Re: What is it we are saying in our languages?

Sally Caves wrote:
> This is a philosophical question of a different order... and may have
> already been raised. The thread on tinkering versus creativity has given
> me a lot of thought, and what I want to pose in this thread is the
> extent to which we focus on *language* as creative or *message* that is
> creative.  Or both.  In other words, what are we saying that is unique
> in our languages, and how do our languages help us *say* something that
> the world can hear--  or deem unique?
"Here's a different way of viewing the world". Each language emphasizes
different aspects of things and actions, as defined in the vocabulary
and grammar. The classic example in Minza is the difference between
English "come" and "go" and the Minza equivalents. The main words in
Minza that take the place of "come" and "go" are "darvi" (meaning to set
off, depart), "sevi" (meaning to pass through), and "nimi" (meaning to
reach a destination, arrive). Direction of motion is not encoded in the
Minza words; any of these can be interpreted as "come" or "go" depending
on context.

Not that there's anything "wrong" with the English way of saying things,
but doing everything as a word for word equivalent of English gets a bit
boring after a while and almost seems like cheating. In an inflected
language like Minza the choice of grammatical affixes also has an
effect. Comparing Minza with Lindiga (the original source of Minza's
grammar and much of the initial vocabulary), Minza has a smaller set of
affixes. For instance, Lindiga has an antipassive voice which isn't used
in Minza; Minza just omits the object of the verb. The antipassive
prefix in Lindiga draws attention to the fact that an object has been
omitted, which is something you can't easily do in English. The message
of the language is in its structure and the meanings of the words.

> We engage in translation challenges where we translate texts that the
> world has already read, and translation relay games where we translate a
> text that someone has invented, but aside from that, how many of you are
> interested in making your language say something new?  Or do we resort
> to our native languages for that?
I used to do some original writing in my languages, particularly
Olaetian, but also Neesklaaz, Rynnan, and a few others. I don't think
much of it was very interesting. It's a lot easier if I'm going to be
writing something about the worlds where my languages are spoken to
write in English, with occasional use of words borrowed from Azirian
languages for things that don't have English equivalents. Occasionally
I've written something in English and translated it to one of my
languages, but that could be considered more of a translation exercise.
My original goal for Lindiga was to do original writing entirely, no
translations. I ended up with a brief paragraph describing the first
part of the game _The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time_ and little else.
Nothing new to say there. But at least it was original writing, not a
translation of anything.

Now, something that might be of some interest is Zireen music theory. A
couple of years ago I had a goal of exploring and documenting the music
of the Zireen, but things got busy at work again and I never got very
far with that idea. Recently I've started to revive my interest in this
music, in particular the various "nai" or arrangements of buttons on
musical keyboards, with the associated scales and temperaments. I have a
little bit on the FrathWiki page, which doesn't go into much detail, but
it would be interesting to do something in the actual Zireen languages.

http://wiki.frath.net/Zireen_music

Still, even though Yasaro might be a better language for writing about
Zireen music theory, we can get by in English just by borrowing a few
words, just as we borrow words like "raga" when discussing the music of
India. And it would take a lot longer to write something in Yasaro (even
if I had the vocabulary). Then I'd still need to write an explanation in
English to describe the meaning of words like "nai" and "yemet".