Re: Natlang most similar to your conlang [WAS: Analyzing Ayeri's syntactic and voice alignment (long)]

Many years ago I proposed a "Language Code," which was intended to provide a
typological profile for a given constructed or natural language. It should
still be in the archives somewhere. It was modeled after the "Geek Code"
with gradient values for several of the "parameters". For instance, if your
language was more or less agglutinating, but not heavily so, you could give
it 2 '+' for this dimension (out of 4). It sparked a bit of interest and may
be worth looking at again. I use the code for Miapimoquitch as my .sig file
for my gmail account; it's given below.

Miapimoquitch: Tcf Pt*p+++12,4(c)v(v/c) W* Mf+++h+++t*a2c*g*n4 Sf++++argh
Lc++d++600

T = type: in this case, it is a constructed language of the fictional
("artlang") type.

P = phonology: Miapimoquitch does not have tone (t*), there is significant
allophony (p+++), 12 consonants, 4 vowels, and a syllable template
(c)v(v/c).

W = writing: there is no native writing system for Miapimoquitch.

M = morphology: the language is inflectional (f+++), head-marking (h+++),
does not mark tense (t*) and there are two aspect categories. There is no
case (c*) or gender (g*), and four distinct numbers (n4).

S = syntax: constituents are rigidly head-initial (f++++) (though that may
not be accurate anymore) with a hierarchical argument alignment (argh).

L = lexicon: Miapimoquitch is incorporating/compounding to a fair degree
(c++) and there is a fair amount of derivational machinery in place (d++). I
estimate there to be about 600 roots.

There's more to it, but you should be able to find it in the archives.

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 6:31 PM, Arthaey Angosii <arthaey@...> wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 4:49 AM, R A Brown <ray@...>
> wrote:
> >  Originality is interesting - natlang clones can be so boring  ;)
>
> This makes me wonder which natlang(s) are most similar to Asha'ille,
> and whether it has any truly unattested, original aspects to it.
>
> I've read in passing about parameterization as a way of explaining how
> different languages end up with different surface forms. Are there any
> efforts to describe many languages based on such parameters, so that
> you can then compare your language's parameters against other
> languages'?
>
>
> --
> AA
>


--
Miapimoquitch: Tcf Pt*p+++12,4(c)v(v/c) W* Mf+++h+++t*a2c*g*n4 Sf++++argh
Lc++d++600

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