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Re: Tong-cho-la, a philosophical language

From:Andrew Nowicki <andrew@...>
Date:Friday, April 18, 2003, 18:25
mathias wrote:

m> I do appreciate certain SJ compounds as being easier to remember, but a lot
m> of other ones are not, and a great number sound very much the same because
m> they share common kanjis that sound all the same (how many ji, shi, jou,
m> kou, sai, etc?) and philosophical languages share that flaw. The compounds
m> that are easier to remember are usually made like derived nouns are, that
m> is: classifier+description/function, exactly like your example "computer" is
m> made: brain+machine. Other ones are: sleep+facility, eat+instrument,
m> electric+cart, female+cow, beauty+sense, etc. The mnemonic ones I like are
m> also completely allegoric: ox+ear for "guiding", shield+halbard for
m> "contradiction", etc. But "box+wheel+steer+etc" sounds more conlanging fun
m> than mnemonicly efficient IMHO. In other words, I prefer "lung-flame" to
m> "body-bag-air-circulate-fire-subpart-health-impair" or whatever :-)))) And
m> contrary to what you wrote, I don't advocate any kind of "scientific" method
m> to make words. Actually, I don't advocate any method at all.

Is there any difference between your classifier+description/function and Ygyde?

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. The
taxonomical conlangs do not have this flexibility, so they give very similar
names to different vegetables.