Re: Chinese-based IAL?

Danny Wier <dawier@...> writes:

[reasons to include Chinese roots in an auxlang]

I see quite a problem with using Chinese word roots in an IAL.

The vast majority of Chinese roots is monosyllabic, extensively relying
on tones to distinguish meaning.  But meaning-relevant tones (or
meaning-relevant suprasegmentals in general) are something I wouldn't
touch with a 10-feet pole when I was to design an IAL as language
learners tend to have difficulties getting them right.  I became aware
of the problem when I briefly considered using Chinese roots in my
very-low-priority 9-phoneme IAL project.  The roots would have to be
transformed into a very different shape (adding more consonants, or
making them at least bisyllabic - the only option in the 9-phoneme IAL
which has only 21 different syllables) which would bend them beyond
recognition in order to get along without tones.  Japanese, a language
with a very small syllable inventory and no tones, did borrow roots from
Chinese massively, but changed many of them beyond recognition and uses
them mainly in compounds, where the many, many, many, many homophones
can be partially disambiguated by context to a manageable level.

Jörg.

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