Re: My personal project

At 12:31 pm +0100 11/3/02, Antonio WARD wrote:
>Hi, Ray .. Thanks for your comments on the pre-indoeuropean languages.
You're welcome.

>Actually, having this civilization to be settled in Etruria or Crete would
>be a terrific idea (plot-wise) as I set the history to take place during the
>arrival of IE hordes to Europe, and I could imagine an interaction between
>them and this pre-existing european civilization
I'm sure such interractions did take place.  If you go for Etruria, then
browse the Internet for Etruscan stuff.  There is a fair bit out there.

If you go for Crete then life will be tougher as there's a woeful dearth of
Internet info on Eteocretan (the name given to the non-IE language that
survived on Crete until at least the 3rd cent. BC) and, of course, Linear
still awaits decipherment (at least, decipherment that will win general
acceptance).  I keep having ideas of putting what little info I have onto
the Internet, but haven't got round to it yet - "real life" keeps
intervening.  Maybe I should make an effort.

(very much like Barbarians
>approached Roman Empire). I would take Hittite as an example of this
>indoeuropean preliminary language as I have been told is the oldest language
>in the fammily of IE.
Ancient, yes - I'm not sure how it compares with Sanskrit, agewise.  But
Hittite, Luwian & related languages do show nonIE influence on the IE basis.

>Regarding your questions:
>
>1) My first language will be most likely IE just because I have not done it
>before (creating a language) and my brain is definitely IE (all languages
>that I know or speak are indoeuropeans).
OK - maybe start with an IE base then, as it develops, you start bringing
in Etruscan/ Cretan nonIE inflences.

>On the other hand, other languages
>like Chinese or Indoamerican languages are not appealing to me.
I like all & any language  :)
But, indeed, neither Chinese nor native American languages would be
appropriate for your scenario.

>2) Why create new cases? Well, I would say just for fun and the sake of
>creativity (I think that's why we do this).
Yep - I appreciate creativity. But IR languages have generally shown a
drift toward having less cases.  I think if you want to increase cases
you should have reasons for from your con-world; e.g. maybe they developed
postpositions rather than prepositions (not by any means implausible) and
certain commonly used postpositions got fused.

>3) Thanks, again, for the information on tenses in the IE.
Ah, verbs are a great place for creativity.  One just has to compare the
verbal systems modern Romancelangs, with their hosts of irregular present
tenses, and compare with Classical Latin to see that verbs have an alarming
tendency to give up some complications in order to aquire even more!

I once successfully wrote a parser in Prolog that handled practically all
Latin verbs; I tried writing one for French verbs, but gave up :)

>
>4) Thanks for the suggestion on the additional 2nd person.
You're welcome.

>I love the quote at the end of your message.
Thanks.
I shows what I think of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and, in any case, seemed
appropriate for this list.

Ray.

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                     [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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