Re: English syllable structure

On Sun, 9 Dec 2001 11:58:33 -0000, jogloran <exponent@...>
wrote:

>joe hill wrotE:
><<
>French? I hate french. There is no language less logical and more
>complicated.  English is pretty bad too, fortunately, I speak it
>anyway, so it doesn't matter.  Old English is nice, very nice indeed.
>>>
>
>Yeah, I wouldn't like the actual process of learning French, though I
>think it sounds distinctive. I would actually learn Old English, but
>I doubt that any comprehensive "teach yourself" books are available.
>
>I remember browsing the Teach Yourself Sanskrit at a bookstore. It
>made it look impossible to learn due to the book's verbosity.
I looked through that one and several other Teach Yourself books. The main
problem with those was that they were paperback reprints on coarse paper,
which meant that any non-roman script came out as inkblots. Also, they
tended to be out of date (except for the Sanskrit book), chaotically
organized, and in some cases, couldn't be used without L1 speakers on hand
to tell you what the book really meant.

But that reminds me of a conlang idea I had:
A bunch of college students in the 1960's are taking a French class (using
an obsolete textbook of course). The professor kicks the bucket or
something, but the students continue to study on their own, without any
help from actual speakers of French. Eventually they start a commune that
everybody else forgets about where they speak their version of "French".
To develop this I would have to get hold of that obsolete textbook and take
care not to learn to much correct modern French.

Jeff

>Jogloran/imperative (bit of a nickname schizophrenia happening here :)