Re: Tong-cho-la, a philosophical language

Andrew Nowicki <andrew@...> wrote:

<<<
Is there any difference between your classifier+description/function and
Ygyde?
>>>
I don't know. You tell me. :-)

<<<
I believe that it is important to make the rules flexible enough so that we
can arrange the roots in a way that makes the best sounding compound words.
For example, Ygyde defines the word groove as ydadisa (small long cavity).
Groove could also be called ydidasa (long small cavity), or ydaisa, which is
a short form of ydadisa, or ydiasa, which is a short form of ydidasa.
<<<
Long small cavity? "Ydidasa" definitely means "nostril" or "mineshaft", not
"groove" ;-)
>>>
The taxonomical conlangs do not have this flexibility, so they give very
similar
names to different vegetables.
<<<
Like Ro "salad" and "cabbage"? ;-)
Just as Teoh wrote it, one difficult thing when making a conlang root
lexicon is to determine "where to start": from "cavity"? from "groove"? from
"rut-in-mire"? Fortunately natlang systems have already experienced this for
millenaries and stabilized to what are most efficient and reasonable
starting points. "Groove" is precisely one of the jouyou kanji entries and
is used to make SJ words like "orbit", "rut", "lane", etc. Too bad Ygyde's
"groove" is already 3 or 4-syllable long (I really mean: excellent! In my
own artlang root words are now 3-syllable long :-))). Comparing natlang
lexicons is how quite a few conlangers already managed to compend their
private complete root lexicons and could now build dictionaries from them if
they had a lifetime to waste. No need to say, these lexicons differ in the
number of entries and the definitions of entries themselves. And here is a
story to sum up my point:
An artlanger tells a philosophical auxlanger that the Gubuda natlang is
really easy to learn and speak. So the philauxlanger learns and masters the
Gubuda grammar and basic vocabulary within a month and realizes it's truely
an incredibly easy and handy language. His artlanger fellow then calls and
asks him: "So don't you think Gubuda is a nice auxlang?" To which the
philauxlanger answers: "Well, it is in practice, but what in theory?"

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