From:    Rodlox R <rodlox@...>
> but from what I've heard, most people appreciate it when someone (at least
> initially) speaks to them in their (the former, not the latter)'s own
> language, rather than their (the latter, not the former)'s own language.

I think this varies from culture to culture.  There's a well-known
anthropological distinction between positive face (associative
politeness) and negative "face" (impositional politeness).
It is my understanding that although all cultures seek to optimize
both kinds of face, when there is a conflict some cultures maximize
one kind over the other. In America, the tendency seems to be to
consider telling people what language to speak very rude -- at least,
that's my experience; I associate it with racists and antiimmigrant
opinions.  In my experience, continental Europeans tend to take the
opposite stance, that making no effort to speak the others' language
is very rude.  Thus, Americans would seem more to seek to preserve
negative face, while Europeans more positive face, with respect to
this issue at least (the opposite is the case with respect to other
cultural phenomena).

==========================================================================
Thomas Wier        "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

On Sun, 2 Jan 2005 06:24:27 -0600, Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...> wrote:

> IMHO, the most beautiful script is Tengwar; second thereto being only
> Georgian mkhedruli. I don't know where Tolkien got his inspiration, but
> there are eery resemblances in shape and sometimes in value to mkhedruli:
> Sindarin <s> is almost identical to mkhedruli _sani_, and the whole feel
> of the alphabet is similar.
>

While _I_ on the other hand find tengwar pretty, but not nearly as
beautiful as the many forms of Arabic, or grass script Chinese. I also
tend to prefer Indic style scripts as well (evidenced by my Kuraw)

#1 wrote:
> as much as you know, what is the natlang using the most little
> number of phonemes? I've heard about languages with only 4 wovels
> (nahuatl?) but wich one has the less sounds?

Nahuatl indeed has four vowel qualities (not counting /u/~/u:/ borrowed
from Spanish), but each of these also has a phonemically long counterpart,
thus totalling eight vocalic phonemes, which actually makes it above-average
for vowel inventories.

As for the smallest number of phonemes, it really depends on what you
mean.  Abkhaz has only two, and perhaps one, vowel phonemically, but
it has around 15 phonetic realizations of those two phonemes, and lots
and lots of phonemic consonants (70-80? IIRC).  Rotokas is sometimes
put forward as having the smallest number of total phonemes, since IIRC
it has six consonants and five vowels, but I am no expert on Rotokas.
The reality is probably that the language with the smallest number of
phonemes has not been documented yet.

==========================================================================
Thomas Wier        "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

#1 wrote:
> When I look arabic, chinese (or Japanese, for someone who don't know these
> it's the same),

Japanses actually uses three distinct nonalphabetic systems*: kanji
(Chinese characters), and katakana and hiragana (both syllabic).
These latter two are not used by non-Japanese at all, and since the
Communists reformed the characters, these have not been the same
as those in Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan.

*(Though I once saw a Japanese grammar of Ancient Greek, which was
a fascinating mixture of scripts, since it also included
Roman and Cyrillic comparanda.)

> Thai, cyrilic, mongolian(I like that one), it seems so
> beautiful even the latin alphabet seems beautiful when it's well written

IMHO, the most beautiful script is Tengwar; second thereto being only
Georgian mkhedruli. I don't know where Tolkien got his inspiration, but
there are eery resemblances in shape and sometimes in value to mkhedruli:
Sindarin <s> is almost identical to mkhedruli _sani_, and the whole feel
of the alphabet is similar.

==========================================================================
Thomas Wier        "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

Regiu Ona Bi McGuffey Poa Mutande Palu
http://fiziwig.com/mutande.html

--- Stephen Mulraney <ataltanie@...> wrote:

> Gary Shannon wrote:
> > --- # 1 <salut_vous_autre@...> wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> >>How do you create your writings?
> >
> >
> > Here is a computer program I wrote to design
> > characters and glyphs. There are also some of my
> notes
> > and ideas about designing writing systems on the
> same
> > page.
> >
> > http://fiziwig.com/glyphs.html
>
>
> The link to the program[1] gives a 404. But hey,
> it's New Year's Day :).
> The program looks quite handy, though.
>
> [1] http://fiziwig.com/glyphmaker.zip

Sorry. I had a typo in the file name. Now fixed.

--gary

On Friday 31 December 2004 03:07 pm, Pascal A. Kramm wrote:
>
> Happy New Year!
> Chewi nef cahr! /xevi nef Ca:R/
>
> (Perhaps everyone can translate the wishes into his/her fave conlang?)

Veldan:

Aiti         mathas i   saulcuartas stévio.
May-it-be[1] good   the year        for-you.

[1] Optative stem of 'to be' with a continuitive sense marked by the
-i ending after the -t of the 3rd person singular.  The tense is
unmarked, which in a main clause denotes categoricalness or
timelessness, so this is actually a pretty extensive wish. :)


O:radiendelsa:

Pi:ra        la:ffo ma:s che:nia:r.
Come.IMP (a) year   good to-us(incl.)


CKR
http://crlh.tzo.org/~cian/CR/conlangs/

On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 22:47:49 -0500, # 1 <salut_vous_autre@...> wrote:
> as much as you know, what is the natlang using the most little number of
> phonemes?

The answer used to be Rotokas (6 consonants + 5 vowels = 11 phonemes)
until Pirahã (7 consonants + 3 vowels = 10 phonemes) became more
widely known.

> I've heard about languages with only 4 wovels (nahuatl?)

Arabic has only three distinctive vowels, as far as I know. (This is
one reason why I consider it rather a pain to write non-Arabic
languages in the Arabic writing system.)

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
Watch the Reply-To!

On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 20:49:50 +0100, taliesin the storyteller
<taliesin-conlang@...> wrote:
> Demanding that the server (yep, the spec. says so) has to tell/know what
> charsets its files are in is so hare-brained that the mind she boogles
> over and rolls down the hill... (Why this is so is left as an exercise
> to the reader.)

I disagree; please explain why this is so.

For that matter, I also believe that the server should know what
*content type* its files are in and that it should announce this fact
to clients, rather than serving, say, HTML documents, PNG images, and
style sheets all as something generic such as application/octet-stream
(or, worse, text/plain). Why should charset be different?

In my website, the web server determines the content type from the
file extension on the local file system -- and it was pretty easy to
extend that to determine also the charset from the file extension by
naming things e.g. foo.html.utf8 and bar.html.l1 and telling the
server "files named .utf8 are in utf-8; files named .l1 are in
iso-8859-1".

While this is hardly relevant any longer, specifying the charset
inside the file can lead to things such as the "Netscape burp". (It
*can* be useful, though, for people who store the file locally, who
then no longer have a web server to tell them the right charset...
though this could, in theory, be added to the document on saving, just
as a file extension might be changed from, say, .php or .asp or .cgi
to .htm on saving for systems which rely on the file extension to
determine content type.)

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
Watch the Reply-To!

Phonology:
*Code:*
Consonants:
[p],[b],[k],[g],[t],[D],[T]
[c]
[p\]
[K\],[s`]
[j],[r],[l],[w],[r\`]
[m],[n],[n`],[J],[N]

Vowels:
[@],[a:],[I],[u],[e:],[O:]
Diphthongs
[@i:] and [@u:]



Orthography and Script
Image link:  http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v204/installer_swan/All.gif

Writing the language
*Code:*
This language is written a bit wierdly.  All characters are roughly
triangular in shape and can be written upside down as well as right side
up.
Words are written so that the consonants join up to form a hexagon,
letters are written in the order:
        __________
       /\        /\
      /  \      /  \
     / 1  \ 2  / 3  \
    /      \  /      \
   /________\/________\
   \        /\        /
    \      /  \      /
     \  6 / 5  \  4 /
      \  /      \  /
       \/________\/
Such that, the word is read in the order 123456.  Some of the positions
can be left empty to make the word symmetrical. The empty slots in the
hexagon are just completed by closing them with a wavy line.  Vowel
diacritics are marked on the outward side of the consonant.  When words
have more than six consonants then consonant clusters are written as
conjunct clusters (which are yet to be created :) ).



Basic grammar This is all yet to be worked out, but basically I plan to
make it an agglutinating language, with ergative-absolutive case
structure and agglutinating particles(is that what they are called?) for
other cases. Yet to decide how many cases. Nouns will be marked for
number. And there are three numbers: singular, plural(finite eg hands,
people in a gathering etc.) and plural(infinite or very large eg. stars,
raindrops, people in a mob etc). Word order will be highly flexible.

Written Sentence Structure This is a 2-D language as opposed to most 1-D
language meaning that sentences dont go in a line but are spread over
the plane of paper. Thus words are written and connected according to
semantic meaning.
A usual sentence would be like:
*Code:*

        ____
       /    \
  ____/  x   \____
/    \      /    \
/  v   \____/  y   \
\      /    \      /
\____/ verb \____/
/    \      /    \
/   u  \____/  z   \
\      /    \      /
\____/  w   \____/
      \      /
       \____/
This thing refuses to allign but you get the idea anyway


The central theme of the sentence of the sentence is the verb. The
subject and object will be connected to the verb(the central word in
this case) because they are related to it. Any adverbs will also be
connected to the verb. Adjectives relating to either subj/obj will be
connected to them and not to the verb. Thus a sentence will look like
some kind of a parsed tree.

The example sentence reads : frajul srajul sintA cirnum /"p\r@jul
s`r@"jul sInTa: cIrnum/ meaning: [May the] wind [and] water forever be
with you. literally: wind water forever with-(2nd
person-ending)(infinitive-by-default)

I tought about having in my conlang, all the state verbs derived from the
same root

I could derive

- to be (or maybe devided it in "ser" and "estar")
- to become
- to stay
- to seem

from the same root


I will have a single root and change the suffix to change them

I'll try to find a logic way to choose the suffixes


could you help me to find other state verbs (with different meaning)?

Gary Shannon wrote:
> --- # 1 <salut_vous_autre@...> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>>How do you create your writings?
>
>
> Here is a computer program I wrote to design
> characters and glyphs. There are also some of my notes
> and ideas about designing writing systems on the same
> page.
>
> http://fiziwig.com/glyphs.html


The link to the program[1] gives a 404. But hey, it's New Year's Day :).
The program looks quite handy, though.

[1] http://fiziwig.com/glyphmaker.zip

s.
--
Stephen Mulraney   ataltane@...
      Klein bottle for rent  ...  inquire within.




--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.298 / Virus Database: 265.6.7 - Release Date: 30/12/2004

--- Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> wrote:

>
> Hey, that's quite a lot of `to be' verbs!

I guess there's really only one verb, the rest are
particles or suffixes.

> Old Albic has three verbs that can be translated as
> `to be'.
>
> One of them, _has-_, is an independent stative verb
> (i.e., it takes
> objective agreement markers and a subject in the
> objective case)
> which is used mainly in sentences like "I am in the
> city":
>
> (1) Haraha amas cararas.
>     has-a-ha      am-as     caras-as
>     be-PRES-1SG:P the:I-LOC city-LOC
>     `I am in the city.'

This would use the descriptive verb  ëa-, in Silindion
      ëasi o i marvi
      ëa-si  o  i   mar-vi
      BE-1s  in the city-LOC.

> This verb can be translated into Spanish as _estar_
> in most cases.
>
> The second `to be' verb is actually a suffix _-@s-_
> which derives
> a stative verb meaning `to be (an) X' from a noun or
> adjective:
>
> (2) Nderaraha.
>     nder-@s-a-ha
>     man-be-PRES-1SG:P
>     `I am a man.'
>
> (3) Crarará am chvanam.
>     cras-@s-a-a       a-m       chvana-m
>     red-be-PRES-3SG:P the:C-OBJ dog-OBJ
>     `The dog is red.'
>
> As can be seen in example (2), the suffix is
> attached to the short
> objective stem of the noun if the noun is animate.

I like the phonological alterations and the fact that
you can add person markers onto the nominal suffix.
Also, how are your present tense verbs conjugated. Is
the "-a-" the only present tense marker? In Silindion,
all vowels can be a present tense marker, depending
(usually) on the vowel of the root.

> Finally, there is an existential verb _an-_, meaning
> `to exist'.
>
> (4) Aná om herom.
>     an-a-a           o-m       her-o-m
>     exist-PRES-3SG:P the:M-OBJ lord-M-OBJ
>     `The lord exists.'
>
> In contrast to _has-_, it corresponds to Spanish
> _ser_.

This would be expressed with the existential verb:
  më nilli  "there is a lord, a lord exists" (L.S)
  vo(r) nilli "ditto" (H.S)

> > The form of the copulative verb in the present is
> > "-r" attached to a Noun. If it is attached to a
> > consonant stem noun, the form is "-ar".
>
> This roughly corresponds to Old Albic -@s-, it
> seems.

Basically yes.

> >
> >  Example:  máldëar i voronya.
> >            "Happy are the victors"
> >            maldea-r i voron-ya
> >            happy-COP. the victor-pl.
> >
> >            piva i ramar
> >            "The bag is red"
> >            piva i rama-r
> >            red the bag-COP.
>
> This too is expressed by -@s- in Old Albic.

Except these sentences are exceptional. They are
mostly poetic (like the first sentence), or a
non-standard dialect (like the second). Adjectives are
usually linked to a noun using the descriptive verb,
for which see below.

> > 2) The essive is used when the predicate noun is
> the
> > only element present. That is, when the sentence
> is of
> > the form "It = Y" or (colloquially) "He = Y"
> >
> >   example: id voronye enkëari ihwilda!
> >          "Behold, the victors of the war are
> coming!"
> >        id     voron-ya-i      enke-ari i-fil-da
> >        behold victor-pl.-ess. war-gen.
> conj.-come-ger.
> > (literally: "Behold, it is the victors of the war
> > coming")
> >
> > The form of the essive is "-i" attached to a noun.
>
> This is a case for the verb an- in Old Albic, I
> think, but I am
> not sure.  Can also be has-, depending on the
> permanence of the
> situation.

I rather think that an- corresponds mostly to the
existential verb, meaning "there is, there exists".
Where as, this is more of a "it is" or (in colloquial
speech) "he is" kind of thing.

Like, as in this example:

   Yovar menta?   What's that?
   yova-r menta
   what-COP. that

   Lankeihya.   "It's my horse"
   lanka-i-hya
   horse-ESS.-my

As opposed to:  më lanka
                 "there is a horse, a horse exists"

> > The essive is also used as the predicate argument
> of
> > verbs meaning "to become":
> >
> >    example: Yassasi liu nisteinatya
> >             "I have become your king"
> >             yass-a-si liu nista-i-natya
> >             become-pres.-1s PERF king-ess.-your
>
> Here, it seems, the "essive verb" is more or less
> used like a case.
> In Old Albic, the allative case is used.

Basically yes, it's the essive case here. When its a
verb I prefer the terminology "predicative" but,
they're both really similar.


> > 3) The descriptive verb is the most common way of
> > linking a noun and an adjective. It has the form
> "ëa-"
> > in the present, and "ië-" in the past. It takes
> > regular personal suffixes:
> >  ëasi  ëana           iesi   iena
> >  ëalë  ëanta          ielë   ienta
> >  ëan   ëanto/ëantë    ië     iento/ientë
> >
> >  examples:  ëanto máldëa i voronya
> >             be-3p happy  the victor-pl.
> >             "Happy are the victors"
> >
> >             ëan   i   rama piva
> >             be-3s the bag red
> >            "The bag is red"
> >
> > (These are stylistic and dialectic variations of
> the
> > sentences given above)
>
> I see the same examples as for the copulative -r.
> What exactly
> is the difference in meaning?

As I said, the examples under the copulative are
stylistic and dialectical. Standard Silindion and most
dialects and registers use the descriptive verb with
adjectives.


>The Old Albic suffix -@s- turns the noun or
> adjective it is
> attached to into a full-fledged stative verb with
> past tense and
> everything.

In Silindion, adding a personal suffix onto the
copulative "-r" results in a colloquial form meaning
"to have X"

Example:    lankassis "I have a horse"
             (in colloquial Low Silindion)
             lanka-r-sis
             horse-cop.-1s.


> Old Albic uses the same copular verbs in relative
> clauses as in main clauses.

My next job is to describe the full extent of
Silindion's relative madness.


>> 5) The existential verb is used as in English, to
>> mean "there is/are/were/was" It's form is: ><më>
"there is"
>> and <mië> "there was". In High Silindion another
>> verb is used, of the form: <vo(r)> "there is" and
> <vusi> "there was"

> What is the semantic difference between this and the
> essive verb?

I may have cleared this up above, let me know if you
have further difficulties.

> I have
> nothing like that in Old Albic, but an emphatic verb
> prefix would
> be nice.  Emphatic reduplication, perhaps?  I have
> to think about it.

I'm glad you liked the emphatic verb. I just kind of
noticed the difference in position yesterday, when I
wrote it. But it's basically been there floating
around in my head like that for a while. I think an
emphatic prefix would be great!


Thanks for the praise, I'm glad you enjoyed. I'll try
to write a little something about relative clauses
next.

Happy new year!

  Elliott.



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free!
http://my.yahoo.com

as much as you know, what is the natlang using the most little number of
phonemes?

I've heard about languages with only 4 wovels (nahuatl?)

but wich one has the less sounds?

On Wednesday 29 December 2004 18:43, Remi Villatel wrote:
> # 1 wrote:
> > Someone has a conlang concept without "verb-noun" division????
>
> Sylvia will certainly come and talk to you about Kélen, somebody will of

Sylvia is also way busy, and will point you to some Kelen webpages rather than
write out an explanation.

A short intro:
http://www.terjemar.net/kelen.php

More explanations regarding relationals (what I have instead of verbs. Think
of them as copulae.):
http://www.terjemar.net/relats.php

An example of a longer work in translation (incomplete):
http://www.terjemar.net/sarahb.php

These pages are the latest versions of my language. Material on other sites
besides terjemar.net is still valid, but may be dialectal or colloquial or
something now. The material on terjemar.net is also very incomplete. In my
copious free time (ha!) I will change that.

And,
On Sunday 26 December 2004 15:06, Joe wrote:
> Looks similar to my new Language (unnamed).  Except mine isn't highly
> isolating, and has interesting ways of creating meanings for words.  And
> I simply don't distinguish between nouns and verbs. Adjectival
> constructions are formed by the construction 'word1+pa+word2', where
> word2 is a property of the first.

PA is one of my relationals, and it does something very similar in a very
similar construction. Great minds think alike, obviously.

-Sylvia

--
Sylvia Sotomayor
sylvia1@...
kelen@...

Kélen language info can be found at:
http://www.terjemar.net/kelen.php

This post may contain the following:
á (a-acute)  é (e-acute)  í (i-acute)
ó (o-acute)  ú (u-acute)  ñ (n-tilde)

áe ñarra anmárienne cí áe reharra anmárienne lá;

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 11:40:26 -0600, Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...> wrote:

>
> Actually, no, they aren't. Tidal waves are caused by the gravitation
> of the moon, while tsunamis are caused by seismic changes in the earth's
> crust.  And parts of Atlantic Canada are witness to the largest variations
> in tidal changes on the planet.

pedantry aside...

Actually, ocean waves are caused by the winds. The tides are caused by
the rising and falling of the ocean due to the moon's influence.
Either way, i've never, ever heard an oceanographer or meteorologist
use "tidal wave" in reference to anything but a tsunami anyway, and
even now tidal wave is being displaced in favor of tsunami. .

On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 04:28:57 -0500, # 1 <salut_vous_autre@...>
wrote:

> How do you create your writings?
>
> You sit and write them?
>
> You draw one or two when you have an idea?

I started off wanting to write Old Thagojian in the cuneiform
syllabary[*]. I didn't really have the tools (or a quantity of clay) to
start practicing natively, so I pulled out a pad and a broad-nibbed pen,
and started writing the syllabary using vaguely cuneiform-looking wedges.
I found myself taking shortcuts as I made notes, and thus the idea that
Thagojian scribes, too, had maved cuneiform from an indented medium to a
written medium, and found themselves making the same simplifications. I
ended up relying more and more on broken spellings, and thus the idea of
delibertately representing the nine vowels of Thagojian with the three
vowels of cuneiform, using deliberately broken spellings.

[*]Actually, it all started with Ugaritic, but that's an irrelevant
aborted path.



Paul

Pascal A. Kramm wrote:
> Ok, it's still somewhat more than two hours until New Year, but I thought
> I'd wish you a Happy New Year already now, since I won't get to it later
> anymore.
>
> Happy New Year!
> Chewi nef cahr! /xevi nef Ca:R/
>
> (Perhaps everyone can translate the wishes into his/her fave conlang?)

In Asha'ille:

Chéjh ne geduna!
/tSEZ nE gE'dunA/

che- éjhillev ne geduna
OPT enjoy OBJ year
"May you enjoy the year."

If you really want to specify the new year, add _nes_ "this" before
_geduna_, but normally this is not done.


--
AA

John Q:
> <salut_vous_autre@...> wrote:
>
> >Does it exists? a nat/conlang in wich tones serve to grammatical uses?
> >I also tought to use the stress for a grammatical use
> ___________________________
> Ithkuil uses both stress (ultimate, penultimate, antepenultimate, and
> preantepenultimate) and tone (falling, high, rising, and "broken")
> grammatically.  In nouns/verbs, stress is used to designate the
> morphological category called Perspective, while tone is used to designate
> the category called Context.  For the other word class, called adjuncts,
> stress and tone are used to indicate mood of the verb, as well as
> differentiating between various personal reference categories.  For
> details, see Sections 1.3.2, 1.3.3, 3.3, 3.6, 6.5 and 8.1 of the Ithkuil
> grammar at http://home.inreach.com/sl2120/Ithkuil.
>
> It should be noted, however, that Ithkuil is a philosophical language
(what
> some folks on this board call "engelangs"), not a natlang-style conlang.
> If I recall correctly, however, at least some of the African tone
languages
> do use tone to distinguish grammatical categories.  I seem to recall that
> Yoruba is such a language.  (I believe there are 3 tones in Yoruba).  I'll
> try and look it up.

Among conlangs, Guaspi uses tone solely to mark syntactic structure.
And in Livagian, marked tones occur only in closed-class morphemes;
marked tones on open-class words are themselves inflectional
morphemes.

--And.

Pope John II the abdicant:
> Thomas R. Wier scripsit:
>
> > Are you sure you can't receive them in digest form? If you leave
> > completely, I'm sure we'll all miss your witty and knowledgeable
> > commentary.
>
> Thanks, but I think I need to cut off cold turkey.  I spend too much
> time reading email and far too much time writing it.
>
> > BTW, would this be the first time you've left the list since its
> > inception?
>
> Or at any rate since my arrival, which was a month or two after
> the inception.

I read your announcement with the same pang of grief others
have felt. The grief partly the grief one feels at the passing
of an era, and partly at the loss of your participation.
That loss is not just of the oxymoronic counterpoint of your
messages' costive brevity taken singly and laxate profusion
taken jointly, though one holds it in wry affection, and not
just of their other much-celebrated much-sung qualities, but
also of the sense of being in colloquy with a person who is
made on an epic scale.

I myself have stayed subscribed largely for considerations of
historical continuity, so that there should be one subscriber
who has been subscribed without interruption since the list
began. But I must confess that for the last few years my
strategy for keeping up with the list has relied heavily on
reading no messages but yours and those of a few others.

(I recently noticed that I had been thinking that I was
getting closer to you in age, since I am now (a year
short of) the age you were when we electronically met
fourteen years ago, and indeed a hoary spring of grey is
come to my beard; I had irrationally forgotten that you too
would be ageing at the same rate as me. Strange to think
that Conlang list will soon -- or perhaps already --
be older than some of its subscribers, and that some
conlangers will not be able to imagine what being a
conlanger was like before the age of the internet.)

--And.

Pascal A. Kramm wrote:
> Ok, it's still somewhat more than two hours until New Year, but I thought
> I'd wish you a Happy New Year already now, since I won't get to it later
> anymore.
>
> Happy New Year!
> Chewi nef cahr! /xevi nef Ca:R/
>
> (Perhaps everyone can translate the wishes into his/her fave conlang?)
>

In Suvile:

Tadoylud jiran dova le! (/tadojlud dZI4an dova: le/)

(Lit: "May your new year be happy!")

--
Michael

Hallo, and a happy new year!

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 12:13:34 -0800,
Elliott Lash <erelion12@...> wrote:

> Silindion's verb "to be" has been discussed on this
> list before (a long time ago). But I wanted to provide
> a fress update.
>
> There are (6) different verbs with "beish" qualities.
>
> 1) copulative
> 2) essive/predicative
> 3) descriptive
> 4) relative
> 5) existential
> 6) emphatic

Hey, that's quite a lot of `to be' verbs!

Old Albic has three verbs that can be translated as `to be'.

One of them, _has-_, is an independent stative verb (i.e., it takes
objective agreement markers and a subject in the objective case)
which is used mainly in sentences like "I am in the city":

(1) Haraha amas cararas.
     has-a-ha      am-as     caras-as
     be-PRES-1SG:P the:I-LOC city-LOC
     `I am in the city.'

This verb can be translated into Spanish as _estar_ in most cases.

The second `to be' verb is actually a suffix _-@s-_ which derives
a stative verb meaning `to be (an) X' from a noun or adjective:

(2) Nderaraha.
     nder-@s-a-ha
     man-be-PRES-1SG:P
     `I am a man.'

(3) Crarará am chvanam.
     cras-@s-a-a       a-m       chvana-m
     red-be-PRES-3SG:P the:C-OBJ dog-OBJ
     `The dog is red.'

As can be seen in example (2), the suffix is attached to the short
objective stem of the noun if the noun is animate.

Finally, there is an existential verb _an-_, meaning `to exist'.

(4) Aná om herom.
     an-a-a           o-m       her-o-m
     exist-PRES-3SG:P the:M-OBJ lord-M-OBJ
     `The lord exists.'

In contrast to _has-_, it corresponds to Spanish _ser_.

I do not exclude the possibility of `discovering' even more
`to be' verbs...

>
> 1) The copulative is used most often to join two nouns
> (or a pronoun with a noun).
>
>  Example: Sinunar narianya niva
>           "Swans are beautiful birds"
>           sinu-na-r  narian-ya niva
>           swan-collective-COP. bird-pl. beautiful
>
> The form of the copulative verb in the present is
> "-r" attached to a Noun. If it is attached to a
> consonant stem noun, the form is "-ar".

This roughly corresponds to Old Albic -@s-, it seems.

> The copulative is further used in some dialects to
> join nouns and adjectives. The adjective in this
> construction usually precedes the noun. Sometimes the
> noun takes the copulative "-r" sometimes the
> adjective. This depends mostly on the dialect and
> style.
>
>  Example:  máldëar i voronya.
>            "Happy are the victors"
>            maldea-r i voron-ya
>            happy-COP. the victor-pl.
>
>            piva i ramar
>            "The bag is red"
>            piva i rama-r
>            red the bag-COP.

This too is expressed by -@s- in Old Albic.

> 2) The essive is used when the predicate noun is the
> only element present. That is, when the sentence is of
> the form "It = Y" or (colloquially) "He = Y"
>
>   example: id voronye enkëari ihwilda!
>          "Behold, the victors of the war are coming!"
>        id     voron-ya-i      enke-ari i-fil-da
>        behold victor-pl.-ess. war-gen. conj.-come-ger.
> (literally: "Behold, it is the victors of the war
> coming")
>
> The form of the essive is "-i" attached to a noun.

This is a case for the verb an- in Old Albic, I think, but I am
not sure.  Can also be has-, depending on the permanence of the
situation.

> The essive is also used as the predicate argument of
> verbs meaning "to become":
>
>    example: Yassasi liu nisteinatya
>             "I have become your king"
>             yass-a-si liu nista-i-natya
>             become-pres.-1s PERF king-ess.-your

Here, it seems, the "essive verb" is more or less used like a case.
In Old Albic, the allative case is used.

> The essive is also used to mean "as", or "while
> being":
>           helëondeilya, laissa niskilesis
>           "Being your servant, you should command me"
>           heleondo-i-lya    laissa nisk-i-le-sis
>           servant-ess.-your should command-subj.-2s-me
>
> 3) The descriptive verb is the most common way of
> linking a noun and an adjective. It has the form "ëa-"
> in the present, and "ië-" in the past. It takes
> regular personal suffixes:
>  ëasi  ëana           iesi   iena
>  ëalë  ëanta          ielë   ienta
>  ëan   ëanto/ëantë    ië     iento/ientë
>
>  examples:  ëanto máldëa i voronya
>             be-3p happy  the victor-pl.
>             "Happy are the victors"
>
>             ëan   i   rama piva
>             be-3s the bag red
>            "The bag is red"
>
> (These are stylistic and dialectic variations of the
> sentences given above)

I see the same examples as for the copulative -r.  What exactly
is the difference in meaning?

> Also, whenever a personal pronoun is connected with a
> noun, the copulative or essive is dispensed with, and
> the descriptive used instead, since this is an actual
> verb and can indicate person. Furthermore, being an
> actual verb it is the only way of indicating tense,
> hence its use as a copula in the past tenses.

I see.  The Old Albic suffix -@s- turns the noun or adjective it is
attached to into a full-fledged stative verb with past tense and
everything.

> 4) The relative is the verb used in relative clauses.
> All of the above become the relative verb in relative
> clauses. The form of the relative is: <të> "who/which
> is" and <tië> "who/which was"
>
>  example: vosi tiliello sinún të narian nivasso
>      "I can see a swan which is a most beautifl bird"
>
> vo-si   til-iello sinu-n   të      narian niva-sso
> can-1s. see-inf. swan-acc. be.rel. bird
> beautiful-sprl.

Old Albic uses the same copular verbs in relative clauses as in
main clauses.

> 5) The existential verb is used as in English, to mean
> "there is/are/were/was" It's form is: <më> "there is"
> and <mië> "there was". In High Silindion another verb
> is used, of the form: <vo(r)> "there is" and <vusi>
> "there was"

What is the semantic difference between this and the essive verb?

> 6) The emphatic verb replaces the descriptive,
> copulative and predicative when emphasising one fact
> over another. It's form is always <ë> despite person
> or tense.
>
> Example:
>
> Listilë ta sinunar narianya niva, në sitma,
> listisi ta ë kainentë narianyaksi nivasso.
>
> "You think that swans are beautiful birds, but as for
> me, I think that _cardinals_ are the most beautiful
> among birds.
>
> list-i-lë      ta   sinu-na-r      narian-ya niva
> think-prs.-2s. that swan-coll.cop. bird-pl.  beautiful
>
> në  si-tma  list-i-si      ta    ë  kainenta-i
> and me-rel. think-prs.-2s. that  BE cardinal-pl.
>
> narian-ya-ksi   niva-sso
> bird-pl.-among  beautiful-sprl.
>
> Aslo, it's used when emphasising a single thing (the
> non-contrastive use)
>
> example: Si, i nista ë!
>          "_I_ am the king"
>          si, i nista ë
>          I  the king BE
>
> (notice is variable position, before or after the
> subject. Usually, when used contrastively, it's placed
> pre-subject, and non-contrastively after the
> predicate. However, in both cased it emphasizes the
> subject)

This is an interesting stylistic differentiation; so far, I have
nothing like that in Old Albic, but an emphatic verb prefix would
be nice.  Emphatic reduplication, perhaps?  I have to think about it.

Overall, it is once again nicely done and a true gem of classic-style
naturalist conlanging.  I really enjoyed reading your post, once again.

Greetings,

Jörg.

I think it helps a lot if you practice a little bit with the tools the
writing system is intented to be written with, e.g. with a broad ink pen or
with a brush. Already within very little time, I'm talking about a few
hours, you may be able to see which letter forms work.

My writing systems got better the longer I used them. I learn them by memory
and then keep practicing. I once had a project of finding out into what my
handwriting would finally evolve if I kept simplifying it. I already had
evolved it into script that were similar to runes, to arabic, to cuneiform,
to lowercase Roman letters, and several more, so I thought there might be a
final simplification (I've always been interested in the reduction of
forms), but I abandoned this project when I saw that there would be no such
final form.

gry@s:
j. 'mach' wust

MJR = Mark J. Reed

MJR> I think "pascua" is Easter/Passover


PN = Philip Newton

PN> Also used for Christmas, though -- "¡Felices Pascuas!" at that time
PN> would be understood as an abbreviation of the more complete "¡Felices
PN> Pascuas de Navidad!", AFAIK.

Huh.  No sabía éso.  Gracias por la información.

-Marcos

MT= Muke Tever

MT> And "nigh" itself is just the positive of a series of familiar adjectives:

I said that. :)

RU = Rene Uittenbogaard

RU> These look a lot like the German words:
RU> It is curious to see that these superlatives have changed their meaning
RU> ("nearest" -> "next") in both German and English.

It's not really a change in meaning, though, merely of focus; a
connotational change, not a denotational one.  When
speaking spatially, after all, the nearest is the next, and vice versa.


RU> The meaning of "a bit" etc. has become quite different from the meaning
RU> of the verb it was originally derived from, but it fascinates me to see
RU> that the same etymology occurs in English, German, *and* Dutch.

Perhaps the derivation occurred before they split, or perhaps they
influenced each other in the process?

-Marcos

On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 11:09:03 -0500, Pascal A. Kramm <pkramm@...> wrote:

>>>> Duden German != spoken German in most areas. Not in all, but at least
>>>> in a lot of cases, so you're better off not taking it as a guideline
>>>> for anything. In essence, the Duden is quite useful to stop a desk or
>>>> chair from wobbling, but it's very unsuitable to make qualitative
>>>> statements about the actually spoken German.
>>
>>Your own variety of standard German seems to be much worse, since it has
>>long consonants, which is definitly not found in most varieties of
>>standard German.
>
>First, I never said something about my dialect having long consonants, no
>idea where you got that from...

I'm sorry, it was me who had the idea when I was relating your variety of
standard German to Swiss German, since both feature short /&/, which is
definitly not found in most varieties of standard German:

http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0410B&L=conlang&P=R5304


>Second, just because my variety has some features which you're apparently
>unable to handle still doesn't give you the right to condemn it and
>classify it as "much worse" than any other.

I'm sorry for the wording. Here's a second try: Your variety is less useful
"as a guideline to anything" than the Duden standard, because it features
peculiarties such as a short /&/ which are not found in most varieties of
standard German.


>The Duden variety has also lots of features which are definitely not found
>in most varieties of Standard German.

The pronunciation? That's new to me. Could you give some examples?


>>And don't forget that it's the Duden variety that is teached abroad,
>>not yours. So if your making any assertions on German on this list, you'd
>>better make them on the Duden variety, not on your local one.
>
>Sad, but true - it's the same problem as with English, where you won't find
>much native speakers who speak exactly that Oxford English you're taught in
>school/college.

I wasn't teached Oxford English. I think that foreigners are happy that
there is a widely accepted standard they can learn.


>>The prescriptive standard, that is, the variety of standard German that is
>>teached abroad, equals the Duden variety, and it is very differnt from
>>Pascal Kramms local variety. He seems to be stuck in the out of date point
>>of view that there's only one pronunciation of standard German, and for a
>>reason I can't figure he assumes that his own pronunciation (which is very
>>peculiar) is that only pronuciation of standard German, which is definitly
>>wrong.
>
>I never said anything like that, don't make it appear as if I did.

You haven't said it explicitly. You've implied it, since you've never
pointed out that you were talking about your local pronunciation when you
have claimed something to be pronounced like this or like that in German.

Have a look at the YAEPT, and you'll see that nobody says that this or that
is the pronunciation of English and that's it, but everybody says: In my
place, people pronounce this and that.

If you're making a statement on German pronunciation without specifying
where this pronunciation is used, people will assume you're talking about
the standard pronunciation unless they know German very well.

kru@s:
j.m.w.

Quoting "Pascal A. Kramm" <pkramm@...>:

> On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 21:51:44 -0500, J. 'Mach' Wust <j_mach_wust@...>
> wrote:
>
> >On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 02:13:51 +0100, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
> >
> >>Quoting "Pascal A. Kramm" <pkramm@...>:
> >>
> >>> On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 16:29:13 +0100, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> >Quoting "Pascal A. Kramm" <pkramm@...>:
> >>> >
> >>> >> >German has the labiodental affricate [pf]
> >>> >>
> >>> >> Yes, but only in the middle of the word or at the end. Word-initial it
> >>> >> is "f".
> >>> >
> >>> >Many varieties, yes. Duden German, no.
> >>>
> >>> Duden German != spoken German in most areas. Not in all, but at least in
> >>> a lot of cases, so you're better off not taking it as a guideline for
> >>> anything. In essence, the Duden is quite useful to stop a desk or chair
> >>> from wobbling, but it's very unsuitable to make qualitative statements
> >>> about the actually spoken German.
> >
> >Your own variety of standard German seems to be much worse, since it has
> >long consonants, which is definitly not found in most varieties of standard
> >German.
>
> First, I never said something about my dialect having long consonants, no
> idea where you got that from...

Your posts about how you, in the old spelling, could tell whether a word should
have an eszett or a double s based on syllable borders make no sense at all
unless you've got geminates.

> >The prescriptive standard, that is, the variety of standard German that is
> >teached abroad, equals the Duden variety, and it is very differnt from
> >Pascal Kramms local variety. He seems to be stuck in the out of date point
> >of view that there's only one pronunciation of standard German, and for a
> >reason I can't figure he assumes that his own pronunciation (which is very
> >peculiar) is that only pronuciation of standard German, which is definitly
> >wrong.
>
> I never said anything like that, don't make it appear as if I did.

You've only given that impression in pretty much every post on the subject of
German you've ever made on this list ...

> The above
> is rather true for you, who is apparently of the opinion that the Duden
> variety is the only valid one, while you scorn every other variety of
> Standard German, whereas those are at least as valid.

You're making a fool of yourself. No-one has pointed out the variety of
pronunciations of Hochdeutsch as often and consistently as Mach, nor insisted
on their 'validity' as much as him.

> >Many deny that any variety of standard German is more standar than the
> >others. But if there is any variety that is more standard than the others,
> >then it's the prescriptive standard of old, the variety teached abroad, the
> >variety pointed out in the pronunciation Duden, no matter what Pascal Kramm
> >believes.
>
> There you go again... the prescriptive Duden variety is certainly not the
> least bit better than any other variety of Standard German,

You _do_ seem to have serious difficulties in reading English.

                                                     Andreas

--- "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...> wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 31, 2004 at 03:22:39PM -0600, Thomas R.
> Wier wrote:
> > > > Yeah, well, us Texans have ten times more...
> er...
> > > > desert! AW YEA. We've got more desert than
> those
> > > > shivering peoples up there!
> > >
> > > You know I'm a Texan, right? They say that
> sometimes the difference
> > > between a Jewish joke and an antisemitic joke is
> who's telling it...
> >
> > Sounds like Bob's a Texan too, Thomas, so who
> exactly is in danger
> > of offending you here? I'm confused.
>
> The way I interpreted his remarks, they sounded like
> he was offended
> by my remarks about Texans.  That is, it was not I
> who was in danger
> of being offended, but I who was in danger of
> offending.
>

It takes more than emails to get me offended. Maybe a
knife to the face, but little else will. Don't worry
about me! I'm just here, man.

=====
-The Sock

"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
All your favorites on one personal page – Try My Yahoo!
http://my.yahoo.com

Muke Tever wrote:
> caeruleancentaur wrote:
>>
>> "Nigh" is not related.  The "gh" is a remnant from the OE "neoh,"
>> near.  This "gh" is retained in our English word "neighbor." one who
>> dwells near.
>
> And "nigh" itself is just the positive of a series of familiar adjectives:
>
>       positive    |nigh|  (Old English néah)
>       comparative |near|  (i.e., 'nigher', OE néara)
>       superlative |next|  (i.e., 'nighest', OE níehsta)
>
> ...though nowadays "near" and "next" have lost their comparative and
> superlative force, and nigher and nighest have been recreated.
>

These look a lot like the German words:

nah    - near
näher  - nearer
nächst - nearest _or_ next

It is curious to see that these superlatives have changed their meaning
("nearest" -> "next") in both German and English.

This reminds me of:

a little bit (from the verb "to bite")
ein Bißchen  (from the verb "beißen")
een beetje   (from the verb "bijten")

The meaning of "a bit" etc. has become quite different from the meaning
of the verb it was originally derived from, but it fascinates me to see
that the same etymology occurs in English, German, *and* Dutch.

René

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 18:18:07 -0500, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 31, 2004 at 05:47:12PM -0500, # 1 wrote:
> > ¡Felicito las pascuas a ustedes! (~)
>
> I think "pascua" is Easter/Passover

Also used for Christmas, though -- "¡Felices Pascuas!" at that time
would be understood as an abbreviation of the more complete "¡Felices
Pascuas de Navidad!", AFAIK.

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
Watch the Reply-To!