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Re: Tiki and French

From:Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@...>
Date:Friday, April 14, 2006, 15:48
Hi Herman,

On Thu, 13 Apr 2006, Herman Miller wrote:
> > I'm fairly certain now that Tiki is around 100 years old and created by > a native speaker of French. I'm still open to other possibilities if I > can think of something that makes more sense, but that's the current > assumption. As soon as I have something ready, I'll put together an > announcement celebrating 100 years of Tiki and put it up on my web page. > (I figure it might as well be exactly 100 years old this year.) > > So now it looks like I'm going to have to make some changes based on > these assumptions. For one thing, the main vocabulary items should all > have glosses based on French vocabulary (and century-old French > vocabulary, if that makes a difference). ...
I would guess so! This would impinge greatly on technological terms, particularly those to do with transport, communication and enter- tainment. It might also be worth considering that class structures were generally more rigid in Europe a century ago than now, so that if Dr. M were a learned gent he may not know the terms for, eg, boot-polish, colander or broom - since they relate to tasks he would not himself ever have been expected to perform ...
> ...That process could take a > while, but I could always quietly correct "errors" later if I discover > them after putting the page up, or explain them as "features" borrowed > from some other language. Probably also some features of French grammar > would be important to add; reflexive pronouns, verbs conjugated for > tense (rather than aspect), and so on.
Subjunctive? It was more important in daily speech when my teachers were young, it seems, than it is now.
> A few obvious things come to mind: > > * French, like many European langs including English, has a verb "to be" > with numerous uses. I was thinking that Tiki adjectives would be used > much like verbs, but this seems like an idea that would be unlikely to > occur to an early 20th century (non-linguist) French speaker. On the > other hand, "Dr. M" must have had some familiarity with Japanese > grammar, which has a category of adjectives that act much like verbs. > (I'm still assuming that Dutch and Japanese are the two foreign > languages that had the strongest influence on Tiki.) So it's possible > that adjectives might be used without "to be", but it'd probably be more > likely to follow the European model.
Indeed.
> * Distinguish between pairs of words like "savoir" and "connaître" > (which isn't the best example since many other European languages > distinguish these, at least the ones I'm familiar with, although they're > both "to know" in English). (How does French express "to know how", by > the way?)
"to know how" = "savoir" "to know how to do or make" = "savoir faire"
> > * Rather than having words for "hungry" and "thirsty", the French > expressions "avoir faim" and "avoir soif" could be used. Thus, the word > "to have" takes on a broader meaning than I was originally intending.
and "to need (something)" = "avoir besoin de (quelquechose)". Also the use of "faire" in: "il fait chaud" & "il fait froid". French uses some other auxiliary verbs in places that Germanic languages don't, and in ways that don't exactly parallel Spanish, eg "falloir" & "devoir". eg "Il nous faut partir maintenant."
> * Words that are compounds in French should generally be compounds in > Tiki. "Umbrella" (which would have been "kasa" from Japanese) would be > derived from "parapluie", which could turn out something like "pare-ame" > (I don't yet have a root for French "parer", which I'm assuming is the > source of "para-" in "parapluie", but "rain" is from Japanese "ame".) > Potato is "earth apple", which coincidentally is what the Dutch word for > potato means.
and (surprise!) exactly what the French phrase "pomme de terre" means, too ...
> * Sequence of tenses could work in a similar manner to the way they're > used in French, but in a simplified form. > > * A few words for concepts specific to French, like "chez", could have > simple Tiki equivalents. (Other examples?)
Some idioms have a more Gallic flavour than others, and it would be amusing to see them translated directly into Tiki or simply lent to it: "Sacre bleu! Zut, alors ... Tant pis. Quelle espèce de ... Cochon! Diable! Merde! Elle est une femme d'un certain âge ... Selon lui ... le petit déjeuner."
> Is there anything else that comes to mind? It's been 25 years since I > studied French in high school, so I don't remember much.
My last school French class was 40 years ago! Sacre bleu! ;-) Regards, Yahya -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.4.1/311 - Release Date: 13/4/06

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Herman Miller <hmiller@...>