Re: Tong-cho-la

From: "Andrew Nowicki" <andrew@...>
Subject: Re: Tong-cho-la


> Stone Gordonssen wrote:
>
> SG> I missed and cannot seem to find the post which
> SG> listed the goals of Tong-cho-la, ...
>
> The goal is a new International Auxiliary Language
> which is based on Ygyde, and better than Ygyde.
> Ygyde description: http://www.medianet.pl/~andrew/ygyde/ygyde.htm
> Ygyde dictionary: http://www.medianet.pl/~andrew/ygyde/ygyded.htm
As the creator of Tongchola (which may or may not have dashes, as the writer
desires), I think I must interject here.

Tongchola is not based on Ygyde, and I don't know if it's better than Ygyde.
What I set out to do can be summed up in the following:

1) To make a language whose sounds were easy to master for the majority of
the people in the world, considering the phonologies of English, Spanish,
Arabic, and Chinese in the process.

2) To make a language that is made up almost entirely of single-syllable
root words that may be combined to make any other needed concept in the
language.

I'm actually not intending that it be an international language, but more of
a hypothetical auxlang; where _if_ one wanted to have an auxlang, and _if_
one wanted it to be of the categorizing kind (like Ygyde), how _might_ one
do it?  Though if you wish to use it as an auxlang, go right ahead.

> SG> ...but regardless, the question this raises is how
> SG> universally user friendly this language is intended
> SG> to be. Will it require the learner to be able to
> SG> differentiate between [yo-so-ni] and [yos.son.ni]
> SG> or [yo s:o n:i]?
>
> Standard Ygyde does not have these parsing problems
> because every word (except proper nouns) begins and
> ends with a vowel. The same idea can be implemented
> in Tong-cho-la if every root word begins with a
> consonant and ends with a vowel.
And this brings up some of the issues facing an auxlang.  First let's
examine the problems with Tongchola:

1) There could occasionally be problems where context does not differentiate
between (say) "yos-son-ni" and "yo-so-ni".  Most roots are CV, but there are
some CVC roots where this could come up.

- Solution?  Remove the CVC roots.  But I don't want to do that, and for two
reasons.  First, having them gives you many more possible syllables (and
therefore root words).  Second, if you have less possible syllables, words
in general must be longer than otherwise needed.


2) The categories and root words are somewhat arbitrarily chosen.  Sure,
I've picked ones that seem useful to me.  But as you can see from Andrew's
list of roots for Ygyde, he has some different useful ones in mind.

- Solution?  I don't think there is one.  But I would propose that those who
wish to choose effective roots should examine some of the languages out
there that have been dealing with this problem for thousands of years and
see what they use most often.  It might not be the best way, but it's one
that we know works.


3) The words don't seem familiar.  To someone who speaks a European
language, it leaves out a whole array of possible sounds and puts the ones
it has together in an unusual way.  And I imagine speakers of other
languages would have similar views.  (I don't know enough Putonghua to fake
a native view yet...)

- Solution?  Well, you can't please them all.

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