Re: The Five-Page Language.

On Wednesday, February 2, 2005, at 06:04 , Gary Shannon wrote:

> First of all, I do not believe in the the whole
> auxlang concept. I think any auxlang is doomed before
> it even gets off the ground. That said, it's still
> interesting to play with "make believe" auxlangs.
> Here's my idea for what I call a "five-page auxlang."
Five pages? Some Esperantists used to claim (some probably still do) that
their language could be fully specified on one _one_ page I believe I've
even seen it claimed it could be done on a post-card.

You'll have to do better than five pages   :)

> I recently found a copy of the book FRATER (LINGUA
> SISTEMFRATER) by Pham Xuan Thai and subtitled "The
> Simplest International Language Ever Constructed".
"Simplest International Language Ever Constructed' - thinks: Where have I
come across that before? Oh yes, I remember - those long years ago when I
was on Auxlang.       ;)

[snip]
> The grammar consists of 12 rules on two pages,
4 less than E-o    ;)

[snip]
> that what would really make this language "the
> simplest" would be to have a fixed set of rules for
> deriving the Frater word from the Latin dictionary
> entry.
Giuseppe Peano did that with 'Latino sine flexione'. Basically, noun &
pronouns just take the form of the Latin ablative singular. So do the
adjectives, using the masculine form if the Latin feminine was different.

With verbs he just knocked off the final -re of the infinitive.

You may need to modify the Latin spelling I suppose to conform with the
orthography of your language.

>  Instead of having to build up the glossary
> word by hand-crafted word, any ordinary Latin
> dictionary could be used to stand in for a Frater
> dictionary.
Of course, words would then keep the wide range of meanings that some of
them have in Latin. Also, unless the dictionary has 'modern Latin', you'll
get stuck expressing a lot of contemporary concepts.

>
> My proposal, then, is to completely specify an auxlang
> in five pages.  There would be one page covering
> orthography and pronunciation, two pages covering all
> the grammar rules, and two pages covering the rules
> for deriving words from any Latin dictionary entry.
> Thus, by learning five pages of material the auxlang
> would be completely mastered.
No good without a Latin dictionary    :)

> What could be easier?
> :)
Deriving the words from English - just kidding      :)))

Ray
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