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Re: Uusisuom language (Online lesson)

From:Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>
Date:Wednesday, March 28, 2001, 5:33
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] =========================================

Replies

Daniel44 <daniel44@...>
Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>