Re: CHAT: EU allumettes (was: Re: THEORY/CHAT: Talmy, Jackendoff and Matchboxes

Trebor:
> "Were the EU to mandate that we all learn a new language, let it at least
be
> a language designed to be incapable of ambiguity (-- no such language
> exists, but us conlangers would, I expect, be happy to oblige by designing
> one). It would criminal to squander, by selecting Esperanto, the
> opportunities afforded by a new common language.
>
> "If all that is required were a language that was understood by as many as
> possible, then there'd be no need for Esperanto: English would be far
> superior a choice. But it in fact is important that Estonian, Breton,
> Romagnolo and Catalan should be on matchboxes, so as to protect endangered
> cultural entities from oppression by the hegemony of the major languages.
(I
> do realize that nonnational languages have at best a second-class status,
> but that is odious.)"
>
> I agree. It's very unfortunate.
>
> For vocabulary, a computer program could be designed to pick random
> words from a list. So for example, there would be a list of all EU
> languages' words for 'dog', and the program randomly selects one of the
> words. (We'll have to decide on a phonology too... Syllables should be
> (C)V(C), IMO--Slavic consonant clusters are very difficult to pronounce.)
>
> For grammar, what's needed is a sort of basic "EU grammar"--a list of
> concepts, rules, etc. that many European languages have.
>
> This'll take a huge amount of work... we'll need to recruit lots of
> polyglots, and get a list of basic concepts (the ULD maybe?) for
> translation. And linguists could design an optimal grammar.
>
> Anyone interested in maybe trying this?
I was thinking rather that since this hypothetical EU language would
be for official & legalistic use, it might as well confer the
additional boon of being unambiguous, in which case some kind of
amalgam of several dozen European languages would be quite the
wrong way to go about it. Instead, you'd want what we call a
'loglang' (though it would have to be a big improvement on existing
loglangs). In this imaginary scenario, it would be nice if all
other indigenous languages of Europe were declared (un)official
to an equal degree. The one wholly official language would merit
its status by virtue of its superior qualities of unambiguity
(superior for its legalistic purposes), and mere numbers of
speakers or status as a 'national language' would not be a
sufficient criterion for officialness.

As for working on creating this EU language, I have quite enough
on my plate with my one conlang project of 25 years. However,
if the EU were to fund my secondment to such a project, I
might graciously consent... It would be a big job but what
would make it nightmarish would be the infinitely too many
cooks trying to create the recipe.

--And.

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