Re: my proposals for a philosophical language

Andrew Nowicki wrote:
AN> The root words must be made in such a way that
An> it is clear where is the beginning and the end
AN of each root word.

"H. S. Teoh" wrote:
HST> Why?

This is the same problem as recognizing where
one word ends and another word begins. Novice
speakers of English are lost when they listen
to fast spoken English.

AN> The most important decision is how many
AN> root words you need.

HST> I'm not sure I understand the rationale
HST> behind this. I can see a reason behind
HST> limiting the number of root words used
HST> in common, everyday conversations (learn
HST> a small number of roots and you'll
HST> understand most of what people say). But
HST> putting an upper limit on root words in
HST> the entire language seems to me something
HST> that will only hamper the language's
HST> development and ultimately, acceptance.
HST> People who have mastered the basics will
HST> say, "why can't I coin new roots? It's too
HST> repetitive to keep using these long words!"

We agree that consonant clusters are not
desirable. Consider a language that has
only two letters long root words. There
are only two options: vowel-consonant (VC)
or consonant-vowel (CV).

Three letters long root words must be either
CVV or VVC. CVC will result in consonant
clusters. VCV has lots of vowels, but few
consonants. It sounds nice, but there are few
vowels in any alphabet, so the total number
of VCV root words is much smaller than the
total number of CVC root words. Another problem
with VCV and CVC is that they may be confused
with two letters long root words -- you would
not know where the root words begin and end.
For that reason CVC and VCV root words must
not be mixed with CV and VC root words.

VC and VCC roots can be used in the same
word. The same is true of CV and CVV roots.
At present Ygyde uses only CV roots but it
can be extended with CVV roots. The total
number of CV and CVV roots is on the order
of one thousand. What do you do when you
need more roots? You are in big trouble.
You cannot mix CV and CVCV roots because
nobody will know if CVCV is one root or two
roots. CVVV sounds pathetic to me. It is
the end of the rope!

HST> So back to languages... I'm not saying
HST> you have to invent an entire culture for
HST> Ygyde -- but just an underlying philosophy,
HST> or a motto, or something, that is reflected
HST> in the more difficult parts of the language.
HST> Then you don't *need* artificial restrictions
HST> like the number of root words, etc.. Languages
HST> do, and *will*, change. Even artificial
HST> languages will change -- people always adapt
HST> language to their own cultural context.
HST> You cannot control a language by enforcing
HST> grammatical or lexical rules. just look at
HST> how futile the efforts of language reformers
HST> are. In spite of efforts to "fix" so-called
HST> incorrect pronunciation of English (esp. in
HST> places where English is not a native language),
HST> Malay, etc., people still continue to
HST> "mispronounce" them. You can reform the
HST> language of one generation, but the children
HST> will inevitably change it to their own
HST> tastes, and there's nothing you can do to
HST> stop them. But you *can* guide a language
HST> with an underlying philosophy, or motto,
HST> which people can pick up very quickly while
HST> learning the language.

It is easy to change pronunciation and add more
root words, but it seems impossible to change the
meaning of existing root words or to change Ygyde's
prefix table. Well, we could easily include longer
compound words in the prefix table, but other changes
of the prefix table would require increasing the
number of vowels from 6 to 9. The prefix table *is*
the philosophy of Ygyde. Those who make the compound
words may invent taxonomical rules, but as you have
pointed out, these rules result in very similar
names of vegetables.

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