Ebisédian is fun! (Was: Re: Ygyde is fun!)

On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 06:21:30PM -0500, Andrew Nowicki wrote:
> Memorizing euroclone vocabulary is as much fun as memorizing a phone
> book. Only a masochist can enjoy learning Lojban's grammar.
Indeed! Learning auxlang vocabulary is as dull as enumerating all
combinatorial possibilities of baby-talk sounds.  Only a nihilist can
enjoy learning grammar so blatantly obvious it might as well not
exist!


> Ygyde is different! The essence of Ygyde is playing with words.
> Suppose that V = vowel and C = consonant. Any word having structure
> of VCVCV, CVCVCV, and VCVCVCV is a compound word that may have a
> meaning.
[...]

Ebisédian is different! The essence of Ebisédian is playing with your
mind. For example, _ki_ = "red", _ci'_ = "green", and _roi'_ = "blue".
These words instantly makes sense, right? But is there such a thing as
common sense in the Ferochromon? Of course not! _ki_ is also a Deeply
Significant Word in Ebisédi philosophic parlance. When the
philosophers speak of red things, they are not necessarily physically
red! And exactly what qualities are intended by such a usage is, of
course, completely arbitrary and beyond human comprehension. But it is
nevertheless red! Plus, the same word _ki_ is also used in Ferochromon
physics to denote a certain quantum particle. And lest you be deceived
by this simple statement that, perhaps, Ebisédian is understandable
after all, keep in mind that given enough energy, _ki_ can transmute
into _ci_ and _roi'_ spontaneously! Furthermore, given even more
energy, it can transmute into something called _kioo'si_, which is an
infinitely small unit of space with a finite volume that tiles all
space! So when you say _ki_, does it mean 'red' as in the color 'red',
or philosophically 'red' as in the philosophical color 'red', or 'red'
as in the quantum particle 'red', which is to be distinguished from
the quantum space 'red', which is not quite the same thing as 'red
space'? I'll tell you a secret: nobody knows! But they are all 'red'
nevertheless. Isn't that fun?

And to top it off, _ki_ is written with the character that descended
from the pictograph of something called the Funny Plant, which is a
plant that walks around on its lower branches and sucks nutrients
from its tube-roots! Such a deeply-significant word is actually
associated with humour! (You can blame the scribes for this one.)

And as if this weren't enough, _ki_ is also used as one of the noun
association markers, which nobody can possibly understand! What might
an associated noun marked with _ki_ refer to? Your judgment is as good
as mine! When combined with Ebisédian's decidedly sideways pronominal
system, you might as well resort to clicking-and-pointing instead of
pronouns to make it clear who you're referring to! But even then, in
the Ferochromon, does pointing to someone disambiguate who that
someone might be? Well, that depends! If you're in the Ether, it
doesn't, because space is liquid!

Also, Ebisédian is not encumbered by such red tape as sensibility;
given a verb and a bunch of nouns in various cases, the rules for
interpreting them are so unintuitive you might as well just understand
it however you like!

And last of all, anything with the structure CVCVCV, VCVCVC, CVCVCVC,
or some arbitrary permutation thereof, is, in fact, a word! Can you
imagine the audacity with which the Ebisédi speak their language, in
which such things are in spite of the overwhelming incomprehensibility
of all descriptions of Ebisédian actually words! I mean, this fact
alone should convince you that you'd rather recite the list of
botanical diseases inflicting your backyard in alphabetical order!
(And don't get me started on Ebisédian alphabetical order, which only
a computer program can get right!)

:-P


T

--
Famous last words: I wonder what will happen if I do *this*...

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