Re: Uusisuom (phonemic????)

At 1:05 pm +0100 4/4/01, Daniel44 wrote:
>Ray,
>
>Thanks for explaining that to me.
>
>Doubled consonants are pronounced as in Finnish. For example, 'kekko' (clock
>or time) - you would 'hold on' to the middle 'kk' section for longer than if
>there was only one 'k' in the middle of the word.
Exactly what I assumed - such sounds are said to be 'geminate' (twinned).

I'm afraid geminate consonants and a distinction between long & short
vowels are both features which are generally considered a "bad thing" in
auxlangs.

However, largely from my experience on AUXLANG over several years (I've
left it for a while now), I've become very skeptical about the viability of
_any_ artificial language as an auxlangs, at least in the way the designers
of Volapük & Esperanto dreamt of them.  The world has throughtout history
used natlangs, or internalized forms of natlangs such as the Greek Koine or
medieval Latin, as auxlangs, just as a large part of is is using English
now. I think Yoon is right when she wrote on 31/3/01:
"To take an example I know about, you would have a hard time getting your
average South Korean to see the point of *any* IAL, because English works
just fine for them, thankyouverymuch."

...and I suspect that goes for more than just South Korea.

As you may have gathered by now, if you were not already aware of it, there
is another list for those specifically interested in (constructed)
auxiliary languages.  The auxlang business is not going to cut much ice
here.

However, as Yoon also said in the same mail: "Heh.  I like it just fine as
an artlang."  And this seems to be the feeling of quite a few others,
including me.

We're interested in your postings and will be interested to see how
Uusisuom works out, as long you don't mind most of us treating it as an
'artlang', i.e. a language constructed with art and a feeling for its
aesthetic appeal etc.

If you do get some international interest via your web-page, then good luck
to you.  At least here you won't get the petty partisanship of "you're
language is no good; X is the only sensible auxlang".

Ray.

PS - I suggest substituting "Fun to learn" for "easy to learn" when you're
promoting Uusisuom.  In my experience "ease of learning" is a very elusive
thing: what one person thinks is easy, another will find darn hard.  But
fun things may be easy or hard - as long as they're enjoyable  :)


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