CONLANG Digest - 18 Aug 2000 to 19 Aug 2000 (#2000-225)

>
>Date:    Sat, 19 Aug 2000 09:05:53 -0400
>From:    "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>
>Subject: Re: Conlangs in History
>
>Hmm... I guess I'm lucky to know two Chinese dialects, English, and Malay
>(mainly a SOV language but with arguably more inflected verbs than
>English), as well as a little classical Greek. It *does* help a lot when
>you can invent something in a conlang, and then "shift" to thinking in
>another language and see how it looks from that other point of view. Very
>often, it reveals unconcious assumptions that you've made.
>
Which two Chinese langs?  Mandarin and Hokkien?  I'm living in Taiwan right
now and working hard on my Mandarin.  I'm about to embark on learning Ho Lo
Oe -- the local dialect of Hokkien.  And may try to add Hakka as well.

In a few years I might like to move to Shanghai and learn Wu.

Tonal langs ROCK!

I've already got a good start on Tawanese Sign Language.  It is REALLY
different from American Sign Language.  Lots of new cheremes to learn and
new applications of symetry.  I need to get a copy of Stokoe or HamNoSys so
I can start documenting what I'm learning.  (And so I can start developing
that signed conlang I keep telling myself I'm gonna do!)

>
>T
>
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com