archives of the CONLANG mailing list ------------------------------------ >From zclyatb@ucl.ac.uk Tue Mar 1 11:48:56 1994 From: zclyatb Message-Id: <14913.9403011148@rs6-229.ucl-26.bcc.ac.uk> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: Re: North Wind and Sun Date: Tue, 01 Mar 94 11:48:56 +0000 X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 Is anybody still interested in acquiring translations of this little tale? I have worked out a decent translation for a Dutton's World Youth Speedwords (Dwys) version of it and I'd be happy to glos. it and explain a little grammar if people are interested. Yours syntactically, Alan Butcher. ______________________________________________________________________ >From KNAPPEN@VKPMZD.kph.Uni-Mainz.DE Tue Mar 1 16:45:52 1994 Date: Tue, 01 Mar 1994 15:45:52 +0100 From: KNAPPEN@VKPMZD.kph.Uni-Mainz.DE Subject: Re: North Wind and Sun To: conlang@diku.dk Message-Id: <01H9GOKI656Q91W0W4@MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE> X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 Yes, I am interested. I think it's worth to be posted to the entire list. Yours, J"org Knappen. ______________________________________________________________________ >From hrick@world.std.com Tue Mar 1 16:16:09 1994 Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 21:16:09 -0500 From: hrick@world.std.com (Rick Harrison) Message-Id: <199403020216.AA24395@world.std.com> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: Volapuk literature X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 Some comments on Volapu"k literature available. I do not claim to know everything, but this is my understanding based on my bibliographic research and compulsive list-making. Schleyer's _Volapu"k die Weltsprache_ has been back in print for several years, having been reprinted by Georg Olms Verlag. They are planning to publish in book form the entire corpus of the periodical _Zi vol Lo"lik_ (1888-1892). Address: Georg Olms Verlag, Hagentorwall 7, 31134 Hildesheim, Germany. Seret's grammar and other 1880's materials are all descriptions of pre-de Jong Volapu"k, not Volapu"k as it is currently practiced. As I understand it, de Jong's proposed reforms were accepted by most (or perhaps by all) of the Volapu"k community. As for relatively recent publications, my files include the following references. I haven't personally seen any of these; I tried unsucessfully to get Geschichte der Universalsprache Volapu"k via inter-library loan; our librarians couldn't find a copy of it anywhere in the known (networked) universe. Kerckhoffs, A. & Harrison, I. H. Complete course of Volapu"k Paris: Hachette, 1888 [on microfiche, Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1988] Kniele, Rupert Das erste Jahrzehnt der Weltsprache Volapu"k Saarbru"cken: Iltis-Verlag, 1989 Pinth, J. B. Kleine Gramatik der Schleyerschen Weltsprache Volapu"k Saarbru"cken: 1983 Schmidt, J. Jenotem valemapuka Volapu"k Amsterdam: 1964 Schmidt, Johann Erste vollsta"ndige Zeitschriftenliste des Volapu"k und Literatur-Liste Saarbru"cken: Iltis, 1981 Schmidt, Johann Geschichte der Universalsprache Volapu"k Saarbru"cken: Iltis, 1986 On a side note, what is it about Saarbru"cken that makes it such a hotbed of conlang activity? ______________________________________________________________________ >From donh@netcom.com Tue Mar 1 14:16:44 1994 Message-Id: <199403020616.WAA25180@mail.netcom.com> To: conlang@diku.dk Cc: Don Harlow Subject: Re: Volapuk literature <199403020216.AA24395@world.std.com> Date: Tue, 01 Mar 94 22:16:44 -0800 From: Don Harlow X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 Rick Harrison writes ... > > As for relatively recent publications, my files include the following > references. I haven't personally seen any of these; I tried > unsucessfully to get Geschichte der Universalsprache Volapu"k via > inter-library loan; our librarians couldn't find a copy of it > anywhere in the known (networked) universe. > > Kerckhoffs, A. & Harrison, I. H. > Complete course of Volapu"k > Paris: Hachette, 1888 > [on microfiche, Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1988] Rick, here's a list of books on Volapu"k that overlaps yours with exactly one entry. All of them are published by Artur E Iltis in Saarbru"cken. You may notice that all of them have one other item in common. Perhaps that will partially answer your question. (I think there is also a connection here with Georg Olms Verlag.) * * frame *boldface* passages. _ _ frame _oblique_ passages. The anomalous B in entry 3 is intended to stand for a German double-S. Supersigns go above the immediately preceding letter. 1. PINTH, Jean-Baptiste: *Kleine Grammatik der Schleyerschen Weltsprache*. Mit einem Vorwort von _Reinhard Haupenthal_. Konstanz 1900. Represo: Saarbru"cken 1983. 12 p. 4,50 DM 2. *Volapu"k-Literatur*. Mit einem bibliographischen Nachtrag von _Reinhold Haupenthal_. Frankfurt/M. 1888. Represo: Saarbru"cken 1983. 10 p. 4,50 DM 3. HAUPENTHAL, Reinhard: *Der erste Volapu"k-KongreB, Friedrichshafen 1884. Dokumente und Kommentare. La unua Volapu"k-kongreso. Friedrichshafen 1884. Dokumentoj kaj komentoj*. Saarbru"cken 1984. 118 p. 27,-- DM 4. SCHMIDT, Johann: *Listo de la Volapu"k-asocioj kaj kluboj*. Komp. lau^ originalaj listoj kaj manuskriptaj postlasaj^oj de _Johann Martin Schleyer_. Kun postparolo de _Reinhard Haupenthal_. Saarbru"cken 1985. 11 p. 4o. 3,90 DM 5. NA"THER, Arthur: *Volapu"k oder Weltsprache*. Mit einem Vorwort von _Reinhard Haupenthal_. Oschatz 1884. Represo: Saarbru"cken 1985. 12 p. 3,30 DM. (The list actually comes from the back of a copy of de Saint-Exupe'ry, Antoine: _Tero de la Homoj_, tr. Henri Vatre', Saarbru"cken: Artur E. Iltis, 1985. I presume that most of these works are still available directly from "Iltis," whose address you can get by sending an E-mail request to the Esperanto League for North America, attn: Ionel Onet, at elna@netcom.com; I'd give it to you now, but I don't have it handy.) Don Harlow donh@netcom.com Esperanto League for N.A. elna@netcom.com (800) 828-5944 Mi ellitig^as c^e l'tagig^o | I rise from bed at dawn Kaj c^e la sunsubir' ripozas; | And go to rest at sundown; Teron mi plugas por min nutri, | I plow the earth to feed myself, Por trinki mi mem puton fosas; | To drink, I dig my own well; Kion mi devas danki al la suvereno! | For what have I to thank the sovereign! -- Early (2400 B.C.) Libertarian poem... ______________________________________________________________________ >From Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk Wed Mar 2 10:49:00 1994 Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 10:49:00 GMT From: Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk Message-Id: <9403021049.AA07382@nene.cl.cam.ac.uk> To: conlang@diku.dk Cc: "Edmund.Grimley-Evans" Subject: Re: Volapuk literature > On a side note, what is it about Saarbru"cken that makes it such a > hotbed of conlang activity? Esperanto possibly does well there because Saarbruecken is on the border between France and Germany where there is more consciousness of language problems than in Berlin or Paris. (After the war France tried to persuade Saarland to become part of France; the area was under French administration for many years.) Reinhard Haupenthal is responsible for a lot of the publishing activity by Iltis. He is active in a rather odd sort of way in the Esperanto movement and obviously has an interest in republishing Volapuek material. Josef Doerr used to collaborate with Haupenthal, until the feud between the two clans started. Iltis used to be Sarlanda Esperanto-Ligo's press, but Doerr now runs Sarlanda Esperanto-Ligo separately and publishes Esperanto material under the name of SEL. There was a legal battle over ownership of Iltis, which Doerr almost certainly could have won, had he been as bloody-minded as Haupenthal. However I had better not say more about that, because my info, although detailed and reliable, comes almost exclusively from the Doerr side... Here are two lists of Volapuek material which most of you could have compiled for yourselves, as the data is available on the Net. The first is an extract from the online catalogue of the library of Universitaet des Saarlandes. I made it while I lived in Saarland, so it's a few years old. When the network's in a good mood you can access the catalogue via Internet. Try "telnet unisb.rz.uni-sb.de" or look for it in Gopher, as Saarbruecken e-mail addresses are being perpetually redefined. The second is an extract from the catalogue of Universala Esperanto-Asocio. You can get the full catalogue by ftp from "ftp.stack.urc.tue.nl" ("cd /pub/esperanto"). I saw an advertisement somewhere for the Olms reprint of "Zi vol Loelik", so I suspect that it has been published by now. Edmund ---------- ML 8039 Haupenthal, Reinhard: Johann Martin Schleyer : (1831-1912), Autor d. Plansprache Volapuek ; Festvortrag anlaesslich seines 150. Geburtstages, gehalten am Martin-Schleyer-Gymnasium zu Lauda-Koenigshofen am 17. Oktober 1981 ; (mit Esperanto-Uebers.) Saarbruecken : Iltis, 1982. - 35 S. sprach Z 33 Schleyer, Johann Martin 82a080103 70-1402 Jong, Arie +de: Gramat Volapueka : dabuekot balid pelautoel naemaetue e zepue kadaem Volpueka Leiden : Brill, 1931. - VIII, 113 S. 74a960156 58-3612 L. W 7727 [HM] Jong, Arie +de: Woerterbuch der Weltsprache = Voedabuk volapueka pro deutaenapuekans - Dabuekot 6. / pebevoboel fa Arie de Jong Leiden : Brill, 1931. - XV, 494 S. Frueher u.d.T.: Schleyer, Johann M.: Grosses Woerterbuch der Universalsprache Volapuek 73a270175 91-9857 Kniele, Rupert: Das erste Jahrzehnt der Weltsprache Volapuek / Rupert Kniele - Nachdr. d. Ausg. Ueberlingen 1889 Saarbruecken : Iltis Verl., 1989. - 167 S. (Iltis serioj : 4, Interlingvistiko ; 1) ISBN 3-927613-12-6 sprach Z 136 90a120298 75-8087 Manders, Wilhelmus J.: Vijf kunsttalen : vergelijkend onderzoek naar de waarde van het Volapuek, Esperanto, Ido, Occidental en Novial / W. J. A. Manders Pumerend : Muusses, [1947]. - 386 S. 72a020182 MM 754 Naether, Arthur: Volapuek oder Weltsprache - Nachdr. d. Ausg. Oschatz 1884 Saarbruecken : Iltis, 1985. - 12 S. (Jubilea eldon-serio : 4 ; 5) sprach Z 182 79b120612 ML 9019 Pinth, Jean-Baptiste: Kleine Grammatik der Schleyerschen Weltsprache Volapuek - Nachdr. d. Ausg. Konstanz 1900 Saarbruecken : Iltis, 1983. - 12 S. (Jubilea eldon-serio : 4 ; 1) sprach Z 127 79b120346 83-5885 Schleyer, Johann M.: Volapuek, die Weltsprache : Entwurf e. Universalsprache fuer alle Gebildete d. ganzen Erde / Johann Martin Schleyer. Volapuek-Bibliographie / Reinhard Haupenthal - Nachdr. d. Ausg. Sigmaringen 1880 Hildesheim [u.a.] : Olms, 1982. - XII, 136, 124 S. ISBN 3-487-07278-5 sprach Z 79b120122 83-9253 Kat. VI 7027 Schmidt, Johann: Erste vollstaendige Zeitschriften-Liste des Volapuek und Literatur-Liste des Volapuek = Unua kompleta listo de Volapuek-gazeto kaj Listo de la Volapuek-literaturo / Johann Schmidt. Mit e. Vorw. von Reinhard Haupenthal Saarbruecken : Iltis, 1981. - 4, [66], 9 S. sprach Z 102 80b160882 4* 73-3669 Schmidt, Johann: Geschichte der Universalsprache Volapuek - Vergroesserter Faks.-Dr. d. Orig.-Typoskripts Weisskirchen a.Ts. 1963 Saarbruecken : Iltis, 1986. - 52 Bl. (Jubilea eldon-serio : 4 ; 7) sprach Z 135 79b120860 MT 6166 Schmidt, Johann: Listo de la Volapuek-asocioj kaj kluboj : kompilita lau originalaj listoj kaj manuskriptaj postlasojoj de Johann Martin Schleyer / Johann Schmidt - Repr. de la orig. tajposkripto de la autoro, Weisskirchen a.Ts., 1966 Saarbruecken : Iltis, 1985. - 8 S. (Jubilea eldon-serio : 4 ; 4) sprach Z 172 79b120609 86-6197 Volapuek-Kongreso <1, 1984, Friedrichshafen>: Der erste Volapuek-Kongress : Friedrichshafen, August 1984 ; Dokumente u. Komm. = La unua Volapuek-Kongreso / Reinhard Haupenthal Saarbruecken : Iltis, 1984. - 118 S. (Jubilea eldon-serio : 4 ; 3a) Beitr. teilw. dt., teilw. volapuek. - Erg. s. Ils, Jakob: Referat ueber die Verhandlungen der I. Generalversammlung der Weltsprachen-Vereine zu Friedrichshafen a.B. am 26. und 27. August 1884 sprach Z 108 85a170096 ML 9059 Volapuek-Literatur : [Verz. d. ueber "Volapuek" u. " Pasilingua" ersch. Schriften, Grammatiken, Woerterbuecher usw. ...]. Mit e. bibliogr. Nachtr. / von Reinhard Haupenthal - Nachdr. d. Ausg. Frankfurt/M. 1888 Saarbruecken : Iltis, 1983. - 10 S. (Jubilea eldon-serio : 4 ; 2) Nebent.: Volapuek-Litteratur sprach Z 102 79b120339 ---------- Unua kompleta listo de Volapu"k-gazetoj kaj Listo de la Volapu"k-literaturo - Johann Schmidt Saarbru"cken: 1981, 4+56+9p 21cm 14,40NLG Volapu"k die Weltsprache, (1880) - Johann Martin Schleyer Hildesheim/Zu"rich/New York: Georg Olms 1982, ISBN 3487072785, 136+124p 17cm 58,80NLG Kun bibliografio de R. Haupenthal Erste Jahrzehnt der Weltsprache Volapu"k, (1889) - Rupert Kniele Saarbru"cken: 1989, 168p 20cm 52,20NLG Geschichte der Universalsprache Volapu"k - Johann Schmidt Saarbru"cken: 1986, 52p 29cm 18,90NLG Volapu"kabled, Faka revuo pri volapukologio n-ro 1, Red. R. Haupenthal Scheidt: 1985, 20p 21cm 12,60NLG Volapu"kabled, Faka revuo pri volapukologio n-ro 2, Red. R. Haupenthal Scheidt: 1985, 20p 21cm 12,60NLG Volapu"kabled, Faka revuo pri volapukologio n-ro 3, Red. R. Haupenthal Scheidt: 1985, Po 20p 21cm 12,60NLG Volapu"kbled, Faka revuo pri volapukologio n-ro 4, Red. R. Haupenthal Schidt: 1988, 88p 21cm 12,60NLG Listo de la Volapu"k-asocioj kaj kluboj - Johann Schmidt Saarbru"cken: 1985, 14p 30cm 5,10NLG Unua Volapu"k-kongreso: Friedrichshafen, Auxgusto 1884, Dokumentoj kaj komentoj / Der erste Volapu"k-Kongress; Friedrichshafen, August 1884, Dokumente und Kommentare, Komp. R. Haupenthal, Trad. la kompilinto Saarbru"cken: 1984, 119p 21cm 33,90NLG ---------- ______________________________________________________________________ >From ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk Wed Mar 2 18:41:06 1994 From: ucleaar Message-Id: <55729.9403021841@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk> To: conlang@diku.dk X-Ungarbled_Sender: And Rosta Subject: 3 questions Date: Wed, 02 Mar 94 18:41:06 +0000 X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 (1) Which invented languages also have invented scripts? I am aware of Tolkien's and Klingon, but no others. (I'm not interested in shorthands for existing languages, such as the Shavian.) (2) I am considering acquiring software with which to design typefaces. I need it to generate TrueType and Poscscript (Type I) fonts. I am aware of Fontographer and Font Studio. Can anyone suggest others? Can anyone tell me which is best, and how much better it is than the others? (3) Does anyone have an address (preferably UK) for Altsys Corporation, manufacturers of Fontographer (I believe)? Thanks, And Rosta ______________________________________________________________________ >From shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu Wed Mar 2 09:51:28 1994 From: shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu (Mark E. Shoulson) Received: from localhost (shoulson@localhost) by startide.ctr.columbia.edu (8.6.5/8.6.4.788743) id OAA02324; Wed, 2 Mar 1994 14:51:28 -0500 Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 14:51:28 -0500 Message-Id: <199403021951.OAA02324@startide.ctr.columbia.edu> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: 3 questions X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 As regards font generation, something you may want to look into (though it will likely be inconvenient for your purposes) is METAFONT. This is an inordinately powerful font-design program designed by Donald Knuth. It's available by anonymous ftp from labrea.standford.edu, I think, but you might want to look at its documentation (e.g. _The METAFONTBook_, also available there) before you go through the pain of building the thing. Also note that it's not really designed for TruType font generation, but for use with the typesetter TeX. However, I believe that there are packages which convert its fonts to PostScript Type I, and possibly TrueType, so it *might* be worth looking at. Probably not, though. ~mark ______________________________________________________________________ >From lojbab@access.digex.net Wed Mar 2 09:52:10 1994 From: Logical Language Group Message-Id: <199403021952.AA05126@access2.digex.net> Subject: Re: 3 questions To: conlang@diku.dk Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 14:52:10 -0500 (EST) Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net (Logical Language Group) X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 & Rosta writes: > (1) Which invented languages also have invented scripts? I am aware of > Tolkien's and Klingon, but no others. (I'm not interested in shorthands > for existing languages, such as the Shavian.) There is aUi, or AuI, or whatever it is called, which has its own glyphs plus a romanization scheme. > (2) I am considering acquiring software with which to design typefaces. > I need it to generate TrueType and Poscscript (Type I) fonts. I am > aware of Fontographer and Font Studio. Can anyone suggest others? > Can anyone tell me which is best, and how much better it is than the > others? You need to specify hardware/OS. -- John Cowan sharing account for now e'osai ko sarji la lojban. ______________________________________________________________________ >From urban@cobra.jpl.nasa.gov Wed Mar 2 03:54:12 1994 To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: Re: 3 questions Date: Wed, 02 Mar 1994 11:54:12 -0800 From: Michael P Urban Your message dated: Wed, 02 Mar 1994 20:20:54 PST > > (1) Which invented languages also have invented scripts? I am aware of > Tolkien's and Klingon, but no others. (I'm not interested in shorthands > for existing languages, such as the Shavian.) M. A. R. Barker's Tsolyani (from his Tekumel world of novels and role-playing games) has an original, rather Arabic-like script. I vaguely recall that there is at least one other alphabet used by another ethnic group -- or is it another sentient species? -- in that world. ______________________________________________________________________ >From robdean@access.digex.net Wed Mar 2 10:40:11 1994 From: Rob Dean Message-Id: <199403022040.AA26573@access1.digex.net> Subject: Re: 3 questions To: conlang@diku.dk Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 15:40:11 -0500 (EST) > M. A. R. Barker's Tsolyani (from his Tekumel world of novels and > role-playing games) has an original, rather Arabic-like script. I > vaguely recall that there is at least one other alphabet used by > another ethnic group -- or is it another sentient species? -- in that > world. Actually three or four--but I'd have to refer to books which are at home to be sure. The only printed source material on the other languages (besides Tsolyani) is pretty scarce. The Tsolyani script was included with the original Empire of the Petal Throne rule book, as published in 1975. For _serious_ collectors of role-playing game trivia, TSR issued a multi-color illuminated document, "Declaration of War by Yan Kor upon Tsolyanu". When I got the sourcebook with the other scripts in it, many years later, I realized that the "scribe" who had written the document was using a very Yan Koryani influenced version of the Tsolyani alphabet (the former being square and blocky, the latter all smooth curves.) Rob Dean (saluton, Mike! Ni renkontis cxe la Tutmonda Sciencfiktia Kongreso pasintjare.) ______________________________________________________________________ >From ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk Wed Mar 2 20:57:52 1994 From: ucleaar Message-Id: <56605.9403022057@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: Re: 3 questions Date: Wed, 02 Mar 94 20:57:52 +0000 X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 > You need to specify hardware/OS. DOS with adequate RAM, printing to HP laserjet 4M. Thanks for the interest in my query: perhaps the info will be of use to others on the list. I wouldn't be surprised if there are lurkers on the list who have their own conlangs with their own scripts. This very day, for example, I just got wind of a student at my college who has. ---- And ______________________________________________________________________ >From ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk Wed Mar 2 21:23:41 1994 From: ucleaar Message-Id: <134082.9403022123@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: Re: 3 questions Date: Wed, 02 Mar 94 21:23:41 +0000 X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 > As regards font generation, something you may want to look into (though it > will likely be inconvenient for your purposes) is METAFONT. Thanks very much. CAn you suggest sources of info on Metafont to Truetype & Postscript conversion software? And ______________________________________________________________________ >From pathall@uclink.berkeley.edu Wed Mar 2 05:26:40 1994 Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 13:26:40 -0800 (PST) From: Patrick James Hall Subject: Re: 3 questions To: conlang@diku.dk Message-Id: X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 On Wed, 2 Mar 1994, ucleaar wrote: > (1) Which invented languages also have invented scripts? I am aware of > Tolkien's and Klingon, but no others. (I'm not interested in shorthands > for existing languages, such as the Shavian.) I am also interested in scripts. I was wondering if anyone on this list was aware of a phonetic script other than the IPA, which is arbitrarily designed, as far as I can tell. What I'm thinking of, specifically, is a script that systematically relates the phonetic features of the phoneme represented with the grapheme. For instance, the graphemes for fricatives would all have a common feature. Presumably this sort of script would allow at least approximate recognition of the phoneme from reading its grapheme and never having heard it. Just a thought. Patrick Hall UC Berkeley ______________________________________________________________________ >From lojbab@access.digex.net Wed Mar 2 12:42:41 1994 From: Logical Language Group Message-Id: <199403022242.AA05371@access1.digex.net> Subject: Re: 3 questions To: conlang@diku.dk Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 17:42:41 -0500 (EST) Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net (Logical Language Group) X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 Patrick Hall writes: > What I'm thinking of, specifically, is a > script that systematically relates the phonetic features of the phoneme > represented with the grapheme. For instance, the graphemes for > fricatives would all have a common feature. Hangul (Korean's native script) is somewhat like this: indeed, many of the phoneme letters iconically resemble the tongue positions used to make them! Hangul is not perfect, and is specific to Korean phonology, but it is a heroic attempt, especially considering it is centuries old. -- John Cowan sharing account for now e'osai ko sarji la lojban. ______________________________________________________________________ >From shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu Wed Mar 2 12:47:35 1994 From: shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu (Mark E. Shoulson) Received: from localhost (shoulson@localhost) by startide.ctr.columbia.edu (8.6.5/8.6.4.788743) id RAA03790; Wed, 2 Mar 1994 17:47:35 -0500 Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 17:47:35 -0500 Message-Id: <199403022247.RAA03790@startide.ctr.columbia.edu> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: 3 questions X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 >Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 23:19:35 +0100 >From: ucleaar >Thanks very much. CAn you suggest sources of info on Metafont to >Truetype & Postscript conversion software? Hrm... I'm looking on sunsite.unc.edu in /pub/packages/TeX/fonts/utilities, and what I understand doesn't look like what you need for the most part (tho some does seem to go the other way). There is one thing that looks right, but I'm not sure how portable it is. There are also complex thingies out there whose descriptions I don't really understand. I'll try looking 'round, maybe some Archie searches will help. Keep me posted; I seem to have a weak spot for odd fonts. I keep meaning to design a particular Hebrew one... >And ~mark ______________________________________________________________________ >From shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu Wed Mar 2 12:53:47 1994 From: shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu (Mark E. Shoulson) Received: from localhost (shoulson@localhost) by startide.ctr.columbia.edu (8.6.5/8.6.4.788743) id RAA03860; Wed, 2 Mar 1994 17:53:47 -0500 Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 17:53:47 -0500 Message-Id: <199403022253.RAA03860@startide.ctr.columbia.edu> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: 3 questions X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 >Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 23:26:23 +0100 >From: Patrick James Hall >was aware of a phonetic script other than the IPA, which is arbitrarily >designed, as far as I can tell. What I'm thinking of, specifically, is a >script that systematically relates the phonetic features of the phoneme >represented with the grapheme. For instance, the graphemes for >fricatives would all have a common feature. Actually, yes. There's one I've mentioned here before, called Visible Speech, by Alexander Melville Bell (Graham Bells' father). It is arranged along precisely the lines you describe. I have a book published by Melville Bell at home, and can send you a copy if you want. Moreover, I recently made a METAFONT version of the font, and even a brief description. I uploaded it to a TeX archive site where it was supposed to be distributed to others weeks ago, but no dice so far. For now, it can be found at ftp.shsu.edu, in /tex-archive/incoming/vispeech. The files that end in "2" are replacements for the corresponding files that don't, which contain minor typos. Check it out. >Patrick Hall >UC Berkeley ~mark ______________________________________________________________________ >From elf!white@felix.dircon.co.uk Thu Mar 3 00:35:39 1994 Message-Id: <199403030751.AA22216@felix.dircon.co.uk> Subject: Re: 3 questions To: conlang@diku.dk Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 00:35:39 +0000 (GMT) From: "Jim Finnis" X-Date: Today is Boomtime, day 62 in the season of Chaos, 3160. > Thanks for the interest in my query: perhaps the info will be of use to > others on the list. I wouldn't be surprised if there are lurkers on the > list who have their own conlangs with their own scripts. This very day, > for example, I just got wind of a student at my college who has. Yep, I'm one - both my conlangs (Suilleann and Taqil) share the same Taqil script. It's a phonetic alphabet based on eleven glyphs (including a "capitalisation" prefix) and three (superposable) diacritics. Incidentally, the raison d'etre of the languages is a long-running CDROM-based computer role-playing game. Suillean is a "traditional" 5-case language (NomAcc, Gen, Assoc, Locat, Dat) with a Celtic-like phoneme distribution, while Taqil (which, pseudohistorically, influenced Suilleann) is a rather strange agglutinative beasty. Some Suillean, from an important religious document in the game-world, rendered in Latin script (well, ASCII): 20 Eylo/ch faill fonilon nyarr, thyn cwm bylharr, thyn dubh lochi/rarr, uim fiat nyan. "You catch the light of winter in us, as water within glass, as darkness in a cavern, it is our truth." ============================================================================= Jim Finnis | "Karanon omyr.kerenna" white@elf.dircon.co.uk | ...!uunet!pipex!dircon!elf!white ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Trydan blodau am byth, trydan neidr am byth! ============================================================================= ______________________________________________________________________ >From zclyatb@ucl.ac.uk Fri Mar 4 16:11:39 1994 From: zclyatb Message-Id: <15771.9403041611@rs6-236.ucl-26.bcc.ac.uk> To: conlang@diku.dk Cc: zclyatb@ucl.ac.uk Subject: Dwys: "L Nor Ven & L Bril" Date: Fri, 04 Mar 94 16:11:39 +0000 X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 I have promised to post a Dutton's World Youth Speedwords (Dwys) translation of The North Wind and the Sun story so here it is. Analysis will follow in a few days since I have been run off my feet recently. Those with Dwys materials should be able to make a good deal of sense of anyway. Much of the word order is the same as English. There are a number of surprising points about pronunciation to be made about the text I will look at these and the morphology and I'll give a glossary of it in a few days. "L Nar D L Nor Ven & L Bril" L Nor Ven & L Bril y argop qu y l mevig, qe u iter ko lov tegplid i u het bodi. G ykon k l eri qo uv suk iv uma l iter epo si bodi vos e puvd mevig z l ot. Nux l Nor Ven yven m al si vigee, b l me s ven l mefixe l iter tegpli si bodi ron ip; & uvov, l fexe Nor Ven ydae l try. Nux l Bril ybrie he & jae l iter epo si bodi. & so l Nor Ven y debyd kene k l Bril y l mevig d l dos, There you are short and sweet. I shall explain the quirks of pronunciation involved and so on very soon. ______________________________________________________________________ >From Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk Thu Mar 10 12:52:24 1994 Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 12:52:24 GMT From: Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk Message-Id: <9403101252.AA24391@nene.cl.cam.ac.uk> To: conlang@diku.dk Cc: "Edmund.Grimley-Evans" Subject: "Esperanto ne bezonas troigon" Since there was some discussion here of Volapuek recently, maybe I can post this, which appeared in "La Brita Esperantisto" (marto-aprilo 1994, pa^goj 67-68). I think the author is the present cifal of Volapuek. Who wants to translate the Volapuek poetry into Esperanto? >> Unika literaturo? William Auld en vortoj presitaj angle en _La brita esperantisto_ novembro- decembro, 1993, skribas, ke la originala literaturo en Esperanto, kiel belarta krea^jo en artefarita lingvo, estas unika fenomento. Lia aserto, kvankam merit- plena, ne estas tute fakta. Mi menciu Johann Schmidt, iaman ^cefestron de Volapuko, kaj poeton; mi menciu tom Sweetlove, konatan idiston, anka^u poeton. Bon^sance, mi konis ilin persone; sed estas libroj de aliaj homoj en tiuj artefaritaj lingvoj sur miaj bretoj. Eble iam iu pli sperta ol mi tradukos iliajn verkojn esperanten, por montri tiun malgrandan kaj evidente malmulte konatan ri^cecon. Esperanto ne bezonas troigon. Se William Auld iom modifos sian aserton, li neniel malfortigos la esencon: la liter- aturo de Esperanto estas sendube la plej grava, la plej ri^ca, ktp, en artefarita lingvo. Sed unika, ne. Brian R Bishop << (I assume that no one needs a translation!) ______________________________________________________________________ >From Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk Thu Mar 10 14:28:31 1994 Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 14:28:31 GMT From: Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk Message-Id: <9403101428.AA28757@nene.cl.cam.ac.uk> To: conlang@diku.dk Cc: "Edmund.Grimley-Evans" Subject: conlang word occurrence statistics >> But since the task in hand is to evaluate the status of Martian as a language, I thought it would be interesting to apply a criterion developed by two American linguists{36} to distinguish natural languages from artificial ones (of the Esperanto type) and from pidgins. A text of a given length - let's say five hundred words - in a natural language contains between 46 and 48% of _hapax legomena_, i.e. words occuring only once. Any text that deviates too markedly from this mean, either above or below it, is not a sample of a real language. In a pidgin, the number of hapaxes is lower than in a natural language, and the deviation grows in proportion to the length of the text. In Esperanto, the percentage rises to 63%, which is not at all surprising when you consider that Esperanto, in spite of its aim for simplicity, tries to eliminate all the ambiguities due to cases of polysemy and homonymy, hence its excess of lexical differentiation. A pidgin is thus _more impoverished_ than a natural langue, while an artificial language is _richer_. In Joyce's _Ulysses_, the number of hapaxes rises a little above the mean for English (50.5%); in contrast Basic English drops to 38%. In H\'el\`ene Smith's Martian, out of a total of 138 lexical items distributed over 285 occurences, there are 91 hapaxes, roughly 32%, which gives a percentage close to that for pidgins. << >> 36. Joos and Gleason, quoted by Samarin `Salient and Substantive Pidginization'. in D. Hymes (ed.) 1971. << Those are quotations from pages 97 and 205 of: Yaguello, Marina (1991), _Lunatic lovers of language: imaginary languages and their inventors_, London [Translated by Catherine Slater] which is a translation of: Yaguello, Marina (1984), _Les fous du language: des langues imaginaires et de leurs inventeurs_, Paris (The original is of course not available in Britain's fourth largest library because it's in a FOREIGN LANGUAGE, damn it!) The bibliography gives (among many other amusing references): Hymes, D. (ed.) (1971), _Pidginization and Creolization of Languages_, Cambridge (Mass.) ----- I have several reasons for thinking that the research mentioned above is crap: - The result is obviously going to depend on the way the text is divided into words. Since there is no cross-linguistic definition of the word, any sensible cross-linguistic comparison must use a statistic that is independent of the division of the text into words. - The percentage of hapax legomena is not even a slightly sensible statistic. It's not even independent of the sample size, let alone the division into words. - I have myself calculated word occurrence statistics for Esperanto texts. The results vary wildly from text to text. There may be some very clever statistic that works out as a constant for (a given division into words of) a given language, but the percentage of hapax legomena isn't such. On the other hand, my information is via a translation of a mention of a quote, so the original research might not be as crap as it seems. Has any conlang reader ever looked into this sort of stuff? Edmund ______________________________________________________________________ >From lojbab@access.digex.net Thu Mar 10 06:10:58 1994 From: Logical Language Group Message-Id: <199403101610.AA10386@access2.digex.net> Subject: Re: conlang word occurrence statistics To: conlang@diku.dk Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 11:10:58 -0500 (EST) Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net (Logical Language Group) > I have several reasons for thinking that the research mentioned above > is crap: I wholeheartedly concur. I just ran tests on three samples of Lojban text, and got very divergent results from the results you cite. > - The result is obviously going to depend on the way the text is > divided into words. Since there is no cross-linguistic definition of > the word, any sensible cross-linguistic comparison must use a statistic > that is independent of the division of the text into words. Lojban is a language where there is considerable doubt, because structure words may be freely compounded: "lenu" is the same as "le nu". For parsing purposes, all such compounds are divided; for my present purpose, I left them as they were in the source text. > - The percentage of hapax legomena is not even a slightly sensible > statistic. It's not even independent of the sample size, let alone the > division into words. Correct. I ran three tests: 500 words (as in the cited cases): 32 hapaxes (10%) 1582 words (Saki, "The Open Window"): 336 hapaxes (21%) 19579 words (various texts run together): 1377 hapaxes (9%) The Saki text makes great use of lujvo (content-word compounds), probably more than any of the other texts, and has far more complex grammar as well, so it is not typical. Taking the other results as indeed typical, then Lojban is an extreme case of a pidgin. This is reasonable, considering the 1300+ root content words and the 500+ function words. (The vocabulary expansion into compound content words and borrowings has just begun.) -- John Cowan sharing account for now e'osai ko sarji la lojban. ______________________________________________________________________ >From j.guy@trl.oz.au Fri Mar 11 20:03:59 1994 From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) Message-Id: <9403110004.AA08614@medici.trl.OZ.AU> Subject: Re: conlang word occurrence statistics To: conlang@diku.dk Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 10:03:59 +1000 (EST) X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 > pidgins. A text of a given length - let's say five hundred words - in a > natural language contains between 46 and 48% of _hapax legomena_, > i.e. words occuring only once. Any text that deviates too markedly from > this mean, either above or below it, is not a sample of a real > language. In a pidgin, the number of hapaxes is lower than in a natural > language, and the deviation grows in proportion to the length of the > text. I, too, have several reasons for thinking that the research mentioned above is crap. Holophrastic languages, languages affected by extensive external sandhi, why, even highly inflected languages, or even perhaps moderately inflected ones will have a much, much higher ratio of hapax legomena. Just think of Latin, where a verb that would appear in English as the same word (say "read") will take on dozens of different garbs (lego, legis, legimus.... lectus, lecta, lectum...). Or Arabic even. Come to think of it, the point would be easy to prove or disprove: the entire Vulgate is in the public domain (I have it on my hard disk, downloaded from I forgot where). I may carry out a frequency count when I have nothing better to do, and find out whether Latin is a real language. I should also think that a corpus of daily chit-chat would reveal a dire poverty of hapax legomena. Not a real language. I was taught at high school that Racine deliberately used a very small vocabulary in his plays (in the order of 900 words). I guess what that might mean for Joos and Gleason's criterion. Racine wrote Pidgin-French. And to think that Gleason was *not* a nut! ______________________________________________________________________ >From Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk Fri Mar 11 14:05:53 1994 Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 14:05:53 GMT From: Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk Message-Id: <9403111405.AA04472@nene.cl.cam.ac.uk> To: conlang@diku.dk Cc: "Edmund.Grimley-Evans" Subject: Re: conlang word occurrence statistics X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 > 500 words (as in the cited cases): 32 hapaxes (10%) > 1582 words (Saki, "The Open Window"): 336 hapaxes (21%) > 19579 words (various texts run together): 1377 hapaxes (9%) I had supposed that the number of hapaxes is to be divided by the length of the text in words, that is, the total number of occurrences, not the number of tokens. (I'm still not sure about the terminology for this.) Incidently, in case anyone doesn't already know, the number of hapaxes divided by the length of the text in words gives you the probability of the next (unseen) word being new. My Esperanto translation of "The Open Window" is 1144 words long and has 403 hapaxes. That's 35%. An extract of the first 500 words has 209 hapaxes. That's 42%. An extract of the last 500 words has 236 hapaxes. That's 47%. (According to the complete bibliography of translations from English into Esperanto which I am now working on, there is also another Esperanto translation of "The Open Window" by Eroto de Bonaero, but I don't even have it on paper, let alone in my filespace.) On a Unix system you can count the words in a text using: cat text | tr 'A-Z' 'a-z' | tr -cs 'a-z^' '\012' | wc -w and you can count the hapaxes using: cat text | tr 'A-Z' 'a-z' | tr -cs 'a-z^' '\012' | sort | uniq -u | wc -w So it's not hard to do, if anyone wants to experiment. (You do all have Unix systems, I hope. Just joking. Please don't flame me!) > Come to think of it, the point would be easy to prove or disprove: the > entire Vulgate is in the public domain (I have it on my hard disk, > downloaded from I forgot where). If you could remember where, I would be interested to know. I have here four English translations, the Hebrew Old Testament, the Greek New Testament and the Bible in Esperanto all on line, but I don't have the Vulgate. The Esperanto Bible has 688205 words and 11438 hapaxes (including the names of the books and the word "Cxapitro" at the start of each chapter, etc). That's 1.7%. Edmund ______________________________________________________________________ >From lojbab@access.digex.net Fri Mar 11 10:17:18 1994 From: Logical Language Group Message-Id: <199403112017.AA27976@access2.digex.net> Subject: Re: conlang word occurrence statistics To: conlang@diku.dk Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 15:17:18 -0500 (EST) Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net (Logical Language Group) X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 I wrote: > > 500 words (as in the cited cases): 32 hapaxes (10%) > > 1582 words (Saki, "The Open Window"): 336 hapaxes (21%) > > 19579 words (various texts run together): 1377 hapaxes (9%) Edmund Grimley-Evans writes: > I had supposed that the number of hapaxes is to be divided by the > length of the text in words, that is, the total number of occurrences, > not the number of tokens. (I'm still not sure about the terminology for > this.) I'm mystified by your remark. Terminologically, "tokens" are actually occurring words, whereas "types" are distinct words: "the cat sat on the mat" has 6 tokens and 5 types. A hapax legomenon is a type that represents exactly one token, so the above text is 83% hapaxes. All my word counts are of tokens, so when I say "500 words" I mean the same thing that you mean. -- John Cowan sharing account for now e'osai ko sarji la lojban. ______________________________________________________________________ >From elf!white@felix.dircon.co.uk Sat Mar 12 14:41:56 1994 Newsgroups: local.conlang-l From: white@elf.dircon.co.uk (Jim Finnis) Subject: hapax thoughts, and a request Message-Id: Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 14:41:56 GMT Apparently-To: conlang@diku.dk This is a test of the new newsgroup which should be gated to the list, but I thought I'd say something meaningful too.. It strikes me (well, my SO actually) that the "percentage of hapaxes" measurement is only meaningful at all if the texts being have the same meaning, for example the North Wind parable that was posted a while back. Has anyone tried a comparison based on that text? I certainly agree with the remarks that the nature of the language will interfere with the measurement to a very large degree - isolating languages will have less hapaxes by far than inflected or agglutinating languages. Trying to compensate for this by just taking the root of a word would run into problems with agglutinators, because "root" doesn't really mean much for such a language (anyone tried this with a native American language?). Incidentally, could someone please post that text (in English [or Welsh (grin)]) so that I could translate it into the two conlangs I use, and so Shona (my partner) can translate it into hers. We may well post the results when we've finished. Cheers, Jim ______________________________________________________________________ >From hrick@world.std.com Sat Mar 12 07:19:58 1994 Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 12:19:58 -0500 From: hrick@world.std.com (Rick Harrison) Message-Id: <199403121719.AA05090@world.std.com> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: Re: hapax thoughts, and a request > This is a test of the new newsgroup What newsgroup are you referring to? ______________________________________________________________________ >From elf!white@felix.dircon.co.uk Sun Mar 13 11:32:19 1994 Newsgroups: local.conlang-l Path: white From: white@elf.dircon.co.uk (Jim Finnis) Subject: Re: hapax thoughts, and a request Message-Id: References: Distribution: local Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 11:32:19 GMT In article , Rick Harrison wrote: > >> This is a test of the new newsgroup > >What newsgroup are you referring to? > The conlang mailing list now appears as a local newsgroup at our site, since all the regular users of the machine are interested in conlangs and languages in general. It's a home machine, so there are only 3 regular users, and they'll still have to subscribe to the list in order to post, but it means that we only get sent one copy of the postings instead of one copy for each subscribed user. Jim ______________________________________________________________________ >From GGRAHAM@pstcc.cc.tn.us Sun Mar 13 16:08:59 1994 Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 20:08:59 -0400 (EDT) From: GGRAHAM@pstcc.cc.tn.us Subject: wa swahili To: conlang@diku.dk Message-Id: <01H9XPA372TE8WVZIB@pstcc.cc.tn.us> \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Someone told me that swahili was a conlang. Does anyone know for sure ??? george ______________________________________________________________________ >From KNAPPEN@VKPMZD.kph.Uni-Mainz.DE Mon Mar 14 03:49:07 1994 Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 02:49:07 +0100 From: KNAPPEN@VKPMZD.kph.Uni-Mainz.DE Subject: Re: wa swahili To: conlang@diku.dk Message-Id: <01H9Y31TZ1DE90MVCS@MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE> Swaheli is not a conlang. It is a bantu language with many borrowings from arabic and shows some creolisation. (In this respect, it resembles to english, which is a germanic language with many borrowings from norman french and some creolisation). --J"org Knappen. ______________________________________________________________________ >From hrick@world.std.com Mon Mar 14 21:26:12 1994 Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 02:26:12 -0500 From: hrick@world.std.com (Rick Harrison) Message-Id: <199403150726.AA07421@world.std.com> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: verb aspect Greetings. I'm shopping around for interesting/useful verb aspects. These are some that I've found so far, I'd appreciate suggestions of additional ones. If this makes no sense to you, please ignore. perfective durative/progressive experiential ("look" is experiential, "see" is non-experiential, sort of) delimitative (as in "why don't you eat a little") habitual (as in "he usually drinks coffee while driving to work") professional (professional aspect particle + agent noun suffix ~= E-o -isto) alternately on-off-on-off {I need a catchy name for this one} for example, "shine" + [this aspect] = "blink" or "flash" (repeatedly) reciprocal/mutual totality (as in "you screwed it all up!" or "he ate it all up") rapid involuntary bodily action {need a one-word name for this one, too} for example, "sit" + [this aspect] = "to fall on one's butt" reversive; "insert" + [reversive] = "extract" -- but this brings us to the twilight zone of opposites vs negatives vs converse/inverse vs reversive, and what should be considered which under what circumstances. translative (emphasizing a change of state); "within" + [translative] = "into"?, [translative] + [prepositional] = "into" (as when something `turns into' something else)? Hmm, doesn't Finnish have a translative case for nouns? Is it reasonable to use the same affixes that are augmentative/diminutive when attached to nouns as intensive/attenuative verb affixes? ______________________________________________________________________ >From elf!white@felix.dircon.co.uk Tue Mar 15 19:08:58 1994 Newsgroups: local.conlang-l Path: white From: white@elf.dircon.co.uk (Jim Finnis) Subject: Re: verb aspect Message-Id: Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 19:08:58 GMT Apparently-To: conlang@diku.dk In article , Rick Harrison wrote: > >alternately on-off-on-off {I need a catchy name for this one} for example, > "shine" + [this aspect] = "blink" or "flash" (repeatedly) > There already is a catchy name - "frequentative". The frequentative appears in English in a few places, e.g. "chat" -> "chatter" Jim ______________________________________________________________________ >From j.guy@trl.oz.au Fri Mar 18 03:10:35 1994 From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) Message-Id: <9403170710.AA17103@medici.trl.OZ.AU> Subject: Re: verb aspect To: conlang@diku.dk Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 17:10:35 +1000 (EST) > experiential ("look" is experiential, "see" is non-experiential, sort of) isn't that rather "intentional" vs "unintentional"? > delimitative (as in "why don't you eat a little") that seems to me similar to perfective: "why don't you eat" (= why don't you start eating) "why don't you eat something" (=thinking of when finished eating) > professional (professional aspect particle + agent noun suffix ~= E-o -isto) that's not a verbal aspect! Or is it? > totality (as in "you screwed it all up!" or "he ate it all up") also similar to the perfective, I should say. Latin expressed it with the prefix con- > rapid involuntary bodily action {need a one-word name for this one, too} > for example, "sit" + [this aspect] = "to fall on one's butt" not necessarily rapid, nor bodily. It's a missed goal, isn't it? Eg. "shoot" + [this aspect] = "to miss the target". > reversive; "insert" + [reversive] = "extract" -- but this brings us to > the twilight zone of opposites vs negatives vs converse/inverse vs > reversive, and what should be considered which under what circumstances. My wife tells me she actually invented it when a child. From "allumer" (to switch on) she made up "de'lumer" (to switch off). The de- prefix is quite productive in French in that sense. But not an aspect! > translative (emphasizing a change of state); "within" + [translative] = > "into"?, [translative] + [prepositional] = "into" (as when something > `turns into' something else)? > as a verbal aspect isn't that the inchoative? ______________________________________________________________________ >From pnh@world.std.com Thu Mar 17 05:04:28 1994 Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 10:04:28 -0500 From: pnh@world.std.com (Peter Harbo) Message-Id: <199403171504.AA13382@world.std.com> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: Re: verb aspect X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 I think I have also seen the use of third-person singular for processes ('it is raining', etc) described as 'impersonal aspect' although it is never morphologically different as some aspect phenomena are. ______________________________________________________________________ >From GILSON%LOCF.decnet@cfe1.nrl.navy.mil Thu Mar 17 10:56:00 1994 Message-Id: <199403172059.AA11390@odin.diku.dk> Date: 17 Mar 94 15:56:00 EST From: "LOCF::GILSON" Subject: RE: verb aspect To: "conlang" X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 hrick@world.std.com (Rick Harrison) writes: >Greetings. I'm shopping around for interesting/useful verb aspects. >These are some that I've found so far, I'd appreciate suggestions >of additional ones. If this makes no sense to you, please ignore. >alternately on-off-on-off {I need a catchy name for this one} for example, > "shine" + [this aspect] = "blink" or "flash" (repeatedly) I think of this one as "iterative": however, it's hard to distinguish this one from "habitual" in many cases. >reversive; "insert" + [reversive] = "extract" -- but this brings us to > the twilight zone of opposites vs negatives vs converse/inverse vs > reversive, and what should be considered which under what circumstances. I wouldn't like to think of this as an "aspect" in the same sense you use the word for some of these other "aspect"s. >translative (emphasizing a change of state); "within" + [translative] = > "into"?, [translative] + [prepositional] = "into" (as when something > `turns into' something else)? This is an entirely different kettle of fish. This would seem to be something that converts prepositions into verbs, while the others convert verbs to other verbs (or other forms of the same verbs) Bruce R. Gilson ______________________________________________________________________ >From chalmers@violet.berkeley.edu Thu Mar 17 12:37:05 1994 Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 20:37:05 -0800 From: chalmers@violet.berkeley.edu (John H. Chalmers Jr.) Message-Id: <199403180437.UAA27736@violet.berkeley.edu> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: Obscure conlang examples I recently found a copy of Albert L'eon Guerard's "A Short History of the International Language Movement" in the San Diego Public Library. It has examples of several nearly forgotten conlangs which to the best of my recollection have not been discussed on the list. Despite the examples' being the Pater Noster, I thought I'd post them anyway. IDIOM NEUTRAL (1903 version) p 138: "Nostr Patr kel es in sieli! Ke votr nom es sanktifiked; ke votr regnia veni; ke votr volu es fasied, kuale in siel, tale et su ter. Dona sidiurne a noi nostr pan omnidiurnik; e pardona (a) noi nostr debti, kuale et noi pardon a nostr debtatori; e no induka noi in tentasion, ma librifika noi da it mal." IDIOM NEUTRAL (1907 version), p. 138: "Nostr Patr qui es in cieli! Que votr nom es sanctificat; que votr regnia veni; que votr voluntat es facit quale in ciel, tale anque su terr. Dona nos hodie nostr pan quotidian; e pardona nos nostr debti quale anque nos pardona nostr debenti; e no induca nos in tentasion, ma librifica nos da it mal." PANROMAN ( later called UNIVERSAL), p.143: "Nor patr qui es in ziel: ton nom ese sanktifiket. Ton regn vene. Ton voluntat ese faket in ziel kom in ter. Done nos hodi nor pan quotidian. Pardone nos nor debeti, kom nos pardon nor debetori. E non induke nos in tentazion, ma libere nos da mal." LATINO SINE FLEXIONE (Peano's INTERLINGUA, not Gode's later creation), p. 174: "Patro nostro, qui es in celos, que tuo nomine fi sanctificato. Que tuo regni adveni; que tua voluntate es facta sicut in celo et in terra. Da hodie ad nos nostro pane quotidiano. Et remitte ad nos nostros debitos, sicut et nos remitte ad nostros debitores. Et non induce nos in tentatione, sed libera nos ab malo. Amen." ROMANAL, p. 174: "Patro nostri, qui est en cieles, sanctificat estas nomine tui, advenias regne tui, fias volite tui, sicut en ciele, et en terre. Il pane nostri quotidiani das ad nos hodie; et dimittas nostri debites, sicut et nus [sic, for nos? -JC] dimitta debitantos nostri; et ne nos inducas en tentatione, sed liberas nos ex male. Amen." For comparison, here is the VULGATE version (p. 174 also): " Pater noster, qui es in coelis: sanctificetur nomen tuum; adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in coelo, et in terra. Panum nostrum (supersubstantialem) da nobis hodie. Et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris; et ne nos inducas in tentationem. Sed libera nos a malo. Amen." [Latin oe is written with a ligature in the book -JC] -- John ______________________________________________________________________ >From tom_greer@fammed.washington.edu Fri Mar 18 00:59:03 1994 Message-Id: <9403181700.AA04932@shivams.cac.washington.edu> Date: 18 Mar 1994 08:59:03 -0800 From: "Tom Greer" Subject: Damin / Lardil To: "conlang" In Steven Pinker's excellent new book, "The Language Instinct -- How the Mind Creates Language", he mentions "Damin, a ceremonial variant of the Australian language Lardil, which has a unique 200-word vocabulary that is learnable in a day but than can express the full range of concepts in everyday speech" (page 260-261). Does anyone know anything about Damin? Could this be considered a semi-constructed language? Is this claim really possible? I am familiar with the Chinook Jargon of the Pacific Northwest, which in its heyday in the nineteenth century used its roughly 250 words to convey a range of rather simple ideas. It's a real fistfight to say anything complex or abstract in Chinook jargon, partly since, as a pure pidgen, it's grammatical resources are very limited. Anyway, I am intrigued by the idea of a truly wide-ranging and flexible language resting on a very small lexical base. Comments? Tom Greer in Seattle tom_greer.fmmail@fammed.washington.edu ______________________________________________________________________ >From chalmers@violet.berkeley.edu Fri Mar 18 03:13:21 1994 Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 11:13:21 -0800 From: chalmers@violet.berkeley.edu (John H. Chalmers Jr.) Message-Id: <199403181913.LAA06541@violet.berkeley.edu> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: More conlang examples X-Charset: LATIN1 X-Char-Esc: 29 I noticed that Guerard's book also has the PaterNoster in Esperanto, Ido, and partiially in Nepo. While I realize many already have these texts, if there is any interest, I will post them, as they are short. I almost forgot, Volapuek version of the PN is also in the book. I'd lke to return it to the library soon, so please reply. (sorry for the poor typing, I'm doing this on-line and the response of the system is so slow I ams forever losing my place.) --- John ______________________________________________________________________ >From hrick@world.std.com Fri Mar 18 13:56:09 1994 Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 18:56:09 -0500 From: hrick@world.std.com (Rick Harrison) Message-Id: <199403182356.AA08710@world.std.com> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: Damin tom_greer@fammed.washington.edu writes: > In Steven Pinker's excellent new book, "The Language Instinct -- > How the Mind Creates Language", Does he mention constructed languages? > Does anyone know anything about Damin? Damin is described briefly in R.M.W. Dixon's book _The Languages of Australia_ (1980) and the relevant passage was reprinted in the 17th edition of _Journal of Planned Languages._ Summary: perhaps 250 words in the vocabulary; most words are generic, e.g. one word refers to any edible vegetable, another refers to large sea-dwelling mammals. Some opposites are formed by a prefix (as in Esperanto). The phonemic array is said to be very unusual, and this is considered evidence of deliberate invention. Dixon says the personal pronouns are limited to one meaning "I" and another meaning "other," and he says Damin is the only language in the world that lacks a distinction between 1st, 2nd and 3rd person. === Rick Harrison, editor Journal of Planned Languages hrick@world.std.com PO Box 54-7014, Orlando FL 32854 USA ______________________________________________________________________ >From tom_greer@fammed.washington.edu Fri Mar 18 13:33:19 1994 Message-Id: <9403190534.AA23190@shivams.cac.washington.edu> Date: 18 Mar 1994 21:33:19 -0800 From: "Tom Greer" Subject: Damin Thanks, etc. To: "conlang" Thanks to Rick Harrison for the information on Damin. In answer to Rick's query about Steven Pinker's new book, "The Language Instinct": no discussion of constructed languages per se, but some good stuff on how pidgins become creoles and the elaboration of ASL. He mentions Damin under the rubric of threatened languages. Pinker is director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at MIT. The central argument of the book is that fundamental language structures/grammar are hardwired, Chomsky-style. He roundly debunks the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (pace Lojban). _ Tom Greer in Seattle ______________________________________________________________________ >From chalmers@violet.berkeley.edu Fri Mar 18 23:33:55 1994 Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 07:33:55 -0800 From: chalmers@violet.berkeley.edu (John H. Chalmers Jr.) Message-Id: <199403191533.HAA09361@violet.berkeley.edu> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: paternosters, DIGEST? Don: I for one would like to get the complete set of PaterNoster translations, though I also have the set of Suzanne Vega lyrics done by Nick and others last year (or was it 1992?). It's going to be a big job for you to post, so many thanks for offering to do it for all of us. I trust it'll be sent in sections. I'll save the IDO version from Guerard (earlier than 1921) on the outside chance no one else on the list has it and someone wants it. Lars: While I am in So. California, I login to my Berkeley email account from Cyber.net, which is only a local call from where I am staying. Could you set up an alias for me so I can post to Conlang as as well as ? I still keep the UCB account active and would prefer to receive conlang at that address, at least for the next few months. -- John ______________________________________________________________________ >From KNAPPEN@VKPMZD.kph.Uni-Mainz.DE Sat Mar 19 22:14:27 1994 Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 21:14:27 +0100 From: KNAPPEN@VKPMZD.kph.Uni-Mainz.DE Subject: Visible Speech package located on CTAN ftp servers To: conlang@diku.dk Message-Id: <01HA653AIWOI001XK4@VzdmzA.ZDV.Uni-Mainz.DE> Hello, I have just located Mark's visible speech package for TeX and METAFONT on the CTAN TeX archives. The CTAN archives are: ftp.dante.de, ftp.tex.ac.uk, ftp.shsu.edu . You find it under tex-archive/languages/vispeech I have just got it, but not yet unzipped and compiled it. Yours, J"org Knappen. P.S. To find it under ,,languages'' was a surprise for me, I had expected it to appear under tex-archive/fonts where you can find also klingon fonts, two brands of tengwar fonts, cirth runes, and the futhark runes. Not to mention all the things for serious natural languages. ______________________________________________________________________ >From donh@netcom.com Sun Mar 20 00:24:47 1994 Message-Id: <199403201624.IAA03746@mail.netcom.com> To: conlang@diku.dk Cc: Don Harlow Cc: donh@netcom.com Subject: Comparative Texts (was Re: paternosters, DIGEST?) <199403191533.HAA09361@violet.berkeley.edu> Date: Sun, 20 Mar 94 08:24:47 -0800 From: Don Harlow John Chalmers wrote: > Don: I for one would like to get the complete set of PaterNoster > translations, though I also have the set of Suzanne Vega lyrics > done by Nick and others last year (or was it 1992?). It's going > to be a big job for you to post, so many thanks for offering > to do it for all of us. I trust it'll be sent in sections. > I'll save the IDO version from Guerard (earlier than 1921) > on the outside chance no one else on the list has it and > someone wants it. > This is a long post, so good luck. ------ The following set of comparative texts in various conlangs is taken from an appendix to Petro Stojan's _Bibliografio de Internacia Lingvo_. I've made two major changes: (1) The original texts appeared in ALL CAPS. I have written them in small letters, capitalizing only the first words in sentences and obvious proper names (though, following the Esperanto practice, not the names of languages, peoples, or adjectives derived from country or regional names). (2) Stojan listed the non-PaterNoster texts as a single group, followed by the PaterNoster texts as a group. I have interleaved the two groups so that all samples appear in chronological order. Non-PaterNoster texts are indicated by an initial asterisk (*). Stojan also gave translations for _some_ of the non-PaterNoster texts, some in Esperanto, some in French; I have omitted these. Supersigns are shown by putting the appropriate diacrit after the letter over which it is to be written. There are a couple of exceptions, in which apostrophes are actually placed between letters; but I think you can figure out where they belong without difficulty. The dates given appear to be the years in which the samples were written rather than the years of creation of the various languages. This is most apparent with those that are represented by two samples, most notably Ido, Romanal, and Antido. Latino Sine Flexione and Interlingua may also be the same language. Those languages which appear to belong to what we may call the "Esperanto family" in terms of origin and structural similarity are: Esperanto Esperanto Reformita Lingwo Internaciona Ido Adjuvilo Antido Nepo Hom-Idyomo Esperido Nov-Esperanto Novam I would avoid calling these "dialects" of Esperanto because, with the exception of Esperanto and Ido, none of them seems to have had much of a speaking population, if any. For instance, Esperido and Novam are represented in Stojan's bibliography by one book each; Hom-Idyomo has two (but they are, in fact, the same book in two different languages). De Saussure, who created Lingwo Internaciona and Antido, was in fact merely doing some theoretical work with these languages and apparently never intended them to be spoken (he was a member of the Esperantist "Lingva Komitato" and one of the staunchest defenders of Esperanto against Ido). "Esperanto Reformita," in fact, is not represented in Stojan's bibliography; as far as I know, it appeared only twice, once in Zamenhof's original series of articles in _La Esperantisto_ (1894) and once in a pamphlet published by Couturat without Zamenhof's permission and against his wishes in the early 1900's. There is a section in Stojan, three pages long, called "Esperanto Reformita," but it contains only references to other reform projects (including De Saussure's Lingwo Internaciona and Antido). "Ido Reformita," despite the name, appears to be less closely related to Esperanto, and not a member of the Esperanto family. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pater noster qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regnum tuum, fiat voluntas tua, sicut in coelo, et in terra. Lingua Latina 383 (Hieronymus) *Jo velpi ral al ril potoi hai faba haty. Real Character 1668 (Wilkins) O baderus noderus ki du esso in seluma, fakdade sankadus ha nominanda duus, adfenade ha rennanda duus, ha folanda duus fiassade felud in seluma, sik koke in derra. Carpophorophilus 1734 (Leipzig) *La promiero linio do sez figuro ez letanduo posiblo do tuto lez figuro do la naturo. Lango du Mondo 1788 (De Ria) *Rum shai yran bes lerai vom, shaiz il le sam lerai iun sim, mim serai vam shaiz il le som. Sehlerai 1800[?] (Tgransar) No pera wia ete cielu, ta noma sanctiferii, ta royoma aisarrivii, ta volonta fa"rerii com ciely a"nsi terru. Communicationssprache 1839 (Schipfer) *Potere no konsolar dzam kalipsoa dol eksito did Ylise. Pantos Dimu Glossa 1858 (De Rudelle) *Men senior, i sende evos un gramatik e un verb-bibel de un nuov glot. Universal 1868 (Pirro) O fat obas kel binol in su"ls, paisaludomo"z nem oloa, ko"momo"d monarga"n ola, jenomo"z vil olik a"s in su"l i su tal. Volapu"k 1880 (Schleyer) Not pater vel sas in les co"les, ton nomen sancto"t, ton regnon vena"t, ton voluntat so"t vam in le co"l, tam in le ter. Weltsprache 1882 (Volk & Fuchs) Patro miso quo er in coela, nama tu"a sanctore, kingdoma tu"a kommire, tu"a willu fairore sur erda ut in coela. Pasilingua 1885 (Steiner) *Le biblo dle viva at le biblo summe' tis ambsate un prem'qe m'at debat. Ne'o-Latin 1885 (Courtonne) *Peme ad j(e)nev om peme ad konstans ib as ob ai agig peme ad su"is. Shabe' Aban 1886 (Maldant) Patro nia, kiu estas en la c^ielo, sankta estu via nomo, venu reg^eco via, estu volo via, kiel en la c^ielo, tiel ankau^ sur la tero. Esperanto 1887 (Zamenhof) Nostre patre qui esse in coele, sanctificate esse tue nomine, veni tue regne, facte esse tue voluntate, ut in coele, ita in terre. Latinesce 1890 (Henderson) Patre nostre resident in cele, tei nomine e sanctificat, tei regne vole venir a nostri, tei voluntate e exequer ne solu in cele ma eti in terre. Mundolingue 1890 (Lott) Pat isei, ka bi ni sielos, nom el zi bi santed, krol el zi komi, vol el zi bi faked kefe ni siel efe su sium. Spelin 1891 (Bauer) *Ry napa luft byser hinsko. Napa ri spru freiste naj bar jorahb... Luftlandana 1893 (Larsson) *Un oriente-viaaje sin presentat steper al koltaat homes de omne nasioons u presioos heredie del autooro. Novilatiin 1895 (Beerman) Patro nue kvu esten in cielo, sankte estan tue nomo, venan regito tue, estan volo tue, kom in cielo, sik anku sur tero. Reformita Esperanto 1894 (Zamenhof) *It esa an priden of tone, an radiosid den, id ava luved lure en nait satide por fudi le dust of strat, e maki le flur of an bir fulgid e frid bluden. Etot flokid nubes esa figend. Dilpok 1898 (Marchand) *Ak vop sfermed pro spes maned, if om pobl to pobl, ne ei mnoka pfo an am lank. Bolak 1899 (Bollack) *Cujus appetat bonum alienum, amittat merito proprium bonum. Linguum Islianum 1901 (Isly) Nostr patr kel es in sieli, ke votr nom es sanktifiked; ke votr regnia veni; ke votr volu es fasied kuale in siel, tale et su ter. Idiom Neutral 1902 (collective) Vio fadr hu bi in hevn, holirn bi dauo nam, dauo reik kom, dauo vil bi dun an erd, as it bi in hevn. Tutonish 1902 (Molee) Patre nostro qui es in celos, que tuo nomine fi sanctificato, que tuo regno adveni, que tua voluntate es facta sicut in celo et in terra. Latino Sine Flexione 1903 (Peano) Mael nio kui vai o les zeal, aepseno lezai tio mita, veze lezai tio tsaeleda, feleno lezai tio bela, uti o zeal itu o geol. Spokil 1904 (Nicolas) Patr nostr, qui es in ziel, ton nom ese sanktifizet; ton regn vene; ton voluntat ese fazet in ter kom in ziel. Universal 1906 (Molenaar) Vus patra hoo este n ciela, sankted este dus noma; dus rexdoma vene; dus desira esta fa"red n terra als tu este n ciela. Ulla 1906 (Greenwood) *Mao natura-lekse e-troveti et konoseti, mao se stimuli homa ten suito medita. Parla 1906 (Spitzer) Sai fat in sky, y sanu so nam, so land komu, so viy apsu up glob l sky. Pankel 1906 (Wald) *Chiui lojantoi de regno estas regnanoi. Li estas hodie en koleroza humoro. Vidwino havis du filinoin. Lingwo Internaciona 1907 (De Saussure) *Us qvu na fi tie, Katilina, disusar nostre patincie? Qvam longu adu fi tue furie ludificir nos? Novilatin 1907 (Beermann) Nostre pater qu ses in el celum, tu nomen sit sanctificat, tu regnum sit adveniens, tu voluntas sit fact in el terra sicut in el celum. Interpres 1908 (He'ly) *Irga chanjo en la statuti (dil) di l' uniono od en sa (lua) skopo devos esar decidita da la komitato per plumulto de du trioni (triimi) e sancionita di la riprezentanti (reprezenteri) per la sama plumulto. Ido 1908 (1928) (De Beaufront & Couturat) *Linguas de Europa, ab anglo ad italo, ab hispano ad russo, habe magno vocabulario commune, cum origine in latino, in graeco, in indo-europaeo. Interlingua 1909 (Peano) *Internatsional lingue musta korrespondan a du konditsiones: le musta essan kapabl di vast ekspansione e fassil lernebl. Ile 1909 (Seidel) Patro nosa qua estan en cielos, santa esten tua nomo, advenen tua regno, esten farata tua volo, quale en cielos, tale anke sur la tero. Adjuvilo 1910 (Colas) *Tiu felicha stato, ikiu nu montras kie celajo de l' devo, ne estas joyo exkluzive individua. Antido 1910 (De Saussure) *Ise et altre dube provos per internatione lingo forsi burlesor dal miope et malsagace personos sed, comi isos burlabar procsime esinte tempi vacilante provos per aeroplanos ... Simplo 1911 (Ferranti) Patro nostri qui est en cieles, sanctificat estas nomine tui, advenias regne tui, fias volite tui, sicut en ciele et en terre. Romanal 1912 (Michaux) *Alio dramas social deb essere considerat ab illos qvi occupa se ad colonizazion. Perfekt 1912 (Hartl) Patr no ki es en ska, santanu to im, komu to regn, makru to vil, ut en ska it on ge. Viva 1913 (Nesmejanov) Vatero nia kiu estas en coelumo, heiliga estu nameo via, kommenu regneo via, estu willeo via kiel en coelumo tiel sur erdeo. Nepo 1915 (Cheshikhin) *Nos consideran sicut evidenti isti verites que omni homos estan creati pro vivar equali ... Romanal 1917 (Michaux) O maisen parento, kvi ess in zoeli, vun nomi sagitu, vun regnari venu, vun buli agitu kvam in zoeli tam in terri. Nov Latin Logui 1918 (Pompiati) *Leos abeo crassa capus circumdata cum longa et ticca comas de fulva colos. Latinulus 1919 (Martellotta) *It es un erra creder que li multita de systemas ha impedit li solution del problema. Occidental 1922 (De Wahl) Patro nosyo qi e an cielus, santifita esay noma tuya, venay rega tuya, facay volunta tuya qom an cielu eti sur la tera. Uniala 1923 (Troost) *La cyenco ho havay dirite ankore la ultima parolo pri la tuberkuloso kay la kancero. Mi opiniay ke la projekto no estay kompleta. Hom-Idyomo 1923 (Cardenas) *Kite ti ciy bela knabino venis domew, shia patrino insultis shu, pro kio shi rukvenis tiente tarde dey la fonto. Antido 1924 (De Saussure) *Un englo, un franco ed un deuto havit le taske pintir kamele. Le englo voyajit ad Afrike for studiir le kamele in tisui doimie. Le franco gidit al zoologi jarden, ed le deuto pintit on kamelo ex le profunde de sui psyke. Medial 1925 (Weisbart) *El surio splenda in cielo et illumina el terre. Filio el jardineri ha un roze. Avio vola in cielo, piwo nata en mar. Gutto aqui kava el lapide. Hando lu hando. Monario 1925 (Lavagnini) Nia patro kiu estas en himelo, santa estu zia nomo, zia regno venu, zia volo estu kiel en himelo tiel sur tero. Esperido 1927 (Raymond) *Esperanto ut i lingue con crueli misfones e defectes nullim can conquer el munde. Cosman 1927 (Milner) Patro nina kay estas en la cielo, sankta estoy vina nomo, venoy rejeco vina, estoy volo vina, kale en la cielo, tale sur la tero. Nov-Esperanto 1928 (De Saussure) Abze radap av el in suda, ace rokab eco sugem, ace rajda ec kep, ace va eco, uz in suda asi in buba. Ro 1928 (Foster) Patre nostre qui es in celes, ut tue nomin esse sanctificato, ut tue regne adven, ut tue voluntate fi in terre sicut in cel. Is 1928 (Rosello Ordines) Nostro patro ki es in urano, tuo nomin a sanktifik, tuo vol a es, kuam in urano tam in geo. Etem 1928 (Yushmanov) Mems patro qwe esip ir celestii, tom nomini santificatap, tom regni venap, tom voliti fiatap aq ir celestii, taleq or terri. Qosmiani 1928 (Beatty) *Ha sedirt or el sediluli. Qwoq fiip te. Ho fiaf hi. Qwuq sensip te al dolori. Esip hi distel. Qosmiani 1927 (Beatty) Nusen patro kel es in siele, mey vun nome bli sanktifika, mey vun regno veni, mey vun volio eventa sur tere kom in siele. Novial 1928 (Jespersen) Patro nia que es nel sieli, via nomo santificeveu, vua regno adveneu, vua volo fareveu sur il tero quale nel sielo. Novam 1928 (Touflet) Patro nie qu es in cieli, santizat ez tue nom, arivez tue regn, tue vol ez exekutat qual in ciel, tal ank in ter. Ido Reformita 1928 (Meazzini) ------ Don Harlow donh@netcom.com Esperanto League for N.A. elna@netcom.com (800) 828-5944 ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/elna/elna.html Esperanto ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/donh/donh.html ______________________________________________________________________ >From Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk Sun Mar 20 18:25:34 1994 Date: Sun, 20 Mar 1994 18:25:34 GMT From: Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk Message-Id: <9403201825.AA20488@nene.cl.cam.ac.uk> To: conlang@diku.dk Cc: "Edmund.Grimley-Evans" Subject: Glosa Are there any Glosa-pe reading this? (Qe Glosa-pe lekti?) This years Brita Kongreso de Esperanto is taking place a stone's throw from where Ron & Wendy run their language project, according to the postal code. I might just possibly pay them a visit and try to persuade them to part with some word lists and other material on disc. Is anyone else interested? Or is Glosa material already available somewhere in the Net? (There's nothing much at ftp.stack.urc.tue.nl...) Edmund ______________________________________________________________________ >From hrick@world.std.com Sun Mar 20 22:45:32 1994 Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 03:45:32 -0500 From: hrick@world.std.com (Rick Harrison) Message-Id: <199403210845.AA01823@world.std.com> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: Vorlin update It's Vorlin's 3rd birthday, so whoop it up! Once again I am making changes in Vorlin; I can't stop tinkering with it. Previously, Vorlin derived verbs from its CVC nouns by adding a VC suffix; the Vowel indicated the tense and the Consonant indicated transitive or intransitive status. Now we eliminate mandatory tense indication, making it possible for a simple V suffix to indicate transitivity. -i = intransitive, -o = transitive. (This is a totally arbitrary assignment, based on my aesthetic feeling that the vowel /i/ "sounds yin" and /o/ "sounds yang.") A pleasant side- effect of this change is that the ratio of vowels to consonants in the average sentence is increased. All five vowels are now in service as suffixes: -a (adjectival) leva = upper -e (adverbial) leve = up, upward(s) -i (intransitive) levi = rise -o (transitive) levo = raise -u (prepositional) levu = above The morphology looks something like this: V suffix CV pronoun, conjunction, particle, preposition VC suffix CVC noun, prefix, or preposition CVCVC noun (the VC at the end of a CVCVC noun cannot be a VC that is used as a suffix) There does seem to be a deficiency or possible problem with deriving prepositions from nouns via the suffix -u... it only works when the prepositional relationship flows in a certain direction. e.g. The hypothetical phrase "xax zazu qaq" means "`xax' has relationship/quality `zaz' toward/compared to `qaq'." (e.g. nub levu ter = cloud(s) above the earth) There are many natlang prepositions in which the relationship seems to flow in the opposite direction: English "by means of" (Esperanto "per" or "pere de"); English "due to" or "because of"; E-o "de." Ahem... why are you all staring at me that way?! The new morphology resulting from this YAMR (Yet Another Morphological Revolution) requires me to revise the vocabulary again, so I'm working on that... Meanwhile, I still get the urge to try out various other language design ideas, but so far I have managed to resist this insidious impulse. ______________________________________________________________________ >From lojbab@access.digex.net Mon Mar 21 05:30:59 1994 From: Logical Language Group Message-Id: <199403211530.AA10652@access2.digex.net> Subject: Re: Damin Thanks, etc. To: conlang@diku.dk Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 10:30:59 -0500 (EST) Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net (Logical Language Group) Tom Greer writes: > He roundly debunks the > Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (pace Lojban). No surprise there, I suppose *sigh*. Not that >we< necessarily believe the SWH; I myself am neutral, and one of the off-net project leaders (John Parks-Clifford) actively disbelieves it. (In addition, many Lojbanists plain aren't interested; their interest in the language stems from other sources.) -- John Cowan sharing account for now e'osai ko sarji la lojban. ______________________________________________________________________ >From non12@cyber.net Sun Mar 20 23:43:33 1994 From: "John H. Chalmers" To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: Examples, final Date: Mon, 21 Mar 94 7:43:33 PST Message-Id: <9403210743.aa01083@cyber.cyber.net> Here are the rest of the examples from Guerard's, "A Short History," etc. The NEPO example is quite different from the one Don posted, perhaps a later version of the language (Guerard's book had no publicationdate, but it has to be prior to 1923 as an inscription on the flyleaf is dated 1923 and references in the book are as late as 1921. Guerard marked the words of Russian, French and German origin in the NEPO example typologically with punctuation marks, but I didn't copy these. Fragment of Pater Noster in NEPO: "Vatero nia kotoryja estas in la njeboo; heiliga estu nomo via; kommenu r_gneo via; estu volont_o via jakoe in la njeboo ebene soe na la erdeo." These last two are for completeness: Pater Noster in IDO (<1923) "Patro nia, que esas en la cielo, tua nomo santigesez; tua regno advenez; tua volo facesez quale en la cielo, tale anke sur la tero. Donez a ni cadie l'omnidiala pano, e pardonez a ni nia ofensi, quale anke ni pardonas a nia ofensanti; e ne duktez ni aden la tento, ma liberigez ni del malajo. Nam tua esas las regno, la povo, e la glorio eterne. Amen!" PaterNoster in ESPERANTO: "Patro nia, kiu estas en la chielo, sankta estu via nomo; venu regeco via; estu volo via, tiel en la chielo, tiel ankau sur la tero. Panon nian chiutagan donu al ni hodiau; kaj pardonu al ni shuldojn niajn, kiel ni ankau pardonas al niaj shuldantoj; kaj ne konduku nin en la tenton, sed liberigu nin de la malbono." --John ______________________________________________________________________ >From lojbab@access.digex.net Mon Mar 21 06:35:27 1994 From: Logical Language Group Message-Id: <199403211635.AA12894@access2.digex.net> Subject: Lojban Paternoster To: conlang@diku.dk Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 11:35:27 -0500 (EST) Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net (Logical Language Group) doi cevrirni .iu noi zvati le do cevzda do'u fu'e .aicai .e'ecai lo do cmene ru'i censa .i le do nobli turni be la ter. ku se cfari .i loi do se djica ba snada mulno vi'e le cevzda .e .a'o la ter. (.i do nobli turni vi'e le cevzda .ebazake .a'o la ter.) (.i loi do se djica ba snada mulno vi'e le cevzda .e .a'o la ter.) .i fu'e .e'o ko dunda ca le cabdei le ri nanba mi'a .i ko fraxu mi loi ri zu'o palci .ijo mi fraxu roda poi pacyzu'e xrani mi .i ko lidne mi fa'anai loi pacyxlu .i ko sepri'a mi loi palci .i .uicai ni'ike loi se turni .e loi vlipa .e loi mi'orselsi'a me le do romei Parenthesized lines are alternative translations of the preceding line. The last line is the Doxology ("For thine is the power" etc.), which is not in the New Testament but is traditional. More details are available at: . -- John Cowan sharing account for now e'osai ko sarji la lojban. ______________________________________________________________________ >From pnh@world.std.com Mon Mar 21 07:43:32 1994 Message-Id: <199403211743.AA06199@world.std.com> To: conlang@diku.dk Cc: pnh@world.std.com Subject: Glosa Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 12:43:32 -0500 From: Peter Harbo I would be very interested in any materials or information you can obtain. If the subject arises, I would be interested in knowing if Ron and Wendy were actually in contact w/ Hogben when they devised Glosa. (He was living until not so very long ago I think.) In particular, I wonder if they know what Hogben thought of their project, as he wrote a book on 'Essential World English' some years after the publication of Interglossa. I also wonder if other people took up Interglossa in the intervening years, and whether the 'Interglossa-English' dictionary ('edited by Dorothy Baker') mentioned in the front pages of the 'Interglossa' Penguin paperback actually existed. Enjoy your conference... Peter. ______________________________________________________________________ >From non12@cyber.net Mon Mar 21 10:12:59 1994 From: "John H. Chalmers" To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: errata Date: Mon, 21 Mar 94 18:12:59 PST Message-Id: <9403211813.aa08512@cyber.cyber.net> When I got the Conlang Digest today, I noticed that the diacritics in the NEPO translation of the PM had not been transmitted correctly. r'egneo and volont"eo have accents on the e's where underlines appeared. The ' stands for a grave, the " an acute accent. I don't know what the difference is or how either differ from unaccented e. Sorry about the "las" in the IDO excerpt; it should be "la," of course. Thanks for the LOJBAN translation, John. -- John ______________________________________________________________________ >From lojbab@access.digex.net Mon Mar 21 17:13:48 1994 Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 22:13:48 -0500 From: Logical Language Group Message-Id: <199403220313.AA09968@access1.digex.net> To: lojbab@access.digex.net Subject: Re: Damin Thanks, etc. Cc: conlang@diku.dk I think that "roundly debunks the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis" is a non-claim until the debunker makes clear what formulation of the SWH s/he is debunking. The 'strong' form of the SWH was roundly debunked 35 years ago; the 'weak' form is considered trite. The version we use in Loglan/Lojban is somewhere in between and orthogonal to the /strong/weak axis. In a sense, the form we use is the contrapositive of the classical SWH, since we say that restrictions in language set restrictions in cultural thought, rather than the positive form that language structure 'determines' thought. So what does the debunker claim SWH is, and incidentally does he deal with the 1980s era color work by Kay et. al. which seemed to confirm the SWH in one domain. lojbab ______________________________________________________________________ >From lojbab@access.digex.net Mon Mar 21 17:43:52 1994 Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 22:43:52 -0500 From: Logical Language Group Message-Id: <199403220343.AA11809@access1.digex.net> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: Re: Testing Sapir-Whorf Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net Responding to Richard Kennaway: we printed several messages in the thread that stemmed from that posting on SWH in a recent issue of JL, say back in JL17 or Jl18. There really wasn't much reaction - some stirrings of interest, but lingusitics is so dominated by the formalists and other heirs of Chomsky that such questions intrigue and raise more questions, but do not result in major movements towards research in the field. lojbab ______________________________________________________________________ >From GILSON%LOCF.decnet@cfe1.nrl.navy.mil Tue Mar 22 11:24:00 1994 Message-Id: <199403222126.AA08488@rimfaxe.diku.dk> Date: 22 Mar 94 16:24:00 EST From: "LOCF::GILSON" Subject: RE: Glosa To: "conlang" Peter Harbo writes: >If the subject arises, I would be interested in knowing if Ron and Wendy >were actually in contact w/ Hogben when they devised Glosa. (He was living >until not so very long ago I think.) In particular, I wonder if they know >what Hogben thought of their project, as he wrote a book on 'Essential World >English' some years after the publication of Interglossa. I also wonder >if other people took up Interglossa in the intervening years, and whether >the 'Interglossa-English' dictionary ('edited by Dorothy Baker') mentioned >in the front pages of the 'Interglossa' Penguin paperback actually existed. I had some correspondence with Wendy Ashby a couple of years ago. My impression from what she told me was that Hogben had said to Ron, essentially, "I release it to you to do with as you see fit." Of course, my source is somewhat biased, but if so, this would mean that Hogben knew about the Glosa project but didn't really try to influence its direction as the language was changed from Hogben's original Interglossa. Bruce R. Gilson ______________________________________________________________________ >From tom_greer@fammed.washington.edu Tue Mar 22 08:47:07 1994 Message-Id: <9403230048.AA05121@shivams.cac.washington.edu> Date: 22 Mar 1994 16:47:07 -0800 From: "Tom Greer" Subject: SWH Debunked? To: "conlang" In response to Lojbab's questions: Steven Pinker ("the debunker") discusses both the strong and weak versions of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (The Language Instinct (1994) pp.59-67), including research on colors by Berlin & Kay 1969, Heider 1972 and Rosch 1978. I assume I won't infringe copyright by quoting a paragraph, just to give the list a taste of Pinker's writing, which may strike one as flip, but which on the whole really isn't: "Among Whorf's "kaleidoscopic flux impressions," color is surely the most eye-catching. He notes that we see objects in different hues, depending on the wavelengths of the light they reflect, but that the physicists tell us that the wavelength is a continuous dimension with nothing delineating red, yellow, green, blue, and so on. Languages differ in their inventory of color words: Latin lacks generic "gray" and "brown"; Navajo collapses blue and green into one word; Russian has distinct words for dark blue and sky blue; Shona speakers use one word for the yellower greens and the greener yellows, and a different one for the bluer greens and the nonpurplish blues. You can fill in the rest of the argument. It is language that puts frets on the spectrum; Julius Caesar would not know shale from Shinola." This is just a snippet. He goes on with factual data. If you're interested, accord him a full read. -tg ______________________________________________________________________ >From dasher@netcom.com Wed Mar 23 16:08:55 1994 Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 00:08:55 -0800 From: dasher@netcom.com (Anton Sherwood) Message-Id: <199403240808.AAA01450@mail.netcom.com> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: color and Sapir/Whorf The angle of a bar can vary smoothly, but if it is not _very_ nearly horizontal or vertical, we will say it leans to left or right. Is this a matter of language? I think not. For very good reasons we have hardwired ability to judge this. Similarly, the spectrum is smoother in physics than in our eyes. At a few wavelengths, all but one of the pigments respond neutrally, and we see that light as a pure color, one of Berlin/Kay's first six or so. "It is language that puts frets on the spectrum"? Only in part. Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* DASher@netcom.com ______________________________________________________________________ >From hrick@world.std.com Sat Mar 26 11:38:56 1994 Date: Sat, 26 Mar 1994 16:38:56 -0500 From: hrick@world.std.com (Rick Harrison) Message-Id: <199403262138.AA15948@world.std.com> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: unified Chinese character set I just heard a fascinating item on the CBS Radio Network news. They reported that the President of South Korea is actively promoting the use of standardized Chinese characters as a common written language for all East Asian countries. Leaders of Japan and China are reportedly receptive to the idea. If any of you see details on this story in Usenet or in your newspapers, please post the story to this list. I logged onto CompuServe and checked Associated Press but couldn't find the item. ______________________________________________________________________ >From donh@netcom.com Sat Mar 26 08:24:26 1994 Message-Id: <199403270024.QAA18951@netcom10.netcom.com> To: conlang@diku.dk Cc: Don Harlow Subject: Re: unified Chinese character set Date: Sat, 26 Mar 94 16:24:26 -0800 From: Don Harlow Rick Harrison writes: > I just heard a fascinating item on the CBS Radio Network news. > They reported that the President of South Korea is actively promoting > the use of standardized Chinese characters as a common written > language for all East Asian countries. I haven't seen this story, but the concept isn't too surprising. Several years ago, in an article on the Hangul alphabet of Korea in the magazine _La Espero el Koreio_, the writer reported that Chinese characters were being reintroduced into the lower grades of Korean schools after several decades of exile into the outer darkness. Don Harlow donh@netcom.com Esperanto League for N.A. elna@netcom.com (800) 828-5944 ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/elna/elna.html Esperanto ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/donh/donh.html ______________________________________________________________________ >From rauch-erik@CS.YALE.EDU Sun Mar 27 06:53:23 1994 Date: Sun, 27 Mar 1994 11:53:23 -0500 (EST) From: Erik Rauch Subject: Re: unified Chinese character set To: conlang@diku.dk Cc: hrick@world.std.com Message-Id: Rick Harrison: >They reported that the President of South Korea is actively promoting >the use of standardized Chinese characters as a common written language >for all East Asian countries. >If any of you see details on this story in Usenet or in your >newspapers, please post the story to this list. This is from the Japan Economic Newswire, March 25, 1994. > South Korean President Kim Young Sam will propose the standardization >of Chinese characters used in the written language of Japan, South Korea >and China when he meets Saturday with Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, >sources with the presidential party said Friday. > >Kim revealed his plans at a breakfast meeting Friday with South Korean >journalists stationed in Japan, suggesting creation of an organization >to consider an East Asian unification of pictograms. > >Japanese and Chinese government officials hailed the idea as 'novel' and >said they would consider the scheme. Of course unifying the stroke counts is going to be the easy part of the whole thing. The newswire didn't actually say anything about a common written language, only about things like "unifying the trio's use of Chinese characters for imported ideas, and the development and use of simplified computer software for Chinese characters," and a common written language would probably indeed be a conlang. This has already been done in Japan in the 7th and 8th centuries AD, when Chinese characters were used exclusively to write Japanese. | Erik Rauch rauch-erik@yale.edu |