand-joint)
> > fan hand
> > mai finger
> > yak torso
> > yaksu waist (torso-joint)
> > pasu hip (lower-joint)
> > pachuk leg (lower-appendage)
> > kis pachuk upper leg (inner-lower-appendage)
> > palaut knee (lower-hinge)
> > nal pachuk lower leg (outer-lower-appendage)
> > nunsu ankle (foot-joint)
> > nun foot
> > pamai toe (lower-finger)
> >
>
> I must say I like the sound of it. It has the phonetic aesthetics of
Indonesian,
> a language which I don't dislike at all ;)))) .
Thanks! I don't know too much about Indonesian, but it does sound nice.
> > tif hair, anything shaped like hair - long, thin, flexible, plentiful
> > lin leaf, anything shaped like a leaf - flat, somewhat small, thin,
>
> If "secondary meanings" are restricted to such as those, then I agree
heartily
> with your idea. It sounds reasonable and somewhat (I tend to be careful
with
> those ;)) ) cross-cultural.
This came about in a non-human language I was working on where there is a
series of shape words (hair and leaf being among them).
> Nice feature indeed!
>
> Now I have only one problem with your idea: how are you going to
disambiguate
> adjectives from nouns? The way your scheme is right now, a sequence
> adjective-noun could very well be taken to be a compound noun. You could
> artificially say that a certain root is an adjective, and another a noun,
but
> you would fall in the same trap as Esperanto with its "verbal" and
"nominal"
> roots. What you'd need, I think, is an affix (because using tone, stress
or
> pitch to convey grammatical information is not a good idea, seen how
diverse
> that may be among languages, and how difficult it is to hear it when you
aren't
> a L1 speaker of the language). A vocalic suffix would do (it would also
open
> closed syllables, thus making them easier to pronounce for some people).
Of
> course, in such a system where redundancy is quasi-absent, the effect of
the
> affix can be awful (take it that you choose -u. Suddenly, the adjective
made
> from |lis| becomes indistinguishable from |lisu|: shoulder). You could
follow
> another route which is to use a pidgin-like grammar. The "easiness" of
learning
> would be assured, but it implies that you reserve some roots for
grammatical
> purposes (without that they lose completely their full meaning), and it
may not
> be the most optimal structure to prevent ambiguities (and will give to
your
> language a reputation of simpleness that may work against it).
Nevertheless,
> it's one of the best route to follow, since pidgins appear in cases where
people
> of unintelligible languages must talk to each other, and thus show very
well
> what features are primary for communication, and how an international
community
> finds an interlanguage for them.
What I've got in one of my conlangs is a simple rule. The behavior of a
compound is strictly defined that the first noun modifies the second in an
adjectival way. One might ask (for a compound XY), "What type of Y is it?"
And the answer: "An X type of Y.". If this is the way compounds are
treated, then there is really no difference between an adjective and a noun.
If there's a string of them, each modifies the noun stuff to the right.
> > Anyway, this whole long list is just what I think might make a more
> > widely
> > accepted language made on a philosophical basis.
> >
>
> Agreed. Your proposal sounds much more reasonable (and devoid of any
propaganda)
> than what I've read so far.
Not that anyone would want to actually speak it, myself included. And I
won't really be developing this further, as I'm already working on a
language with similar principles, but a distinctly non-human one, Teuthurev.
Thanks for reading through the whole thing, the comments were very useful!
Joe Fatula