> And, while I will let it go this time, saying "X's design flaws
are well
>known" is an ad hoc argument if not backed up by at least some examples
that
>your language specifically avoids/solves.
Well, sorry for not starting to explain it all in detail.
I'm accessing the Internet through a cybercafé and every
minute I spend costs me dearly, so please don't make me
waste my money writing a long essay comparing my proposal
with others; just read my proposal and make the comparison
yourself, I do beg you.
>> Then , Spanish is also an "international" language, since
>> it also is spoken natively "all over the world".
> True. Which is why it's at the top of my list of future lingua
francas.
>Right now, I would not count Spanish as a lingua franca in any place but
>Spain and Latin America, but that could easily change.
>
>> >Perhaps you don't like it, but at this present time, English is the de
>>
>> facto
>>
>> >lingua france.
>>
>> O.K. I know that and, as you said, I DON'T LIKE IT AT ALL.
> Ok, that's fine. But is creating an auxlang the solution?
As I wouldn't like ANY national language (not even my
native Spanish) to be used as lingua franca, the solution
in my opinion is to use an neutral auxlang.
>> Well, sorry, "futurese" is not an English coin word, but
>> the anglicization of "futurés", the nickname we gave it in
>> a Spanish-language conlang mailing list. Of course,
>> "futurés" is derived from "futuro" (future), which derives
>> from Latin "futurus", a future participle of the verb "essere"
>> (to be). So, in short, "futurese" is definitely not an English
>> coin word, but a Latin one.
> Now, now, I did not mean to offend.
I didn't take it as an offense, really. :-)
> I am well aware of the Latin origins of
>both parts of the word. What I did not feel necessary to clarify was that
an
>English speaker would understand it as a perfectly "English" word, a
compound
>of "future" + "-ese", which is commonly used to indicate origin or relation
>to, a country or region of origin.
Yes, as I said, "futurese" is an anglicization, so its
English-appearance is deliberate.
> In English science fiction literature,
>"-ese" is the most productive form of naming a language;
Also in Spanish its equivalent "-és", along with "-ano".
> hence, Jabba the
>Hutt (and yes, I know that "Star Wars" is not science fiction) speaks
>Huttese. Q.E.D., "Futurese" would be understood by all English speakers as
a
>perfectly acceptable English coin word, even if some of them were aware of
>its Latin etymology. That was my only point. :)
O.K. Don't bother about my answer. :-)
>> Well, to all these you'll find answers as I post further
>> comments on the project.
> Well, it would be nice if you could post a definitive list, as
thus far,
>I've only read a rather long defense of the phonology.
Well, I'd like to do so, but as I've just said, my current
access to the Internet is very limited and expensive, so I
have to be a bit "telegraphic" in my posts.
> It seems as though you
>are going along the route of "sharing the pain", in having new sounds for
>everyone.
That's IMHO the only fair option.
> Although for English speakers, the only sound not a part of
>English, ñ, is pretty easy for us to fake (we borrowed "canyon", after all,
>so most English speakers would understand it at "n + y").
Yes, the main problem English speakers will find has to
do with vowels and prosody.
>> OTOH, introducing a new alphabet would cause so many
>> inconveniencies that I think nobody would prefer it
>> to the roman alphabet.
> And of course I agree; I was just pointing out that for many
people, a roman
>alphabet has certain imperial overtones. Funny, that an alphabet could
cause
>so much trouble, but then, languages tend to evoke fierce reactions.
Agreed. But also the very idea of an IAL is not very
well welcome among nationalist people.
>For
>the glottal stop to be truly useful, you would need to have syllable
>structures that would make use of it. Namely, something other than as a
break
>between vowels or before word-initial vowels. Let me see if I can
illustrate
>this:
>In an auxlang, most people would consider this bad:
>[a] = tourist information booth
>['a] = garbage collection
>Why? Because many people would have tremendous difficulty distinguishing
and
>pronouncing them in a distinctive manner. English speakers would interpret
>[a] as ['a], because all word-initial vowels begin with a glottal stop.
>Russian speakers would interpret ['a] as [a], because Russian has no
glottal
>stop. Etc., etc.
> Next:
>[ba] = German slaughter house (5, for you Vonnegut fans)
>[ba'] = Renaissance sculptures
> Again, many people would have tremendous difficulty in producing
and
>distinguishing the two; in order to distinguish them, some people would
>lengthen the vowel in the first word, while keeping the second short, which
>would not be understood by people whose native languages have no
distinction
>between short and long vowels.
> And since your auxlang would not permit "baag", citing "ba'ag"
does little
>for your cause.
> In short, while the glottal stop may be present in many of the
world's
>languages, for many people, it is too much of a nuisance to be bothered
with.
O.K. Everything agreed. But it seems you haven't noticed
that [a] and [?a] are going to be allophones of /a/. I
just placed the glottal stop in the phoneme chart to
round it up, because it is not completely ignored in
the phonology of the language: it will serve to distinguish
CVC VC from CV CVC.
>> To emphasize the opposition between the pairs p/b, t/d,
>> k/g.
> I can understand this, but in reality, this would quickly be
ignored. I
>speak from experience on this one. :)
Well, the aspirated stops would just be the "ideal"
pronounciation.
>> >Speakers who are used to inserting a glottal stop will naturally do so,
>>
>> those
>>
>> >who are not will still be understood perfectly.
> Ok, then back to what I was saying above, why include the glottal
stop if it
>is not distinctive? If it doesn't matter (if they will be understood
>perfectly without it), why have it in the first place?
I've just answered to this a few lines above.
>> Because inserting a glottal stop in that position will not
>> be optional but customary, as in German. And that's so to
>> keep syllable structures unaltered.
> Hmm. I think you are saying two different things here. You are
using a
>convention of German (and English) to mandate a phoneme that isn't
necessary.
>One does not need a glottal stop to keep the syllable structure unaltered;
>[ba.ag] and [ba'ag] would both work. Better to say, "Insert a glottal stop
>between two vowels if you can; otherwise, make sure that you pronounce them
>as distinct syllables."
The primary task of the preglottalized allophones is to
keep CVC-VC sequences that way, because if no glottal
stop is placed before the second vowel, the pronounciation
will tend to become CV-CVC, thus making the result
ambiguous, as it could be interpreted both as CVC VC and
CV CVC, which correspond to two totally different morpheme
sequences.
>> I have made an extensive list of languages to be taken
>> into account, chosen so as to include representatives of at
>> least the main language families and those languages most
>> widely spoken.
> Right; which languages?
I haven't that list at hand now, I'll try to remember
carrying it with me the next time I come to the cybercafé.
>> Not exactly. "Theme" is that about which you're going to
>> say something, "rheme" is what you're saying about the
>> preceding, "predicator" is the word that separates both.
>> A predicator--I mean, a word that's used just for that--
>> frequently appears in creoles, such as Tok Pisin's "i"
>> (which is a grammaticalized word derived from English
>> "is"; e.g. "Em i go": They go).
>
> Ah...topic/focus (same difference :).
Mmm... I'd say not exactly, since what I understand by
"focus" is not the rheme but the emphasized element.
> But I just figured that out from your
>example sentences. Definitely interesting (for a conlang) but I have
>reservations about its aptness in an auxlang.
Why? It always plays an important role in pidgins and creoles.
Cheers,
Javier