Re: Speedwords hare (was: Some new Brithenig words? Narbonosc

> From: Andreas Johansson
>
> The Gray Wizard wrote
> > > From: BP Jonsson
> > >
> > > At 06:39 2001-05-27 -0400, The Gray Wizard wrote:
> > >
> > > >Benefit to whom?  In what way would changing their language to
> > > "make it more
> > > >like other languages" benefit Germans?  What might motivate them to
> >make
> > > >such a change on this basis?
> > >
> > > It is certainly not immediately clear to schoolchildren which
> words are
> > > nouns.  I'm sure a lot of class time could be used for more
> > > valuable learning.
> >
> >I don't know.  Given the other complexities of German nouns
> (gender, case,
> >number), I can't imagine that capitalization rules score very
> high in terms
> >of learning difficulties.  I can't remember any significant class time
> >being
> >spent on it when I studied German as an undergrad.
>
> But you're not a native speaker, are you? To a native speaker (given that
> his/her dialect isn't divergent from High German), the cases and genders
> come pretty naturally. Same with the somewhat impredictable plurals. The
> noun capitalization rules, on the other hand, have no real counterpart in
> spoken language, and thus have to be learnt actively by even native
> speakers.
No, but my wife is.  A native speaker, that is. I'll poll her on this issue
as soon as she wakes up. ;-)

> PS Obviously, the difference between higher and lower case is strictly a
> feature of written language. If ease of learning were our sole
> motive, we'd
> be busy reforming capital letters out of existence.
This is probably my artlang bias leaking through here.  I view the
capitalization rules of German as an aesthetic and distinguishing features
of the language.  My response about "benefit to whom?" was, I am sure,
colored by this.  If Germans aren't clamoring for change here (are they?)
then why change such a distinguishing feature.  Of course, your more
practical arguments are, well, more practical.  Thank heavens we artlangers
aren't hamstrung by such practicalities. :-)

Incidentally, amman iar has no capital case.  I can no longer remember
whether it is because its native script has no capitals or whether somewhere
along the line I decided it wouldn't have capitals and so created none for
its script.  I suspect the former, but memory fails me here.

Stay curious,
David

David E. Bell
The Gray Wizard
www.graywizard.net

Wisdom begins in wonder.

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