Re: Futurese

On Monday 29 April 2002 17:10, Javier BF wrote:
> >        Thus: what's wrong with all the other auxlangs that your auxlang
>
> will solve?
>
> Well, Esperanto's design flaws for example have already been
> pointed out several times by others.
        Ok, that's one down. Only about fifty more to go. :) (I really don't know
how many auxlangs there are, but I'm sure some more auxlang-hip person will
provide a more exhaustive list.) Besides, Esperanto is the _easy_ target. And
it seems as though you are making the same design decision as Esperanto by
mandating accusative marking. (Based on my analysis of your sample sentences;
correction welcome.) While I admit that I have not studied Esperanto (never
quite saw the point), it seems as though the first things most
Esperanto-haters go for is the accusative marking.
        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.

> 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?

> Well, you seem to forget that Spanish has ALREADY been
> the world's lingua franca some centuries ago (the Spanish
> Empire at that time was so big--half Europe and overseas
> to Africa, East Asia and America--that one could say the
> sun never set in it).
        Ah, yes, my mistake. Well, Spanish has a decent chance of making a comeback
as a lingua franca, as I noted above. Probably not in the immediate future,
but in perhaps 50-100 years. Of course, this is predicated upon a great many
factors, but it's got a better chance than an 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 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. In English science fiction literature,
"-ese" is the most productive form of naming a language; 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. :)

>
> >> The main goal of futurese is to be as culturally neutral,
> >> logical and easy to use and learn as possible.
> >
> >        Ok, I'll try to frame this as a "features" question: how do these
>
> features
>
> >compare with other auxlangs? I've heard the exact same thing a dozen times
> >before, but few get past the "easy phonology" part. Be specific: what
> > about the features are culturally neutral? After all, what some people
> > consider "culturally neutral" would be immediately labeled as very
> > Western in many parts of the world. What do you mean by "logical"? Are we
> > taking Lojban logical here, or just "no irregulars"? How is it easy to
> > use and learn? Hawaiian is easy to pronounce for me, and Quechua is
> > almost completely regular, but neither recommend themselves as IALs.
>
> 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. It seems as though you
are going along the route of "sharing the pain", in having new sounds for
everyone. 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").

> 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.

> > Oh, and I just noticed
> >the ', which I assume to be a glottal stop. That's very unusual for an
> >auxlang.
>
> Well, maybe it is unusual for an auxlang, but certainly
> not for the languages of the world, since the glottal
> stop appears in the UPSID survey of most frequently
> used phonemes at a global scale.
        Methinks you are taking the UPSID survey just a little too seriously. 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.

> 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. :)


> >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?


> 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."

> 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?

> >> 8) Basic sentence structure: theme - predicator - rheme
> >
> >        Sorry, I'm not exactly familiar with that terminology. Do you mean
>
> it's SVO
>
> >(Subject-Verb-Object)?
>
> 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 :). 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.
        :Peter