Re: Basic English

abrigon wrote:
>
> Yes, but can't some compromise be done, to use English roots?
Sure.  It would just require a lot more than 800 words.

There's a fairly well-known essay called "Uncleftish Beholding" (Atomic
Theory) discussing atomic physics in all Germanic roots:

Here goes, formerly forwarded to this list by John Cowan, and originally
written by Poul Anderson

For most of its being, mankind did not know what things are made
of, but could only guess.  With the growth of worldken, we began to
learn, and today we have a beholding of stuff and work that watching
bears out, both in the workstead and in daily life.

The underlying kinds of stuff are the *firststuffs*, which link
together in sundry ways to give rise to the rest.  Formerly we knew of
ninety-two firststuffs, from waterstuff, the lightest and barest, to
ymirstuff, the heaviest.  Now we have made more, such as aegirstuff
and helstuff.

The firststuffs have their being as motes called *unclefts*.  These are
mightly small; one seedweight of waterstuff holds a tale of them like
unto two followed by twenty-two naughts.  Most unclefts link together
to make what are called *bulkbits*.  Thus, the waterstuff bulkbit
bestands of two waterstuff unclefts, the sourstuff bulkbit of two
sourstuff unclefts, and so on.  (Some kinds, such as sunstuff, keep
alone; others, such as iron, cling together in ices when in the fast
standing; and there are yet more yokeways.)  When unlike clefts link in
a bulkbit, they make *bindings*.  Thus, water is a binding of two
waterstuff unclefts with one sourstuff uncleft, while a bulkbit of one
of the forestuffs making up flesh may have a thousand thousand or more
unclefts of these two firststuffs together with coalstuff and
chokestuff.

At first is was thought that the uncleft was a hard thing that could
be split no further; hence the name.  Now we know it is made up of
lesser motes.  There is a heavy *kernel* with a forward bernstonish
lading, and around it one or more light motes with backward ladings.
The least uncleft is that of ordinary waterstuff.  Its kernel is a lone
forwardladen mote called a *firstbit*.  Outside it is a backwardladen
mote called a *bernstonebit*.  The firstbit has a heaviness about
1840-fold that of the bernstonebit.  Early worldken folk thought
bernstonebits swing around the kernel like the earth around the sun, but
now we understand they are more like waves or clouds.

In all other unclefts are found other motes as well, about as heavy
as the firstbit but with no lading, known as *neitherbits*.  We know a
kind of waterstuff with one neitherbit in the kernel along with the
firstbit; another kind has two neitherbits.  Both kinds are seldom.

The next greatest firststuff is sunstuff, which has two firstbits and
two bernstonebits.  The everyday sort also has two neitherbits in the
kernel.  If there are more or less, the uncleft will soon break asunder.
More about this later.

The third firststuff is stonestuff, with three firstbits, three
bernstonebits, and its own share of neitherbits.  And so it goes, on
through such everyday stuffs as coalstuff (six firstbits) or iron (26)
to ones more lately found.  Ymirstuff (92) was the last until men began
to make some higher still.

It is the bernstonebits that link, and so their tale fastsets how a
firststuff behaves and what kinds of bulkbits it can help make.  The
worldken of this behaving, in all its manifold ways, is called
*minglingken*.  Minglingers have found that as the uncleftish tale
of the firststuffs (that is, the tale of firststuffs in their
kernels) waxes, after a while they begin to show ownships not unlike
those of others that went before them.  So, for a showdeal, stonestuff
(3),
glasswortstuff (11), potashstuff (19), redstuff (37), and bluegraystuff
(55)
can each link with only one uncleft of waterstuff, while coalstuff (6),
flintstuff (14), germanstuff (22), tin (50), and lead (82) can each
link with four.  This is readily seen when all are set forth in what
is called the *roundaround board of the firststuffs*.

When an uncleft or a bulkbit wins one or more bernstonebits above
its own, it takes on a backward lading.  When it loses one or more,
it takes on a forward lading.  Such a mote is called a *farer*, for that
the drag between unlike ladings flits it.  When bernstonebits flit by
themselves, it may be as a bolt of lightning, a spark off some
faststanding chunk, or the everyday flow of bernstoneness through wires.

Coming back to the uncleft itself, the heavier it is, the more
neitherbits as well as firstbits in its kernel.  Indeed, soon the
tale of neitherbits is the greater.  Unclefts with the same tale of
firstbits but unlike tales of neitherbits are called *samesteads*.
Thus, everyday sourstuff has eight neitherbits with its eight firstbits,
but there are also kinds with five, six, seven, nine, ten, and
eleven neitherbits.  A samestead is known by the tale of both
kernel motes, so that we have sourstuff-13, sourstuff-14, and so on,
with sourstuff-16 being by far the most found.  Having the same number
of bernstonebits, the samesteads of a firststuff behave almost alike
minglingly.  They do show some unlikenesses, outstandingly among the
heavier ones, and these can be worked to sunder samesteads from
each other.

Most samesteads of every firststuff are unabiding.  Their kernels
break up, each at its own speed.  This speed is written as the
*half-life*, which is how long it takes half of any deal of the
samestead thus to shift itself.  The doing is known as *lightrotting*.
It may happen fast or slowly, and in any of sundry ways, offhanging
on the makeup of the kernel.  A kernel may spit out two firstbits
with two neitherbits, that is, a sunstuff kernel, thus leaping two
steads back in the roundaround board and four weights back in
heaviness.  It may give off a bernstonebit from a neitherbit, which
thereby becomes a firstbit and thrusts the uncleft one stead up in
the board while keeping the same weight.  It may give off a
*forwardbit*,
which is a mote with the same weight as a bernstonebit but a forward
lading, and thereby spring one stead down in the board while keeping
the same weight.  Often, too, a mote is given off with neither lading
nor heaviness, called the *weeneitherbit*.  In much lightrotting, a
mote of light with most short wavelength comes out as well.

For although light oftenest behaves as a wave, it can be looked on as
a mote, the *lightbit*.  We have already said by the way that a mote
of stuff can behave not only as a chunk, but as a wave.  Down among
the unclefts, things do not happen in steady flowings, but in leaps
between bestandings that are forbidden.  The knowledge-hunt of this
is called *lump beholding*.

Nor are stuff and work unakin.  Rather, they are groundwise the same,
and one can be shifted into the other.  The kinship between them is
that work is like unto weight manifolded by the fourside of the haste
of light.

By shooting motes into kernels, worldken folk have shifted samesteads
of one firststuff into samesteads of another.  Thus did they make
ymirstuff into aegirstuff and helstuff, and they have afterward gone
beyond these.  The heavier firststuffs are all highly lightrottish
and therefore are not found in the greenworld.

Some of the higher samesteads are *splitly*.  That is, when a neitherbit
strikes the kernel of one, as for a showdeal ymirstuff-235, it bursts
into lesser kernels and free neitherbits; the latter can then split
more ymirstuff-235.  When this happens, weight shifts into work.
It is not much of the whole, but nevertheless it is awesome.

With enough strength, lightweight unclefts can be made to togethermelt.
In the sun, through a row of strikings and lightrottings, four
unclefts of waterstuff in this wise become one of sunstuff.  Again
some weight is lost as work, and again this is greatly big when set
beside the work gotten from a minglingish doing such as fire.

Today we wield both kind of uncleftish doings in weapons, and kernelish
splitting gives us heat and bernstoneness.  We hope to do likewise with
togethermelting, which would yield an unhemmed wellspring of work for
mankindish goodgain.

Soothly we live in mighty years!

--
"Old linguists never die - they just come to voiceless stops." -
anonymous
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