Re: Uusisuom language (Online lesson)

Raymond,

Thank you for your kind words of support for the Uusisuom language.

I have used these three languages (Finnish, Lithuanian, Russian) as my main
influences because they are languages I have some knowledge of. I also
believe that they are good models for different reasons. Finnish is arguably
the most beautiful natural language in the world, Russian is spoken by
hundreds of millions of people the world over, from Eastern Europe to the
tip of Alaska and Lithuanian has wonderful grammatical forms. Lithuanian is
also highly prized among language scholars for its link to Sanskrit in India
dating back thousands of years. Finnish and Lithuanian have to be among the
oldest living languages still in modern use in Europe.

Possession and partitive are expressed the same way in Finnish, it is not
unique to Uusisuom.

Pronouns are distinct from verb endings, though related for ease of
learning. Again, though perhaps not common in auxiliary languages, verb
endings are common in many natural languages.

I understand your point about the numbers, though people DO distinguish
between thirteen and thirty. It's a question of how well the speaker
pronounces. Again, my main priority is ease of learning.

Please feel free to continue posting questions on Uusisuom to me here or at
the Uusisuom main web forum at
http://pub56.ezboard.com/buusisuomanewworldlanguage

Thank you again Raymond for your kind comments and thoughtful questions. I
would look forward very much to welcoming you into the Uusisuom speaking
community.

Best wishes,

Daniel
daniel44@btinternet.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Raymond Brown" <ray.brown@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2001 7:32 AM
Subject: Re: Uusisuom language (Online lesson)


At 6:58 pm +0100 27/3/01, Daniel44 wrote:
>Uusisuom is a new, auxiliary language designed for international usage. Its
>main influences have been Finnish, Lithuanian and Russian.
While it is certainly refreshing to meet an IAL that is not 'yet another
Euroclone', I'm hard put to work out why a language designed for
international use has these three languages as its main influence.

Is there any influence from distinctly non-European languages?

>It is a beautiful
>language and surprisingly simple to learn and use.
'twas said of Esperanto more than a century ago; and, I believe, some
Glosa-pe say the same of their favored international language.

[snip]
>
>NOTE:
>
>'-kat' in Uusisuom is the same as <'s> in English. To say 'a bowl OF
water',
>you write 'the water's bowl' = vettakat huppo
...which, of course, does not mean 'a bowl of water'.

>A bowl of milk = latkat huppo
I'm a little surprised that possession and the partitive are expressed the
same way - many languages do express the two relationships differently.

[snip]

>Verb: to have = talti
>
>I have - talan
>You have - talet
>He/she/it has - talollu
>We have - talamme
>You have (polite) - talatte
>They have - talanne
I don't recall seeing personal endings for verbs in an IAL since Volapük.
Are these endings, like the Volapük ones, merely suffixed pronouns or does
Uusisuom actually have inflexions (not IMO a winner in an international
language)?

[snip]
>
>11 - yhtilukan
>12 - suukilukan
>13 - vassilukan
>14 - jorkalukan
>15 - lahvolukan
>16 - kuutalukan
>17 - loudinlukan
>18 - kovilukan
>19 - vollilukan
>
>20 - suukiluka
>30 - vassiluka
>40 - jorkaluka
>50 - lahvoluka
>60 - kuutaluka
>70 - loudinluka
>80 - koviluka
>90 - volliluka
>100 - sani
Sorry to say it, but you are surely saddling UUsisuom with the same
potentiality for misunderstanding as English by giving it such similar
words for N+10 and Nx10.  If I had a pound for every time I'd heard
questions like "Did you say thirTEEN or thirTY?"  "Was that fourTEEN or
forTY?", I'd be quite a rich guy by now.   IMNSHO _vassilukan_, e.g. is far
too similar to _vassiluka_ for comfort.




=========================================
A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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