On Tue, 31 Mar 2009, Peter Bleackley wrote:

> OK, here's a slightly weird one for you.
> Khangaþyagon is spoken by wizards, who because of
> their magical gifts, are all synaesthetes. I'm
> not a synaesthete, but recently I was trying to
> think up words for herbs and spices. I spent a
> lot of time in my kitchen, sniffing at jars and
> trying to find a word that fit - or thinking up
> words and then searching for something that smelt
> right for the sound. My thought processes at one
> point went something like this.
> "zurvin... Is that cloves?" <sniff> "No,
> definitely not cloves. How about thyme?" <sniff>
> "Yes, that's right, zurvin is thyme."
>
There may be a sub-conscious pun working there, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zurvan :)

- Andrew.

--
Andrew Smith  --  hobbit@...  --
http://hobbit.griffler.co.nz/homepage.html

"If you are gonna rebell you have to wear our uniform."

On 01/04/09 04:58:58, Eric Christopherson wrote:
> Tristan, Roger, et al. -- I had some further questions about long
> voiced stops. I thought I would reword them a bit and see if I get a
> response:
>
> 1. Am I correct in saying that, to produce a very long voiced stop,
> you start by saying a very long vowel, and then close off the POA,
> while basically continuing what you were doing with your voice before
>
> that closure, then holding it, and finally releasing it?
>
> 2. When I attempt [ag:::::::::::a] (using the technique described in
> 1), it feels like I get the "hum" of the [g:::] for a few seconds,
> then am unable to make *any* sound, and then eventually I release it.
>
> In that silent period it's voiceless, but once I release it it
> *feels* voiced again (as I feel my throat for vibration) -- so why
> would the sound be transcribed as [ag::::k::::::a] instead of
> [ag:::k:::ga], or [ag:::_}     ga]? (I'm not sure of a symbol for a
> silent pause, so I'm just using several spaces.)

You are right in your description of how it says, and Roger is AFAIK
right in his explanation of why (your vocal chords are still being told
to vibrate---they just can't).

As for transcription, I doubt there's any proper way to transcribe it.
It would depend on whether your focus is the sound produced or
articulation. Any transcription that gets the idea you want to express
acrossis correct for your purposes. Seeing as this isn't something that
most linguists would need to transcribe on a daily basis, however
you're doing it, you'll need to explain in words what your
transcription is trying to express in the end.

In the extended IPA, which has diacritics for speech errors useful when
transcribing people with lisps and so forth, there's a special
diacritic for partially voiced. I've never used these extensions, so I
can't say whether the partially voiced diacritic necessarily means "the
first half is voiced, the second half is unvoiced" or whether you have
to explain your intentions in text.

> 3. What do we make of the assertion that "voiced" stops in English
> are only partially voiced, as opposed to e.g. French? Does that
> mean /b/ in French is pronounced something more like [b:]?

No. It means English /b/ is something like [p] and English /p/ is
something like [p_h]. There's a continuum from [b] to [p] and from [p]
to [p_h], just as there's a continuum from [a] to [e] and [e] to [i].
English /e/ isn't exactly the same as French /e/, and sometimes English
/e/ is transcribed as /E/ because some linguistics reckon it's more
like an [E] than an [e] in the dialect(s) they study.

It's the same situation with English and French /b/ and /p/. For an
English /b/ and a French /p/, the aim is to begin voicing the moment
the sound is released. But the English sound has as its contrast the
English /p/, which has as its aim to begin voicing after the the lips
are released, and the French sound has as its contrast the French /b/,
which has as its aim to begin voicing before the lips are released.

So because of the direction of contrast, when we err on the side of
caution, an English speaker will begin voicing for /b/ perhaps just a
little before the release, and a French speaker will begin voicing
for /p/ just a little after the release, so even though the aim for
English /b/ and French /p/ is essentially the same, the usual results
won't necessarily be.

And just like English vowels, the strength of voicing in English
differs from dialect to dialect. (And the situation is different in
intevocalic and coda position; the situation I've described is word-
initially.)

> I have two reasons that might not be so: a) Voiced geminates are
> uncommon in languages. b) it doesn't sound long enough to be a
> geminate; perhaps it's only half-long ([b:\]).

No. The correct reason is because a French /b/ is a good and proper [b]
and it's English that is not perfectly transcribed in this regard.


--
Tristan.

On 2009-03-31 Amanda Babcock Furrow wrote:
> Reword as "if language and culture determined each other
>  *symmetrically* and unilaterally neither would change".
>

True.  Consider that to have been what I meant! ;-)

/BP -- unused to bear the logician's hat.
(there's a reason I'm a Yogácárin and not a Mádhyamaka! ;-)

On 2009-03-31 Mark J. Reed wrote:
> Why must there be a "point" to the variety of languages?
>  Can't things just be, without all having to fit into
> some master plan? The variety is interesting of itself.
>

Seconded, thirded and fourthed!

/BP

On 01/04/09 11:30:30, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> On 2009-03-31 Mark J. Reed wrote:
> > Why must there be a "point" to the variety of languages?
> >  Can't things just be, without all having to fit into
> > some master plan? The variety is interesting of itself.
> >
>
> Seconded, thirded and fourthed!

Then why does it matter if languages go extinct?

--
Tristan.

David McCann skrev:
> On Tue, 2009-03-30 at 07:15 +0100, R A Brown wrote:
>
>> I'm told that right-handed people write Arabic in columns down the page
>> which, when the page is turned 90 degrees clockwise gives the standard
>> left-to-right cursive script. I don't know how true that is.
>
> It doesn't look as if anyone else here knows either, but it seems to
> have been standard practice for Aramaic, Sogdian, and Uighur writers in
> the Middle Ages. The Mongols, of course, don't turn the page round any
> more, so the script is now vertical.
>
> The wear on a reed pen would probably make it more likely to stick when
> moving in a different direction (that is certainly the case with a
> quill), so that would be a factor in favour of a consistent direction.
>

Is an Arabic broadpen cut straight or slanted for
right-handed writers?  That would be a clue, if
anyone has seen an illutration.

On a tangent:  once on a lecture I sat next to a
(probably) Persian man who had creased his A4s
down the middle and wrote notes in Latin script
LTR on the left column and notes in Arabic script
RTL on the right column -- with a ballpoint of
course. I don't know if the Persian jottings were
all glosses of the "Latin" (Swedish and Englis)
jottings, since I didn't ask, but he ended up with
a lot more Persian than Latin on each page, and
still he mostly stuck to his columns. Neat!

I took to using the two-column model with Latin
and Shorthand, although both written LTR; it is
often hard to tell if a particular mark is a
cursive <i> or a badly written Melin's shorthand
<v>, or a badly written cursive <o> or a Melin's
<per>, for example.

/BP

Tristan McLeay skrev:
> On 01/04/09 11:30:30, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
>> On 2009-03-31 Mark J. Reed wrote:
>>> Why must there be a "point" to the variety of languages?
>>>  Can't things just be, without all having to fit into
>>> some master plan? The variety is interesting of itself.
>>>
>> Seconded, thirded and fourthed!
>
> Then why does it matter if languages go extinct?

Because the more the merrier!

(And because language student's hats and language creator's
hats are differently shaped, even though creator's hats
usually come with a more or less fullscale student's hat
grafted underneath it -- now imagine that image! :-)


/BP

Den 1. apr. 2009 kl. 10.13 skreiv Tristan McLeay:

> It's the same situation with English and French /b/ and /p/. For an
> English /b/ and a French /p/, the aim is to begin voicing the moment
> the sound is released. But the English sound has as its contrast the
> English /p/, which has as its aim to begin voicing after the the lips
> are released, and the French sound has as its contrast the French /b/,
> which has as its aim to begin voicing before the lips are released.

What do you mean by "aim"? Is there a requirement that there should
be voicing after a /p/ in English? (And is this a clue to why it is
dropped before a t or an s?)

LEF

Following on Arthur C. Clarke's 3rd Law, "Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic." we have Shermer's Last Law: "Any
sufficiently advanced
ETI<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial_intelligence> is
indistinguishable from God <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God>."

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 11:30 PM, Eric Christopherson <rakko@...>wrote:

> On Mar 31, 2009, at 2:49 PM, R A Brown wrote:
>
>  Andrii Zvorygin wrote:
>>
>>> Indeed it seems that extra-terrestrials might use a form of
>>> oligosynthetic-language due to some of their expressions.
>>> For instance in the ra material
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra_(channeled_entity) there are many such
>>> allusions.
>>>
>>
>> While I think it is not at all unlikely that other intelligent beings
>> exist on other planets within our universe, I think I need slightly more
>> evidence than purported telepathic communication to persuade me to
>> accept the existence of a particular group of exterrestrials. I notice
>> it said that: "These entities claim that the ancient Egyptians
>> worshipped them as their deity, Ra ...."
>>
>> But the ancient Egyptians did _not_ worship a deity _they_ called 'Ra'.
>> The form 'Ra' is simply a _modern convention_ for pronouncing the
>> ancient _rʕ_ (/r/+ pharyngeal voiced fricative); the ancient
>> vocalization is not known. IIRC evidence from Akkadian transcriptions
>> and from Coptic suggests that the ancient pronunciation was probably
>> [ri:Ê•]
>>
>
> I had never heard of this "channeled" Ra, but once I had a dream in which I
> met a god named Ram who claimed to be the god of this universe, and said he
> was the inspiration for Ra and Rama.
>

That's an interesting aesthetic challenge.  Are you familiar with Margaret
Magnus and phonosemantics <http://www.trismegistos.com/>?  She makes a
strong argument for sound and sense connecting, not being arbitrary at all.
  I toss this out knowing the controversy it can spawn  ;--}
RR

On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 9:14 AM, Peter Bleackley <
Peter.Bleackley@...> wrote:

> staving RoseRose:
>
>  I'm personally of the Whorfian persuasion that different languages "cause"
>> different forms of thinking and different thoughts therefore arise.
>>  Having
>> been so deeply engaged with Glide for 10 years, I've noticed I parse the
>> world differently--see process, for instance, more foregrounded than
>> things,
>> flow more than form.  This is of course very subjective and not all that
>> easy to describe.  I am curious if anyone else sees effects in your
>> reality-sense that you attribute to your conlanging activities in any way?
>> Diana
>>
>
> OK, here's a slightly weird one for you.
> Khangaþyagon is spoken by wizards, who because of their magical gifts, are
> all synaesthetes. I'm not a synaesthete, but recently I was trying to think
> up words for herbs and spices. I spent a lot of time in my kitchen, sniffing
> at jars and trying to find a word that fit - or thinking up words and then
> searching for something that smelt right for the sound. My thought processes
> at one point went something like this.
> "zurvin... Is that cloves?" <sniff> "No, definitely not cloves. How about
> thyme?" <sniff> "Yes, that's right, zurvin is thyme."
>
> Pete
>

yeah, that's why i put "cause" in quotes.  i tend to think in systems, like
cybernetics, especially 2nd order cybernetics.  Especially when i comes to
language, consciousness, and their relations.
RR

On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 10:32 AM, Mechthild Czapp <0zu149@...> wrote:

> > I am curious if anyone else sees effects in your
> > reality-sense that you attribute to your conlanging activities in any
> way?
> > Diana
>
> I am not sure whether this is a correlation equals causation fallacy, or
> whether it simply is that my strange perception of the world caused my
> conlangs to develop as they did, but I did notice some differences. It is
> not easy to tell, but for example I feel that I compare 'rejistanian' in my
> thoughts and since I invented the alsi- comparisons, I tried to translate
> them into the natlangs, I use quite often because something is just so very
> clearly 'alsina good'. (I do not know what the grammatical term for these
> forms of comparison is, but they are comperatives and superlatives, which
> indicate that the use of the adjective was only justified in the comparison:
> If I have 5 € and you have 5.10 €, none of us is rich but you are alsina
> rich han me.)
>
> I hope this makes some form of sense.
>
> ~M. Czapp
> --
> Neu: GMX FreeDSL Komplettanschluss mit DSL 6.000 Flatrate +
> Telefonanschluss für nur 17,95 Euro/mtl.!*
> http://dsl.gmx.de/?ac=OM.AD.PD003K11308T4569a
>

I went down the mass and spacetime path with you a way, thought about that
formula of Einstein's:  the mass of a moving body = the mass of the body at
rest over the square root of 1 minus v squared over c squared (or something
to that effect) where it doesn't really make too much difference until you
get really cranking up toward the speed of light. Then things really
change--relativistically speaking--at least from one viewpoint.  I speculate
that where this seems to come in with language would be when the speed of
thought increases enormously, which effects time sense.  Time dilation is a
frequent observation in the psychedelic sphere.  How does this effect
language?  Very open question.  For me, natlangs seems like very slow
software sometimes.
Love the mythology.

RR

On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 11:37 AM, J. Burke <rtoennis@...> wrote:

> My views are likewise Whorfian, but nonlinear; the best analogy of the
> relationship between language and thought, IMO, is the relationship between
> mass and spacetime in General Relativity: mass determines the shape of
> spacetime, and spacetime determines the paths that masses travel. It's an
> imperfect analogy; but think of mass as language and spacetime as thought.
>  Language cuts the grooves for thought, so to speak, while thought tends to
> reenforce these grooves.  It's a mutually reenforcing relationship.  Some
> years ago, in the introduction to the old Noyahtowa grammar, I wrote about
> this, in the guise of a medicine tradition:
>
> It was told among the elders and medicine men of the West that when all
> living men communicated by the Shadow Language, the ancient Language of the
> Heart and Mind and of all Spirits, they were not far removed from their
> physical surroundings.  Their thoughts had yet to be tied down and
> solidified, to be habitually guided along one path at the expense of all
> others; and so a man’s thinking could easily follow a stream of perceptual
> phenomena on its own terms, and he had no need to impress his own beliefs
> upon what he beheld in order to comprehend it.  But spoken language changed
> this, so that words became the principal way by which man experienced and
> interacted with his brothers, his world and even himself.  When the
> Ozolotaahko taught men to speak with their mouths and not their hearts,
> individual spoken languages began to develop, and these languages grew
> organically from varied possible ways of symbolizing and categorizing the
> world; and in turn the
>  languages solidified the thought patterns from which they sprouted into
> distinct worldviews--i.e., habits of thinking about the world, ingrained
> ways of interpreting and ordering its phenomena.  There was room for
> language to diverge from worldview, and vice versa, but the fit between the
> two was always tighter than it was loose.  And when a language and worldview
> on the one hand, and physical reality on the other, came into an inevitable
> relationship, a separate world-of-words was born, or an imitation of the
> real world built of words; and it was in these worlds-of-words that men came
> to live almost to the exclusion of the true one.  Man had segmented unitary
> existence, and though his intellect may have retained knowledge of the
> segmentation, he forgot in his heart what he had done; thus he was placed at
> one remove from physical reality.
>
> Natlanging and conlanging both are associated with varying worldviews and
> thinking patterns for me.  One of my goals with the Central Mountain
> languages is to capture and use a certain worldview--in this case, an
> animistic one.
>
>
> --- On Mon, 3/30/09, RoseRose <faithfulscribe@...> wrote:
>
> > From: RoseRose <faithfulscribe@...>
> > Subject: does conlanging change your sense of reality?
> > To: CONLANG@...
> > Date: Monday, March 30, 2009, 8:57 AM
> > I'm personally of the Whorfian
> > persuasion that different languages "cause"
> > different forms of thinking and different thoughts
> > therefore arise.  Having
> > been so deeply engaged with Glide for 10 years, I've
> > noticed I parse the
> > world differently--see process, for instance, more
> > foregrounded than things,
> > flow more than form.  This is of course very
> > subjective and not all that
> > easy to describe.  I am curious if anyone else sees
> > effects in your
> > reality-sense that you attribute to your conlanging
> > activities in any way?
> > Diana
> >
>
>
>
>

That's delicious.  Thanks for the "secret" peek into Lojban humor.  I have
the book, and there weren't too many chuckles in it.
RR

On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 3:30 PM, Brett Williams <mungojelly@...>wrote:

> (CCed to the lojban-list, since I thought they might want to see what
> I had to say here.)
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 8:57 AM, RoseRose <faithfulscribe@...>
> wrote:
> > I'm personally of the Whorfian persuasion that different languages
> "cause"
> > different forms of thinking and different thoughts therefore arise.
>  Having
> > been so deeply engaged with Glide for 10 years, I've noticed I parse the
> > world differently--see process, for instance, more foregrounded than
> things,
> > flow more than form.  This is of course very subjective and not all that
> > easy to describe.  I am curious if anyone else sees effects in your
> > reality-sense that you attribute to your conlanging activities in any
> way?
>
>
> I've thought about this some over the years that I've studied Lojban,
> since Sapir-Whorf is an important part of Lojban's history and
> mythology.  I'm not sure exactly how Lojban was supposed to change how
> I think, and it's always difficult in life of course to tell one
> thread of cause from another, but I do think I might have a sense of
> some kind of effect that it's had on me.
>
> It affects most strongly of course how I think and feel about
> communication.  It's my sense that the cultural differences in
> communication between Lojbanistan and the outside world are at least
> as important as the linguistic differences.  Lojban is this very
> modular, tinker-toy-type language, where you can basically put
> whatever you want in a sentence by attaching things to the sides of
> other things.  But it would be perfectly possible to use that
> structure to build ordinary sentences, restrained by conventional
> forms and meanings.  There is also an exploratory, creative attitude
> in the way Lojban is used which feels to me essential in how it's
> changed my thought.
>
> I'll give an example which I think tells a lot about Lojban culture.
> I kind of feel like I'm revealing a secret, in a way-- I mean it's not
> secret at all, it's openly logged all the time in fact, but it's an
> open secret because it's encoded into a strange cypheric creature
> called a "lujvo". :)  The lujvo I'm thinking of is "cinsne", which is
> made from "cin" for "cinse", to be sexual, and "sne" for "senva", to
> dream, and means to have a wet dream.  It is increasingly common &
> traditional to say to someone who is heading off to bed from
> Lojbanistan: "ko cinsne" -- Have a wet dream!  (It's meant somewhat in
> jest, but not haha-funny, & it comes from a long shared strange
> Lojbanic sense of humor and absurdity.)
>
> So there has been some effect on my thinking from using a language
> that's so modular, adjustable, free, structural.  But there's been at
> least as much change in how I think from the cultural experience of
> living part of my life in a linguistic community that's there mostly
> for the purpose of exploring language itself, and with a language on
> their tongues and fingertips to bend to their whims and wills.  Loglan
> and Middle Lojban were similar to today's Lojban grammatically, but I
> think provoked a very different experience in those who related to
> them.  I would expect that the next generation's Lojban, which is
> growing out of the conversations and stories and songs and
> translations of today, will have yet again an entirely different
> effect on those who learn it.
>
> I suppose the main conclusion my studies of Lojban have driven me to
> about Sapir-Whorf is that language is not just a tool used by a
> society, but a vessel for much of the knowledge and social structure
> of a society.  It's that hidden dimension of language which I believe
> is most powerful in structuring how we think, act and live.
>
> <3,
> mungojelly
> AKA la stela selckiku
>

On 01/04/09 13:01:40, Lars Finsen wrote:
> Den 1. apr. 2009 kl. 10.13 skreiv Tristan McLeay:
>
> > It's the same situation with English and French /b/ and /p/. For an
> > English /b/ and a French /p/, the aim is to begin voicing the
> moment
> > the sound is released. But the English sound has as its contrast
> the
> > English /p/, which has as its aim to begin voicing after the the
> lips
> > are released, and the French sound has as its contrast the French
> /b/,
> > which has as its aim to begin voicing before the lips are released.
>
> What do you mean by "aim"? Is there a requirement that there should
> be voicing after a /p/ in English? (And is this a clue to why it is
> dropped before a t or an s?)

I was talking about a /p/ in an onset, which is aspirated. Obviously
because of the phonotactics of English, the only possible sounds you
can get after /p/ in English are the consonants /r l j/ and vowels,
which are all normally voiced.  After a voiceless stop, these segments
have a portion that is voiceless. This is also the case in most
Germanic languages like German and Norwegian---aside from more generous
phonotactics. (Dutch is an exception though.) I don't know whether
German aspirates /p/ in "Psycho-" or not tho...

Now, as for "aim", every sound has a target that you're aiming for. But
there's no guarantee that you'll hit the target.

Think of someone playing darts in a pub, but playing really fast.
There's half a dozen boards, but they're aiming for the bullseye on the
second of them. Most of the time, they'll be off a little (at least, if
they're like me). They'll hit the right board, so you can tell what
their target is. Once every now and again, they'll miss the board and
hit the wall around it. You can still guess what they were aiming for,
because the dart's likely to have hit the wall near the right board.
Even less frequently, they'll hit the first or third board.

Speech is like that. You're aiming for a sound. Normally, you don't get
exactly right (because you have to do it all really fast, but there's
no rails to keep you right). Sometimes, you get it wrong but close
enough no-one really notices.  Sometimes, you say the wrong sound
entirely. Sound changes happen because the targets move to make sure
the errors can be resolved.

As for the silent p in psychological or pteradactyl, there's no
evidence there's a /p/ there any more, so no /p/ is dropped. There's no
more a /p/ being dropped in "psychological" than there is in "silly".
So I'll interpret your question as asking "And is this a clue to why it
*was* dropped before a t or an s?", and although I can't answer that
question, I don't think so. The aspiration is deleted after an /s/, so
"speech" is [spi:tS], not [sp_hi:tS]. In this context, the distinction
between /p/ and /b/ is neutralised in English, and by convention we
consider the [p] here to correspond to a /p/. So if that can happen
after an /s/, why can't it apply before an /s/ too? There's no reason
we couldn't have [psaIk-]. We just don't. (And I don't find the
question of "why" any more interesting than the question of "why did
final -e become silent in English?" or "Why did English drop /r/ unless
there was a vowel after it?".)

--
Tristan.

I'm starting to see the conlang book idea as being a series:  telling jokes
in conlangs, erotic literature in conlangs, etc.
RR

On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 7:28 PM, Andreas Johansson <andreasj@...>wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 9:30 PM, Brett Williams <mungojelly@...>
> wrote:
> [snip]
> > I'll give an example which I think tells a lot about Lojban culture.
> > I kind of feel like I'm revealing a secret, in a way-- I mean it's not
> > secret at all, it's openly logged all the time in fact, but it's an
> > open secret because it's encoded into a strange cypheric creature
> > called a "lujvo". :)  The lujvo I'm thinking of is "cinsne", which is
> > made from "cin" for "cinse", to be sexual, and "sne" for "senva", to
> > dream, and means to have a wet dream.  It is increasingly common &
> > traditional to say to someone who is heading off to bed from
> > Lojbanistan: "ko cinsne" -- Have a wet dream!  (It's meant somewhat in
> > jest, but not haha-funny, & it comes from a long shared strange
> > Lojbanic sense of humor and absurdity.)
>
> I once met a troop of, of all things, Estonian Boy Scouts who were in
> the habit of saying "may you dream erotic dreams" in lieu of "good
> night".
>
> --
> Andreas Johansson
>
> Why can't you be a non-conformist just like everybody else?
>

Beautiful rant, indeed.Whether one puts attention on emphasizing likeness
and universals, as I think you are getting at, or differences, as I was
trying to tease out with my question, both are real aspects for me at least
of viewing languages.  I base sameness on what Charles Laughlin, in his book
Brain, Symbol, and Experience, calls neurognosis--the basic neural setup we
are all endowed with as human beings.  Accounting for differences also seems
traceable in many matters to genetic presets.  But there is also wiggle room
built into the system--neural plasticity, for instance, that permits
variations for adaptive purposes.  These are what Laughlin would call *
structural* matters.

My question was aimed, however, at the experiential level, call it
phenomenological or what you will--not so much either the structural or the
behavioral--though all three--structure, behavior, and experience are what
Laughlin would call the three windows into a view of reality--and they don't
always agree.

RR

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 7:39 AM, Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>wrote:

> RoseRose skrev:
>
>  I'm personally of the Whorfian persuasion that different languages "cause"
>> different forms of thinking and different thoughts therefore arise.
>>  Having
>> been so deeply engaged with Glide for 10 years, I've noticed I parse the
>> world differently--see process, for instance, more foregrounded than
>> things,
>> flow more than form.  This is of course very subjective and not all that
>> easy to describe.  I am curious if anyone else sees effects in your
>> reality-sense that you attribute to your conlanging activities in any way?
>> Diana
>>
>>
> <RANT length="questionable" irascibility="moderate"
>   inflammability="considerable"> <!-- Be warned! -->
>
> I'm of the opposite persuasion that life
> conditions and culture shape our perception of
> reality and thought- processes, which in turn
> shape language. Of course language is part of our
> culture and so the process is reciprocal.  Still
> in the end most languages, if correctly analysed,
> are alike in most basics (i.e. universals) just
> because our thought processes of all human beings
> are basically the same.  But think about it: if
> language and culture determined eachother
> unilaterally neither would change! But as it
> happens all languages from the time period we have
> data from or can reconstruct, 5'000-10'000 years
> by a conservative estimate, are typologically the
> same, while the particulars of human culture have
> changed vastly in that time.  At the same time
> even the cultures of the speakers of the most
> 'divergent' languages are fundamentally the same
> as every other human culture, even without getting
> down to the basic fact that the ultimate point of
> every culture is the control of nutrition and
> procreation!  I don't think you have to be a
> Buddhist (though I am) to think that what
> ultimately conditions thought, language and
> culture alike is the condition of being human.
>
> Whorf was guilty of the error of not correctly
> understanding how polysynthesis and hierarchic
> alignment work, and so he over-analysed, because
> he had to bend his ways of analysing language to
> understand the languages he studied. That doesn't
> prove that the thought processes of those speaking
> those languages were 'bent' compared to his. His
> other mistake was to not distinguish between
> thought and perception themselves and the way they
> are expressed.
>
> Everyone has experienced the conflict between what
> one wants to say and what one is able to say in a
> foreign language; it does not come from the
> structure of the foreign language being weird, but
> from one's insufficient command of the foreign
> language.  I'm pretty sure that both Whorf's
> informants' command of English and Whorf's command
> of the informants' languages were insufficient to
> express/impress what they wanted to say, and that
> Whorf made exaggerated conclusions about the
> impact of language structure on thought from that.
>
> Basically you can express anything in any
> language: what differs is the compactness of the
> expression, and what can be expressed compactly in
> a language is conditioned by the culture of the
> speakers, not the other way around.  To use the
> degree of weirdness of an over-literal English
> translation of an expression in any other language
> as an index of or exponent of the weirdness of the
> thought processes of the speakers of that language
> strikes me not only as fallacious but also as
> supremacist: somewhere in there lurks an
> assumption that you should expect an 'alien'
> culture, its language and the thought processes of
> its bearers to be all weird.  When talking about
> 'the others' "weird" is usually synonymous with
> "inferior". An over-literal English translation of
> anything I say in Swedish will sound like Cletus
> in "The Simpsons".  To conclude from that that I'm
> anything like Cletus, or indeed the assumption
> that a person like Cletus is inferior, is cultural
> supremacism, and that's that.
>
> </RANT>
>
> /BP 8^)>
> --
> Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>  "C'est en vain que nos Josués littéraires crient
>  à la langue de s'arrêter; les langues ni le soleil
>  ne s'arrêtent plus. Le jour où elles se *fixent*,
>  c'est qu'elles meurent."           (Victor Hugo)
>

That is a very high level of skill indeed, to be able to differentiate
language and thought in a sequential manner--much less to have some control
over it.  IMHO it takes a great deal of effort for those of us whose
language grooves (thanks Jeff Burke) are deeply worn to even jump out of the
language channel at all to the "before" of a thought.  Getting "beyond the
veil of language" isn't easy, but it certainly seems an aim in meditative
traditions--the monkey-mind keeps chattering on with a running report on
life the universe and everything--trying I guess to get it all "under
control" i.e. "understood" and therefore less uncertain and less scary.
RR

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 11:15 AM, Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> wrote:

> --- On Mon, 3/30/09, RoseRose <faithfulscribe@...> wrote:
>
> > I'm personally of the Whorfian
> > persuasion that different languages "cause"
> > different forms of thinking and different thoughts
> > therefore arise.
>
> My experience, after many years of serious meditation and reflexive
> observations of my own consciousness is that my thoughts form, whole and
> complete, BEFORE they are translated into language.
>
> Observing my inner dialog, if I stop myself from reeling off some mental
> sentence before I have completed that sentence, halt the process mid-word, I
> find that I already know what thought the sentence is going to express. But
> that knowledge is NOT verbal. It is pre-verbal. It is knowing without words
> of any kind.
>
> To first learn this skill took me many weeks of practice at catching myself
> at my inner dialog and turning the dialog off. To really get good at it took
> many years of practice. But once it is mastered one can easily demonstrate
> to oneself that thinking and knowing are both non-verbal. Nor do they
> require images or mental pictures.
>
> When I became truly fluent in German about 40 years ago, I found that I
> could, if I halted my inner dialog, first think the thought, independent of
> any language, and then express that thought to myself in either German or
> English. The thought itself, however, was fully formed long BEFORE the
> choice was made as to which language to use to express that thought.
>
> The inner dialog, in other words, is NOT the thought, but is how we REPEAT
> the thought to ourselves AFTER we have formed the thought non-verbally.
>
> For someone who has not performed this experiment of halting the inner
> dialog this claim seems to violate common sense. It is assumed that thoughts
> exist only as mental words or images. For anyone who has tried this
> experiment for a few weeks or so, however, it becomes blatantly obvious that
> thoughts are NOT words or images, but that we are in the habit of
> TRANSLATING our thoughts INTO words or images AFTER the fact.
>
> If this were not the case, then how would a per-verbal baby think? And
> anyone who has spent time with a baby knows beyond a doubt that they DO
> think. They just haven’t yet formed the habit of talking to themselves ABOUT
> their thoughts, so their thoughts exist only in their pure, non-verbal form.
>
> Thus, it is demonstrably true to anyone who takes the trouble to learn the
> skill and demonstrate it to themselves, that thought comes first, and
> language comes after, and that language cannot effect what can be thought,
> only which thoughts can be expressed and which thoughts remain ineffable.
> However, as long as we remain fooled by the illusion that our inner dialog
> IS our thoughts, then we are also fooled into thinking that the language of
> our inner dialog molds our thoughts. It does not. It only molds our inner
> dialog, but not our pre-verbal thoughts.
>
>
> --gary
>

uh--boys will be boys?  [girls will be girls too of course--we just talk
about "it" differently?]
RR

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 1:14 PM, Brett Williams <mungojelly@...>wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 7:28 PM, Andreas Johansson <andreasj@...>
> wrote:
> >
> > I once met a troop of, of all things, Estonian Boy Scouts who were in
> > the habit of saying "may you dream erotic dreams" in lieu of "good
> > night".
>
>
> I suspect that's not a coincidence at all!  The person (la cizra) who
> invented the word "cinsne" is Estonian.
>
>
> <3,
> mungojelly
>

>
> Reword as "if language and culture determined each other *symmetrically*
> and unilaterally neither would change".
>
> If they have asymmetric (but delayed) effects upon each other, then it
> guarantees a constant, swirling source of change.
>

It is this mutual co-evolutionary aspect that interests me.  Thanks.

RR

Den 31. mar. 2009 kl. 22.32 skreiv Mark J. Reed:

> Why must there be a "point" to the variety of languages?  Can't things
> just be, without all having to fit into some master plan? The variety
> is interesting of itself.

Variety is charming. It makes linguists busy. Maybe that's enough of
a point after all. But from a practical point of view it really would
have been much better if we all used the same language - unless the
different manifestations of language do have the ability to enrich
our communication and understanding in practical ways.

LEF

On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...> wrote:
> Den 31. mar. 2009 kl. 22.32 skreiv Mark J. Reed:
>
>> Why must there be a "point" to the variety of languages?  Can't things
>> just be, without all having to fit into some master plan? The variety
>> is interesting of itself.
>
> Variety is charming. It makes linguists busy. Maybe that's enough of a point
> after all. But from a practical point of view it really would have been much
> better if we all used the same language - unless the different
> manifestations of language do have the ability to enrich our communication
> and understanding in practical ways.

And I think it does.   It's probably true that there's
nothing you can express in one general-purpose
language that you can't express in any other; but
different languages seem to be optimized for
talking about different things in different ways.
What's easy to express in one language is harder
to express in some others, etc.   The strict
Whorfian idea that some ideas can only be
expressed in certain languages is almost certainly
false; but variety is still useful if it only makes
certain things easier to express in some languages
than in others.

(On the other hand, if certain ideas can only
be expressed in a certain language by coining
a lot of new vocabulary, then is the resulting
expanded language still the same language?
If not, then the old, smaller-vocabulary version
of the language was in fact incapable of
expressing those ideas.   But I would generally
incline to think that two versions of a language
differing only in the amount of vocabulary are
essentially the same language -- that it takes
a deeper change in grammar or the fundamental
semantics of basic vocabulary to form an
essentially different language.)

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/

That depends on the language.  If a language is formally
oligosynthetic with a closed set of morphemes, than any new coinages
automatically make a new language...


On 4/1/09, Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...> wrote:
>> Den 31. mar. 2009 kl. 22.32 skreiv Mark J. Reed:
>>
>>> Why must there be a "point" to the variety of languages?  Can't things
>>> just be, without all having to fit into some master plan? The variety
>>> is interesting of itself.
>>
>> Variety is charming. It makes linguists busy. Maybe that's enough of a
>> point
>> after all. But from a practical point of view it really would have been
>> much
>> better if we all used the same language - unless the different
>> manifestations of language do have the ability to enrich our communication
>> and understanding in practical ways.
>
> And I think it does.   It's probably true that there's
> nothing you can express in one general-purpose
> language that you can't express in any other; but
> different languages seem to be optimized for
> talking about different things in different ways.
> What's easy to express in one language is harder
> to express in some others, etc.   The strict
> Whorfian idea that some ideas can only be
> expressed in certain languages is almost certainly
> false; but variety is still useful if it only makes
> certain things easier to express in some languages
> than in others.
>
> (On the other hand, if certain ideas can only
> be expressed in a certain language by coining
> a lot of new vocabulary, then is the resulting
> expanded language still the same language?
> If not, then the old, smaller-vocabulary version
> of the language was in fact incapable of
> expressing those ideas.   But I would generally
> incline to think that two versions of a language
> differing only in the amount of vocabulary are
> essentially the same language -- that it takes
> a deeper change in grammar or the fundamental
> semantics of basic vocabulary to form an
> essentially different language.)
>
> --
> Jim Henry
> http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
>

--
Sent from my mobile device

Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

Lars Finsen wrote:
>
> As for Sapir-Whorf, I think that if the Sapir-Whorf effect is not
> valid, there really isn't any much point in having all this variety of
> languages, is there? So I tend to prefer to believe in it.
>
> LEF
>
There really is a point-- a language isn't just a cultural artifact or a
tool for communication or expression or even for thought. It's a badge
of identity. As long as humans continue to value the things that make
one group different from another, different languages will have a
purpose and point. For that matter, some people who share essentially
the same language will have different names for it and will argue
vehemently that it is two languages, not one, so even if there weren't
such variety, it seems likely that people would pretend it was there anyway.

M.

M.S. Soderquist wrote:
> Lars Finsen wrote:
>>
>> As for Sapir-Whorf, I think that if the Sapir-Whorf effect is not
>> valid, there really isn't any much point in having all this variety of
>> languages, is there? So I tend to prefer to believe in it.
>>
>> LEF
>>
> There really is a point-- a language isn't just a cultural artifact or a
> tool for communication or expression or even for thought. It's a badge
> of identity. As long as humans continue to value the things that make
> one group different from another, different languages will have a
> purpose and point.

Exactly! Why otherwise was Hebrew revived in Israel? Why in the last
century did enthusiasts revive Cornish etc?

O bydded i'r hen iaith barhau!

--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"Ein Kopf, der auf seine eigene Kosten denkt,
wird immer Eingriffe in die Sprache thun."
[J.G. Hamann, 1760]
"A mind that thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language".

----- Original Message ----
> From: Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...>
> To: CONLANG@...
> Sent: Wednesday, April 1, 2009 11:26:03 AM
> Subject: Re: does conlanging change your sense of reality?
>
> On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Lars Finsen wrote:
> > after all. But from a practical point of view it really would have been much
> > better if we all used the same language - unless the different
> > manifestations of language do have the ability to enrich our communication
> > and understanding in practical ways.

Define "practical." As previously discussed, there are multiple ways to express
something in a single language; the selection between these is based somewhat on
what group membership the speaker wants to claim, what mood they want to express
, and so on. A primary function of language is communication, but another very
important function is personal and group identity management, and that's more
difficult if everyone has the same language.

> The strict
> Whorfian idea that some ideas can only be
> expressed in certain languages is almost certainly
> false

Especially with English, where when we find a notion that's hard to express in
our language but easy in another, we just grab the word and make it our own. ;)

> (On the other hand, if certain ideas can only
> be expressed in a certain language by coining
> a lot of new vocabulary, then is the resulting
> expanded language still the same language?

I'd say yes.

-- Paul

Does anyone know anywhere I can find data on how long people
could expect to live in old times once they had managed to
reach adulthood -- i.e. basically life expectancy with
infant mortality deduced.

/BP

2009/4/1 Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...>:
> On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...> wrote:
>> Den 31. mar. 2009 kl. 22.32 skreiv Mark J. Reed:
>>
>>> Why must there be a "point" to the variety of languages?  Can't things
>>> just be, without all having to fit into some master plan? The variety
>>> is interesting of itself.
>>
>> Variety is charming. It makes linguists busy. Maybe that's enough of a point
>> after all. But from a practical point of view it really would have been much
>> better if we all used the same language - unless the different
>> manifestations of language do have the ability to enrich our communication
>> and understanding in practical ways.
>
> And I think it does.   It's probably true that there's
> nothing you can express in one general-purpose
> language that you can't express in any other; but
> different languages seem to be optimized for
> talking about different things in different ways.
> What's easy to express in one language is harder
> to express in some others, etc.   The strict
> Whorfian idea that some ideas can only be
> expressed in certain languages is almost certainly
> false; but variety is still useful if it only makes
> certain things easier to express in some languages
> than in others.

Turing completeness, eh?

Sigh.  You can say--all ice cream is ice cream.  Or you can appreciate
flavors.  Personally, I default to chocolate (my native tongue?) but can be
talked into tasting strawberry banana onion milkshake.  Conlanging seems to
me to be about discovering new flavors as much as anything else.

RR

On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 2:51 PM, G. van der Vegt <gijsstrider@...>wrote:

> 2009/4/1 Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...>:
> > On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...>
> wrote:
> >> Den 31. mar. 2009 kl. 22.32 skreiv Mark J. Reed:
> >>
> >>> Why must there be a "point" to the variety of languages?  Can't things
> >>> just be, without all having to fit into some master plan? The variety
> >>> is interesting of itself.
> >>
> >> Variety is charming. It makes linguists busy. Maybe that's enough of a
> point
> >> after all. But from a practical point of view it really would have been
> much
> >> better if we all used the same language - unless the different
> >> manifestations of language do have the ability to enrich our
> communication
> >> and understanding in practical ways.
> >
> > And I think it does.   It's probably true that there's
> > nothing you can express in one general-purpose
> > language that you can't express in any other; but
> > different languages seem to be optimized for
> > talking about different things in different ways.
> > What's easy to express in one language is harder
> > to express in some others, etc.   The strict
> > Whorfian idea that some ideas can only be
> > expressed in certain languages is almost certainly
> > false; but variety is still useful if it only makes
> > certain things easier to express in some languages
> > than in others.
>
> Turing completeness, eh?
>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy

http://www.efmoody.com/estate/lifeexpectancy.html
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/34/6/1435

I think you'll find it hard to define 'adult' though in a consistent way.

- Sai

What you want is 'historical adult mortality rates'.
Here is a l;ink to a Google search on that:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%27historical+adult+mortality+rates%27&btnG=Searc\
h&hl=en&sa=2
However, such population data was not recorded until relatively recent
times. So it depends on your definition of 'old times'.
But people had an expectation that a man's life span, post childhood, would
be 'four score and ten' or ninety years. Anyone who survived childhood
probably was hardy enough to live long.
God bless you always, all ways,
Paul


On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 1:42 PM, Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...> wrote:

> Does anyone know anywhere I can find data on how long people could expect
> to live in old times once they had managed to reach adulthood -- i.e.
> basically life expectancy with infant mortality deduced.
>
> /BP
>