Re: An Idea (Hopefully Non-offensive)

>> At 1:20 am -0400 24/4/01, David Peterson wrote:
>> [snip]
>> >    Why don't we have a competition?
>> >    Let's all create a universal auxilliary language and then
>> send to a group
>> >of us to judge (since putting them up on e-mails would be long,
>> tedious and
>> >impractical).

Altogether, an amusing and challenging idea.  I wonder if it would be
possible to find a simpatico, _non-conlanger/auxlanger_, linguist somewhere
who would be willing to judge?  That way projects could be submitted
pseudonymously.  A list-member as judge would know whose work was which, and
might (though of course the possibility is remote) have unconscious biases.
(If it matters......)

It has struck me, that without major tinkering, colloquial Kash could make a
pretty good IAL (it's already widely used on Cindu).

Phonology:  change those pesky prenasalized stops to plain voiced.
Eliminate /ñ/ and rare /N/.  Let /x/ be either [x] or [h]. Keep the 5
vowels, with fairly free allophonic range. Retain basic CVCV(C) structure.
Definitely get rid of sandhi, r-metathesis etc.  (it would be nice if
nasal-stop clusters were still allowed).  And a bit more.
Morphology/syntax:  lose the case endings (replace with prepositions for
some, strict word order for others), lose the anim/inanim distinction, use a
single plural marker; lose the verbal person-markers (pronoun subjects will
be required); keep the 6 tenses (pres, past, fut + perfects)...More use of
copula?  etc. etc. etc.

Some quick examples:
  ma sisa ta 'I love you' (han masisa); kari le kashi ya? "who is that man?"
(kari kash iya); aka ta veles na toe? "did you give him the money?" (ne
havelesaka toye?); ma mene-mene nuji kanumba ya, re inde-ti foet na nim rogo
dolar 'I have just met the doctor to whom your mother owes $500.' (Lit.
...re inde-ti...= "...REL mother-your owe he $500.) (mamende manunji
kandumbra (iya), re indeti ne yafowet nimbrongo truni.)  Contrast: ma mene
nuji na 'I have met him.'

Lexicon:  if a totally a-priori lexicon is OK, no problem, except I'd have
to come up with a lot of terms for things Terran.  The Greco-latin
scientific vocabulary could survive.  (Actually, a totally a-priori lex. is
both good and bad:  bad in that it requires total memorization; good in that
it puts everyone at an equal disadvantage).   A westerner learning any
non-western language is in this situation:  aside from the Greco-latin stuff
(_if_ it's present), nothing looks familiar.
(And vice-versa, surely)

Well, it might be worth a try, but it could take a while;  I spent most of
yesterday afternoon figuring out how to say "which?".....