Hello to everyone!

I have just joined this mailing list, having come across Folkspraak a few weeks
ago, and been entirely intrigued by it. It sounds like a fascinating project,
and I would love to be involved.

One thing which struck me was that it would be useful to have an agreed format
for volcabulary entries, one which would be human-readable and also easy to
parse using a computer program -- this would make it a trivial matter, for
example, to automatically generate an HTML page for the volcabulary (and, more
importantly, to easily update it).

By default there seems to be an agreed format which can be adopted with only
some minor tweaking:

*** Proposed volcabulary file format ***

Each line consists of two elements, separated by a hyphen (any white-space will
be ignored).

The first element is the Language Identifier, which should be an agreed
abbreviation (a list of these would be useful). The identifier can be of any
length.

The second element is the actual word. This can be of any length.

Comments can be included. Comment lines should begin with a ';'.

Volcabulary entries are separated by lines which start with '*'.

Would we want a line to identify the contributor of the entry (for subsequent
praise or blame!) ?

Example:

FS-finden
!!-Find
EN-Find
SW-finna
DA*-finde
DU-vinden
GE-finden
; All but one of the languages had find to start with; it was just the
; ending that was debatable, and I thought that the -en ending was used the
; most and fit most into Folkspraak.
***

My apologies if this seems like a dramatic first posting for a newbie --
consider a measure of my enthusiasm for the project!!

Cheers!
-- Chris Sandow
chris.sandow@...

Well, the formatting of my posting got completely messed up, so I am going
to try and send the crucial part again:

*** Proposed volcabulary file format ***

Each line consists of two elements, separated by a hyphen (any white-space
will be ignored).

The first element is the Language Identifier, which should be an agreed
abbreviation (a list of these would be useful). The identifier can be of any
length.

The second element is the actual word. This can be of any length.

Comments can be included. Comment lines should begin with a ';'.

Volcabulary entries are separated by lines which start with '*'.

Would we want a line to identify the contributor of the entry (for
subsequent praise or blame!) ?

Example:
FS-finden
!!-Find
EN-Find
SW-finna
DA*-finde
DU-vinden
GE-finden
; All but one of the languages had find to start with
; it was just the ending that was debatable, and I thought
; that the -en ending was used the most and fit most into
; Folkspraak.
***

Let's see if that works...

-- Chris Sandow
chris.sandow@...

From: chris.sandow@...

> One thing which struck me was that it would be useful to have an agreed
format for volcabulary entries, one which would be human-readable and also
easy to parse using a computer program -- this would make it a trivial
matter, for example, to automatically generate an HTML page for the
volcabulary (and, more importantly, to easily update it).

Makes sense. I would gladly write such a program if someone else would
prepare and maintain the lexical file -- but we need more people to submit
words.

> *** Proposed volcabulary file format ***

Seems acceptable.

We should add a marker for the contributor of the Folkspraak word form.

We should also add a ULD marker and mark the ULD # -- that way we can use
the ULD entries for German, Dutch and English -- save some retyping.

One way to proceed might be to get volunteers to prepare ULD entries for one
language each (Afrikaans, the Scandinavian languages).

ULD is at:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5383/uld2in.html

So, Chris, do you want to take charge on maintaining the lexicon? :-)


Best regards,

Jeffrey Henning
LangMaker.com - Invent Your Own Language
Jeffrey.Henning.com - Croatian Notation, Santa Paravia & Fiumaccio for
Windows

From: Scott Williams <morgothbellatoria@...>
To: <folkspraak@...>
Sent: Monday, July 26, 1999 4:26 PM
Subject: new words


> I am still new to this computer stuff, so bear with me if I make
> mistakes.
>
> I got out some dictionaries and came up with the following suggestions.
> First is for the Babel text.
>
>  FS: mortel
>  !!: mortar
>  EN: mortar
>  DU: mortel
>  GE: mo:rtel
>  NO: mo/rtel
>  SW: mortel
> DA*: mo/rtel
>
> (I used the / to do the mark thru the O.)
>
>  FS: vitenskap
>  !!: science
>  EN: science
>  DU: wetenschap
>  GE: wissenschaft
>  NO: vitenskap
>  SW: vetenskap
> DA*: videnskab
>  YI: visn'shaft
>
> (I decided that the Norwegian word would fit since the majority of the
> languages uses V at the beginning and a P at the end)
>
>  FS: computer
>  !!: computer
>  EN: computer
>  DU: computer,rekenmachine
>  GE: computer
> DA*: regnemaskine
>
> (I couldn't find the Swedish or Norwegian equivalents, but I have
> provided a alternative that would satisfy any Germanic purists)
>
>   FS: rekenmashine
>   !!: thinking-machine
>   EN: thinking-machine,computer
>   DU: rekenmachine
>   GE: rechnenmaschine
>   NO: regnemaskin
>   SW: ra:knamaskin
>  DA*: regnemaskine
>
> (I have also provided the words used to create this compound.)
>
>    FS: rekenen
>    !!: reckon
>    EN: reckon
>    DU: reken
>    GE: rechnen
>    NO: regne
>    SW: ra:kna
>   DA*: regne
>
>    FS: mashine
>    !!: machine
>    EN: machine
>    DU: machine
>    GE: maschine
>    NO: maskin
>    SW: maskin
>   DA*: maskine
>    YI: mashin
>
>
>
>
> ===
> -Scott Williams
> "I will not be Stamped, Indexed, Briefed, Debriefed, or Numbered. My life
is my own." Patrick McGoohan as Number 6 (the Prisoner)
> _________________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
>
>

Ok, I'm happy to maintain the lexicon.

I haven't seen the ULD before, and having seen it I think I might suggest
changing the volcabulary format to match the ULD format, and to use the ULD
abbreviations. If I maintain the lexicon I will certainly write myself a
program to handle it, and will probably import the words from the ULD, so
using the same format would obviously be helpful.

I will comb through the previous postings, and the Folkspraak notes, to see
what words we already have. Presumably we need some of way of 'voting' (if
that's the right word) on each word. How are we going to do this? Or do you
already have a system?

-- Chris Sandow
chris.sandow@...

> I will comb through the previous postings, and the Folkspraak notes, to
see
> what words we already have. Presumably we need some of way of 'voting' (if
> that's the right word) on each word. How are we going to do this? Or do
you
> already have a system?

AFAIK, we each get to be dictator.  You submit the word and that's
what it is.  I haven't been on the list long, but I don't think there's been
controversy.  Probably because the words are usually so similar that
there's not much room for debate.

Etherman

etherman23@...

This query concerns a recent post in which several sample entries in a
proposed web-page formatted lexicon were given. One of these included the
following:
FS-rekenen
Ge: rechnen . . .etc.
My question is: isn't "rekenen" much more clumsy for the tongue than
"rechnen", and are we going to avoid the German ch in favor of the glottal
stop (I think that's the term) of k?
Also, someone new to computers posted and mentioned, in passing, using the
slant incombination with the letter o to form the Scandinavian character.
If he has windows, he probably has the "Character Map" utility--this
simplifies the typing of all sorts of such charcaters.
Beneficium accipere libertatem est vendere.
regmeister@...

IIRC, the idea of gender has been removed from Folksraak.  I was
just perusing some grammers of various Germanic languages and
it seems that most of them have either 2 or 3 genders.  Even
English has some remnants of gender.  It seems that this aspect
should be kept in the language.  I would suggest that there are rules
for assigning gender.  We should go with three genders, masculine,
feminine, and neuter/indeterminate.  This should be strickly
biological.  So we wouldn't have something like das Ma:dchen.
Sure, this will add some complexity to the language, but it will
also add some Germanic character.



Etherman

etherman23@...

seems reasonable.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey Henning [mailto:Jeffrey@...]
Sent: Monday, August 02, 1999 8:35 PM
To: folkspraak@onelist.com
Subject: [folkspraak] Fw: new words


From: "Jeffrey Henning" <Jeffrey@...>

From: Scott Williams <morgothbellatoria@...>
To: <folkspraak@...>
Sent: Monday, July 26, 1999 4:26 PM
Subject: new words


> I am still new to this computer stuff, so bear with me if I make
> mistakes.
>
> I got out some dictionaries and came up with the following suggestions.
> First is for the Babel text.
>
>  FS: mortel
>  !!: mortar
>  EN: mortar
>  DU: mortel
>  GE: mo:rtel
>  NO: mo/rtel
>  SW: mortel
> DA*: mo/rtel
>
> (I used the / to do the mark thru the O.)
>
>  FS: vitenskap
>  !!: science
>  EN: science
>  DU: wetenschap
>  GE: wissenschaft
>  NO: vitenskap
>  SW: vetenskap
> DA*: videnskab
>  YI: visn'shaft
>
> (I decided that the Norwegian word would fit since the majority of the
> languages uses V at the beginning and a P at the end)
>
>  FS: computer
>  !!: computer
>  EN: computer
>  DU: computer,rekenmachine
>  GE: computer
> DA*: regnemaskine
>
> (I couldn't find the Swedish or Norwegian equivalents, but I have
> provided a alternative that would satisfy any Germanic purists)
>
>   FS: rekenmashine
>   !!: thinking-machine
>   EN: thinking-machine,computer
>   DU: rekenmachine
>   GE: rechnenmaschine
>   NO: regnemaskin
>   SW: ra:knamaskin
>  DA*: regnemaskine
>
> (I have also provided the words used to create this compound.)
>
>    FS: rekenen
>    !!: reckon
>    EN: reckon
>    DU: reken
>    GE: rechnen
>    NO: regne
>    SW: ra:kna
>   DA*: regne
>
>    FS: mashine
>    !!: machine
>    EN: machine
>    DU: machine
>    GE: maschine
>    NO: maskin
>    SW: maskin
>   DA*: maskine
>    YI: mashin
>
>
>
>
> ===
> -Scott Williams
> "I will not be Stamped, Indexed, Briefed, Debriefed, or Numbered. My life
is my own." Patrick McGoohan as Number 6 (the Prisoner)
> _________________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
>
>


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Let's not give Bill Gates monopoly control over Folkspraak, by having to use
windows to type the language on the internet.  Let's go simple.  No extra
software should be needed.

-----Original Message-----
From: R. Belser [mailto:regmeister@...]
Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 1999 6:25 PM
To: Folkspraak
Subject: [folkspraak] Question


From: "R. Belser" <regmeister@...>

This query concerns a recent post in which several sample entries in a
proposed web-page formatted lexicon were given. One of these included the
following:
FS-rekenen
Ge: rechnen . . .etc.
My question is: isn't "rekenen" much more clumsy for the tongue than
"rechnen", and are we going to avoid the German ch in favor of the glottal
stop (I think that's the term) of k?
Also, someone new to computers posted and mentioned, in passing, using the
slant incombination with the letter o to form the Scandinavian character.
If he has windows, he probably has the "Character Map" utility--this
simplifies the typing of all sorts of such charcaters.
Beneficium accipere libertatem est vendere.
regmeister@...


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There should be no gender except in pronouns.  Folkspraak preserves gender
in pronouns like all the germanic languages.  Thus Folkspraak already has
the biological or logical grammar that you suggest.

Informationless gender is an unnecessary complication.  Junk grammar.
English has no genders other than in pronouns and works fine, in fact it has
become the international lingua franca without such gender.  Think this
idea(f)over.  She is a good idea(m).  We need to follow him.  It would serve
no purpose to call a cow, (Kuh), feminine other than in a pronounial usage.
Old Betsy is a dear of Milchkuh and she need not be referred to as eine
Milchkuh.  En Milchkuh by any other name is still en Milchkuh as is en Bull.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ray Cote [mailto:etherman23@...]
Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 1999 6:15 PM
To: folkspraak@onelist.com
Subject: [folkspraak] Gender


From: "Ray Cote" <etherman23@...>

IIRC, the idea of gender has been removed from Folksraak.  I was
just perusing some grammers of various Germanic languages and
it seems that most of them have either 2 or 3 genders.  Even
English has some remnants of gender.  It seems that this aspect
should be kept in the language.  I would suggest that there are rules
for assigning gender.  We should go with three genders, masculine,
feminine, and neuter/indeterminate.  This should be strickly
biological.  So we wouldn't have something like das Ma:dchen.
Sure, this will add some complexity to the language, but it will
also add some Germanic character.



Etherman

etherman23@...


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This would mean, however, that all "-schaft" words would need to become
"-skap" words.  Also rechenen is hard say.  Rechen seems more to the point.
Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Dawes [mailto:dawes@...]
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 1999 6:13 PM
To: folkspraak@onelist.com
Subject: RE: [folkspraak] Fw: new words


From: "Dan Dawes" <dawes@...>

seems reasonable.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey Henning [mailto:Jeffrey@...]
Sent: Monday, August 02, 1999 8:35 PM
To: folkspraak@onelist.com
Subject: [folkspraak] Fw: new words


From: "Jeffrey Henning" <Jeffrey@...>

From: Scott Williams <morgothbellatoria@...>
To: <folkspraak@...>
Sent: Monday, July 26, 1999 4:26 PM
Subject: new words


> I am still new to this computer stuff, so bear with me if I make
> mistakes.
>
> I got out some dictionaries and came up with the following suggestions.
> First is for the Babel text.
>
>  FS: mortel
>  !!: mortar
>  EN: mortar
>  DU: mortel
>  GE: mo:rtel
>  NO: mo/rtel
>  SW: mortel
> DA*: mo/rtel
>
> (I used the / to do the mark thru the O.)
>
>  FS: vitenskap
>  !!: science
>  EN: science
>  DU: wetenschap
>  GE: wissenschaft
>  NO: vitenskap
>  SW: vetenskap
> DA*: videnskab
>  YI: visn'shaft
>
> (I decided that the Norwegian word would fit since the majority of the
> languages uses V at the beginning and a P at the end)
>
>  FS: computer
>  !!: computer
>  EN: computer
>  DU: computer,rekenmachine
>  GE: computer
> DA*: regnemaskine
>
> (I couldn't find the Swedish or Norwegian equivalents, but I have
> provided a alternative that would satisfy any Germanic purists)
>
>   FS: rekenmashine
>   !!: thinking-machine>   EN: thinking-machine,computer
>   DU: rekenmachine
>   GE: rechnenmaschine
>   NO: regnemaskin
>   SW: ra:knamaskin
>  DA*: regnemaskine
>
> (I have also provided the words used to create this compound.)
>
>    FS: rekenen
>    !!: reckon
>    EN: reckon
>    DU: reken
>    GE: rechnen
>    NO: regne
>    SW: ra:kna
>   DA*: regne
>
>    FS: mashine
>    !!: machine
>    EN: machine
>    DU: machine
>    GE: maschine
>    NO: maskin
>    SW: maskin
>   DA*: maskine
>    YI: mashin
>
>
>
>
> ===
> -Scott Williams
> "I will not be Stamped, Indexed, Briefed, Debriefed, or Numbered. My life
is my own." Patrick McGoohan as Number 6 (the Prisoner)
> _________________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
>
>


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The official Folkspraak charter is for simplicity of learning (and about
half this list agree with that) yet there is also a strong desire by others
for a very Germanic language, with the Germanness taking precedence over the
ease of learning.  I would propose one of the following:

* I start and host a completely new language effort dedicated to creating a
new Germanic language, with its own pages and own mailing list

* Alternatively, we develop a Folkspraak Lite & Folkspraak Pro (these names
obviously won't do) where Folkspraak Pro is the rich Germanic language and
Folkspraak Lite is the IAL

I'm not sure which approach is best.  Both have advantages and
disadvantages.

In any event, the core work of documenting the existing lexicons of the
modern Germanic languages will be of value to both groups.  And I am sure
there are other areas where the two groups can crosspollinate and help one
another.

What do you think?

Best regards,

Jeffrey Henning
LangMaker.com - Invent Your Own Language
Jeffrey.Henning.com - Croatian Notation, Santa Paravia & Fiumaccio for
Windows
----- Original Message -----
From: Ray Cote <etherman23@...>
To: <folkspraak@onelist.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 1999 9:15 PM
Subject: [folkspraak] Gender


> From: "Ray Cote" <etherman23@...>
>
> IIRC, the idea of gender has been removed from Folksraak.  I was
> just perusing some grammers of various Germanic languages and
> it seems that most of them have either 2 or 3 genders.  Even
> English has some remnants of gender.  It seems that this aspect
> should be kept in the language.  I would suggest that there are rules
> for assigning gender.  We should go with three genders, masculine,
> feminine, and neuter/indeterminate.  This should be strickly
> biological.  So we wouldn't have something like das Ma:dchen.
> Sure, this will add some complexity to the language, but it will
> also add some Germanic character.
>
>
>
> Etherman
>
> etherman23@...
>
>
> --------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ----------------------------
>
> ONElist:  the best place to EXPLORE topics, SHARE ideas, and
> CONNECT to people with the same interests.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Folkspraak Discussion List, http://www.langmaker.com/folksprk.htm
>

>From: "Jeffrey Henning" <Jeffrey@...>
>
>The official Folkspraak charter is for simplicity of learning (and about
>half this list agree with that) yet there is also a strong desire by others
>for a very Germanic language, with the Germanness taking precedence over
the
>ease of learning.  I would propose one of the following:
>
>* I start and host a completely new language effort dedicated to creating a
>new Germanic language, with its own pages and own mailing list
>
>* Alternatively, we develop a Folkspraak Lite & Folkspraak Pro (these names
>obviously won't do) where Folkspraak Pro is the rich Germanic language and
>Folkspraak Lite is the IAL
>
>I'm not sure which approach is best.  Both have advantages and
>disadvantages.
>
>In any event, the core work of documenting the existing lexicons of the
>modern Germanic languages will be of value to both groups.  And I am sure
>there are other areas where the two groups can crosspollinate and help one
>another.
>
>What do you think?
>
I think this is an _excellent_ idea, though I'm not sure which of your two
approaches is best.  Two separate lists might be less confusing for the
subscribers, but I would be happy with either approach: pro & lite, or
separate languages.  Either way, I think these two approaches will operate
symbiotically, and each may attract some participants who would have little
interest in the other.  One would be a Germano-auxlang and the other a
Germano-artlang.  My lowly opinion is, Let's do it!  ~alypius

PS--instead of developing vocabulary words in isolation, why don't we make
vocab (and grammar) development a product of translation?  We could pick
some not-too-long document that exists in all or most Teutonic tongues, and
begin a group translation.  I suggest we start a sentence at a time, and
gradually translate larger chunks as our consensus vocabulary and
grammatical constructions grow.  When we're done, we can go back and revise,
eliminating any inconsistencies that may have developed along the way.  I
think this would be both a more interesting and faster way of co-evolving a
working language--or languages, if we elect to do two Germano-langs.  Any
suggestions about what document we should choose for our initial group
translation experiment?

>Informationless gender is an unnecessary complication.  Junk grammar.
>English has no genders other than in pronouns and works fine,

If you're really determined to take minimalism to its logical extreme, some
languages have no pronoun gender either, "and [yet] work fine."  But wherein
would such a minimalist tongue's Teutonic character reside?

  in fact it has
>become the international lingua franca without such gender.

Father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, uncle, aunt--these English
words are not genderless, and must be referred to by the appropriate (3rd
pers. sing.) pronoun.  Ships are often feminine, as well, and,
traditionally, so are hurricanes (I grew up near the Gulf of Mexico), though
ideological overzealousness has now made some of them masculine.  Pets and
even utilitarian farm animals are ofter referred to by their appropriate
genders--he or she, not it.  And, of course, there is the English
distinction between who and which, and who and what.  Countries are often
feminine as well, but sometimes neuter, depending on the affection which a
given speaker feels for the country whereof he (or she) speaks.  There is no
reason why gender should be so confusing as in Deutsch, but eliminating
gender altogether seems to make the language somewhat less German.  Their
are only two optimally practical ways to deal with gender: either make
gender follow consistent and simple rules, or eliminate it altogether,
including the elimination of gendered pronouns.  I don't understand why some
people seem determined to make Folkspraak grammar a clone of English.  As
for English's current dominance in the world, before English, it was French,
and before French, Latin, and before Latin, Greek.  Linguistic dominance is
historically a consequence of wielding far flung legions and not a
reflection on a language's intrinsic merits.  ~alypius

In a message dated 8/4/99 8:43:10 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
krazyal@... writes:

<< PS--instead of developing vocabulary words in isolation, why don't we make
  vocab (and grammar) development a product of translation?  We could pick
  some not-too-long document that exists in all or most Teutonic tongues, and
  begin a group translation.  I suggest we start a sentence at a time, and
  gradually translate larger chunks as our consensus vocabulary and
  grammatical constructions grow.  When we're done, we can go back and revise,
  eliminating any inconsistencies that may have developed along the way.  I
  think this would be both a more interesting and faster way of co-evolving a
  working language--or languages, if we elect to do two Germano-langs.  Any
  suggestions about what document we should choose for our initial group
  translation experiment?
   >>
The Babel text is a natural, and the Lord's Prayer (Our Father) is a frequent
conlang sample, too. If someone knows of a website that includes "View this
page in: English, German, Dutch (etc)" we'd have a built in source to work
from.

Brian

> >Informationless gender is an unnecessary complication.  Junk grammar.
> >English has no genders other than in pronouns and works fine,
>
> If you're really determined to take minimalism to its logical extreme,
some
> languages have no pronoun gender either, "and [yet] work fine."  But
wherein
> would such a minimalist tongue's Teutonic character reside?

Exactly.  Besides I'm not talking about adding an informationless
grammar.  Gender will contain information about biological gender.
This should eliminate the arbitrariness inherent in most gender
based languages.  It will also cut down on vocabulary.  For example
we could have something like der Kinder, die Kinde, das Kind
meaning respectively the son, the daughter, and the child. Of course
we could simplify this by using the same word for the for all genders.

Etherman

etherman23@...

I see no problem with preparing competing lines of language.  This is
similar to how natural languages develop.  However, both Lite and Pro are
IALs and are subject to all the same problems of any IAL.  It will be
something like the different versions of Esperanto, which is largely a
negative history, or the different versions of Interlingua, which might have
some positive aspects.  I can't help but think that Esperanto would have
been much better off today if Zamenhof's original modifications had been
adopted.  I think any IAL is better off if it allows a natural evolution.
English has had an evolution through several versions which are now
virtually unitelligble to a modern speaker.  The language has been fairly
stable in the last 300 years, but who is to say what it will look like in
10,000 years from now?

Thus, several versions of Folkspraak is a healthy thing.  Those who give a
damn about it will tend to choose one form over the other and the form which
is most appealing or useful to those who care will grow.  Having competing
forms will give that choice to those who care to make it, and undoubtedly
will provide a laboratory which will be more conducive to generating a third
form, which should be improved over both of its predecessors.  IAL's, unlike
natural languages, will have virtually no motivation to continue an old
form, if a new form is more attractive.  For this reason, IAL's have always
evolved toward simpler or more logical forms.  A heavily inflected Germanic
version or a lexicon which is heavily slanted toward German would thus
likely evolve toward a more universal form.

Given the universality of English study, I would not be surprised to see an
Anglisization of Folkspraak, since all German, Dutch, Afrikaans and
Scandanavian speakers are likely to be also have second language English
capability.  I think that they would be more comfortable with a germanized
version of English over standard English.  The question is whether the
Dutch, Afrikaans and Scandanavians would be more comfortable with an
anglisized version of German or a germanized version of English.  We can
assume that the English and Germans would each prefer the based language to
be there own.  Dat ist der Question.

A linguistic Solomon will create a perfect 50/50 English/German base
language and sprinkle it with appropriate Dutch, Afrikaans and Scandanavian
words and word forms.  I propose we find a Solomon.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey Henning [mailto:Jeffrey@...]
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 1999 6:44 PM
To: folkspraak@onelist.com
Subject: [folkspraak] Folkspraak Lite & Folkspraak Pro?


From: "Jeffrey Henning" <Jeffrey@...>

The official Folkspraak charter is for simplicity of learning (and about
half this list agree with that) yet there is also a strong desire by others
for a very Germanic language, with the Germanness taking precedence over the
ease of learning.  I would propose one of the following:

* I start and host a completely new language effort dedicated to creating a
new Germanic language, with its own pages and own mailing list

* Alternatively, we develop a Folkspraak Lite & Folkspraak Pro (these names
obviously won't do) where Folkspraak Pro is the rich Germanic language and
Folkspraak Lite is the IAL

I'm not sure which approach is best.  Both have advantages and
disadvantages.

In any event, the core work of documenting the existing lexicons of the
modern Germanic languages will be of value to both groups.  And I am sure
there are other areas where the two groups can crosspollinate and help one
another.

What do you think?

Best regards,

Jeffrey Henning
LangMaker.com - Invent Your Own Language
Jeffrey.Henning.com - Croatian Notation, Santa Paravia & Fiumaccio for
Windows
----- Original Message -----
From: Ray Cote <etherman23@...>
To: <folkspraak@onelist.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 1999 9:15 PM
Subject: [folkspraak] Gender


> From: "Ray Cote" <etherman23@...>
>
> IIRC, the idea of gender has been removed from Folksraak.  I was
> just perusing some grammers of various Germanic languages and
> it seems that most of them have either 2 or 3 genders.  Even
> English has some remnants of gender.  It seems that this aspect
> should be kept in the language.  I would suggest that there are rules
> for assigning gender.  We should go with three genders, masculine,
> feminine, and neuter/indeterminate.  This should be strickly
> biological.  So we wouldn't have something like das Ma:dchen.
> Sure, this will add some complexity to the language, but it will
> also add some Germanic character.
>
>
>
> Etherman
>
> etherman23@...
>
>
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>


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Folkspraak Discussion List, http://www.langmaker.com/folksprk.htm

This is a great idea, a joint translation project.  Babel is an obvious
first choice.  If we can get to an end of Babel without babelizing each
other, we might have a chance.  Sounds like great fun.
Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: alypius [mailto:krazyal@...]
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 1999 4:44 PM
To: folkspraak@onelist.com
Subject: Re: [folkspraak] Folkspraak Lite & Folkspraak Pro?


From: "alypius" <krazyal@...>




>From: "Jeffrey Henning" <Jeffrey@...>
>
>The official Folkspraak charter is for simplicity of learning (and about
>half this list agree with that) yet there is also a strong desire by others
>for a very Germanic language, with the Germanness taking precedence over
the
>ease of learning.  I would propose one of the following:
>
>* I start and host a completely new language effort dedicated to creating a
>new Germanic language, with its own pages and own mailing list
>
>* Alternatively, we develop a Folkspraak Lite & Folkspraak Pro (these names
>obviously won't do) where Folkspraak Pro is the rich Germanic language and
>Folkspraak Lite is the IAL
>
>I'm not sure which approach is best.  Both have advantages and
>disadvantages.
>
>In any event, the core work of documenting the existing lexicons of the
>modern Germanic languages will be of value to both groups.  And I am sure
>there are other areas where the two groups can crosspollinate and help one
>another.
>
>What do you think?
>
I think this is an _excellent_ idea, though I'm not sure which of your two
approaches is best.  Two separate lists might be less confusing for the
subscribers, but I would be happy with either approach: pro & lite, or
separate languages.  Either way, I think these two approaches will operate
symbiotically, and each may attract some participants who would have little
interest in the other.  One would be a Germano-auxlang and the other a
Germano-artlang.  My lowly opinion is, Let's do it!  ~alypius

PS--instead of developing vocabulary words in isolation, why don't we make
vocab (and grammar) development a product of translation?  We could pick
some not-too-long document that exists in all or most Teutonic tongues, and
begin a group translation.  I suggest we start a sentence at a time, and
gradually translate larger chunks as our consensus vocabulary and
grammatical constructions grow.  When we're done, we can go back and revise,
eliminating any inconsistencies that may have developed along the way.  I
think this would be both a more interesting and faster way of co-evolving a
working language--or languages, if we elect to do two Germano-langs.  Any
suggestions about what document we should choose for our initial group
translation experiment?


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Folkspraak Discussion List, http://www.langmaker.com/folksprk.htm

Hi, folks.

I'm writing here for the first time.

As I had russian in school, I know about one feature this language has. As you
know, it has an own alphabet, and 99.9% of the words are exactly pronounced as
they are spelled. When you look at russian web pages, you can see there are two
ways of handling foreign, e.g. english words - the first one is to write the
word in latin letters, so the reader has to decide himself how to pronounce it.
the other possibility is, of course, to use kyrillic letters, however in this
case, the pronounciation is fixed, and the word is to be spoken like the writer
intends to. I think that this has a good effect on the consequence of the
spelling rules. This is why I think folkspraak should get its own alphabet -
like gothic letters, which were used in germany, for example.

There is another idea I have, which could be supported by the previos. If you
imagine all germanic languages beeing slangs of one common language, folkspraak,
then we could assume already to speak folkspraak all the time. This would mean,
if we first concentrte on a written language, the first step would be a common
spelling for words that are almost equal in germanic languages. However this
could go against unique pronounciation rules. Perhaps it could be possible to
create a set of pronounciation rules for each region.

However, idea 1 could help to distinguish between folkspraak words and other
words, e.g. latin, so it would be easier to write in a kind of  mixed mode.

cu

Thomas

In a message dated 8/5/99 8:27:42 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
etherman@... writes:

<< I'm not talking about adding an informationless
  grammar.  Gender will contain information about biological gender.
  This should eliminate the arbitrariness inherent in most gender
  based languages.  It will also cut down on vocabulary.  For example
  we could have something like der Kinder, die Kinde, das Kind
  meaning respectively the son, the daughter, and the child. Of course
  we could simplify this by using the same word for the for all genders. >>

When it comes to vocabulary for biological gender distinctions, especially
for status and age relationships among humans and common animals, I'm finding
very little agreement in the various Germanic languages. Using the 'majority
wins' technique for deriving the Folkspraak term, it's hard to come up with
appropriate words for 'husband, wife, married person' or 'boy, girl, child',
etc. I'd like to see the 'kinder, kinde, kind' concept applied to Folkspraak
Lite, with dialectical variations allowed if so defined. We could thus have
Northern Folkspraak for uniquely Scandinavian words. I can see us having a
Proto-Folkspraak, Early F., Middle F..

Here are a couple of useful multilingual translation sites you can use to
build your Folkspraak vocabulary.

http://dictionaries.travlang.com
http://rivendel.com/~ric/resources/dictionary.html

> From: BriBri56@...
>
> In a message dated 8/5/99 8:27:42 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
> etherman@... writes:

> When it comes to vocabulary for biological gender distinctions, especially
> for status and age relationships among humans and common animals, I'm
finding
> very little agreement in the various Germanic languages. Using the
'majority
> wins' technique for deriving the Folkspraak term, it's hard to come up
with
> appropriate words for 'husband, wife, married person' or 'boy, girl,
child',
> etc. I'd like to see the 'kinder, kinde, kind' concept applied to
Folkspraak
> Lite, with dialectical variations allowed if so defined.

I agree.  I like this.

Best regards,

Jeffrey

German has a say-it-as-you-see pronounciation and spelling system with the
standard latin alphabet helped with umlauted vowels.  English, probably due
to its French roots, may be the only germanic language that has erratic
spelling/pronounciation rules.  There is no need to complicate usage by use
of the Gothic alphabet to achieve standardized or simplified
pronounciation/spelling rules.  Moreover, the use of a nonrecognizable
alphabet will insure the rejection of Folkspraak by all, but a few gothic
hobbists or artificial languagers.

-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas [mailto:sloyment@...]
Sent: Thursday, August 05, 1999 4:33 PM
To: folkspraak@onelist.com
Subject: [folkspraak] folkspraak's own font


From: "Thomas" <sloyment@...>

Hi, folks.

I'm writing here for the first time.

As I had russian in school, I know about one feature this language has. As
you know, it has an own alphabet, and 99.9% of the words are exactly
pronounced as they are spelled. When you look at russian web pages, you can
see there are two ways of handling foreign, e.g. english words - the first
one is to write the word in latin letters, so the reader has to decide
himself how to pronounce it. the other possibility is, of course, to use
kyrillic letters, however in this case, the pronounciation is fixed, and the
word is to be spoken like the writer intends to. I think that this has a
good effect on the consequence of the spelling rules. This is why I think
folkspraak should get its own alphabet - like gothic letters, which were
used in germany, for example.

There is another idea I have, which could be supported by the previos. If
you imagine all germanic languages beeing slangs of one common language,
folkspraak, then we could assume already to speak folkspraak all the time.
This would mean, if we first concentrte on a written language, the first
step would be a common spelling for words that are almost equal in germanic
languages. However this could go against unique pronounciation rules.
Perhaps it could be possible to create a set of pronounciation rules for
each region.

However, idea 1 could help to distinguish between folkspraak words and other
words, e.g. latin, so it would be easier to write in a kind of  mixed mode.

cu

Thomas

[Attachments have been removed from this message]

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Folkspraak Discussion List, http://www.langmaker.com/folksprk.htm

The "majority wins" rule is interesting.  If it means majority of native
speakers, then Folkspraak should be overwhelmingly anglisized.

-----Original Message-----
From: BriBri56@... [mailto:BriBri56@...]
Sent: Friday, August 06, 1999 8:02 AM
To: folkspraak@onelist.com
Subject: Re: [folkspraak] Gender AND TRANSLATION SITES


From: BriBri56@...

In a message dated 8/5/99 8:27:42 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
etherman@... writes:

<< I'm not talking about adding an informationless
  grammar.  Gender will contain information about biological gender.
  This should eliminate the arbitrariness inherent in most gender
  based languages.  It will also cut down on vocabulary.  For example
  we could have something like der Kinder, die Kinde, das Kind
  meaning respectively the son, the daughter, and the child. Of course
  we could simplify this by using the same word for the for all genders. >>

When it comes to vocabulary for biological gender distinctions, especially
for status and age relationships among humans and common animals, I'm
finding
very little agreement in the various Germanic languages. Using the 'majority
wins' technique for deriving the Folkspraak term, it's hard to come up with
appropriate words for 'husband, wife, married person' or 'boy, girl, child',
etc. I'd like to see the 'kinder, kinde, kind' concept applied to Folkspraak
Lite, with dialectical variations allowed if so defined. We could thus have
Northern Folkspraak for uniquely Scandinavian words. I can see us having a
Proto-Folkspraak, Early F., Middle F..

Here are a couple of useful multilingual translation sites you can use to
build your Folkspraak vocabulary.

http://dictionaries.travlang.com
http://rivendel.com/~ric/resources/dictionary.html

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Folkspraak Discussion List, http://www.langmaker.com/folksprk.htm

How is status and age relationships among humans and common animals a matter
of biological gender?

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey Henning [mailto:Jeffrey@...]
Sent: Friday, August 06, 1999 9:41 AM
To: folkspraak@onelist.com
Subject: Re: [folkspraak] Gender AND TRANSLATION SITES


From: "Jeffrey Henning" <Jeffrey@...>

> From: BriBri56@...
>
> In a message dated 8/5/99 8:27:42 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
> etherman@... writes:

> When it comes to vocabulary for biological gender distinctions, especially
> for status and age relationships among humans and common animals, I'm
finding
> very little agreement in the various Germanic languages. Using the
'majority
> wins' technique for deriving the Folkspraak term, it's hard to come up
with
> appropriate words for 'husband, wife, married person' or 'boy, girl,
child',
> etc. I'd like to see the 'kinder, kinde, kind' concept applied to
Folkspraak
> Lite, with dialectical variations allowed if so defined.

I agree.  I like this.

Best regards,

Jeffrey



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Folkspraak Discussion List, http://www.langmaker.com/folksprk.htm

About a font:
	 It seems to me, a long-time Esperantist, that one exasperating
and fatal flaw (perhaps amongst others) with that language is its
orthography.  The superscripted letters are a nuisance, and the business
of using ^, x, or h to as a substitute results, IMO, in an ugly mess.
	 Perhaps the one thing that English, Dutch, and Afrikaans can add
to this project is unadorned (or unadulterated) Latin letters.  I believe
that we should be willing to stick with just the ASCII font.
	 By the way, as a side issue, why not use y to represent the
frequent schwa sound, and leave the other vowels (or diphthongs) to
represent full vowel sounds?
	 Thanks for tweaking me and allowing me to vent!
	 John

Ditto.  I hate the Esperanto superscripted letters and especially the Greek
j for plurals.  Since we are making this an artificial language, let's also
artificially change the pronounciation to use straight ascii font.
Ausgezeichnet!

-----Original Message-----
From: John Schilke [mailto:schilkej@...]
Sent: Friday, August 06, 1999 2:46 PM
To: folkspraak@onelist.com
Subject: RE: [folkspraak] folkspraak's own font


From: John Schilke <schilkej@...>

About a font:
	 It seems to me, a long-time Esperantist, that one exasperating
and fatal flaw (perhaps amongst others) with that language is its
orthography.  The superscripted letters are a nuisance, and the business
of using ^, x, or h to as a substitute results, IMO, in an ugly mess.
	 Perhaps the one thing that English, Dutch, and Afrikaans can add
to this project is unadorned (or unadulterated) Latin letters.  I believe
that we should be willing to stick with just the ASCII font.
	 By the way, as a side issue, why not use y to represent the
frequent schwa sound, and leave the other vowels (or diphthongs) to
represent full vowel sounds?
	 Thanks for tweaking me and allowing me to vent!
	 John

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Folkspraak Discussion List, http://www.langmaker.com/folksprk.htm

I believe it was Alypius who suggested that vocabulary be developed by a
process of taking familiar passages from Literature--such as the Lord's
Prayer, and translating them into Folkspraak. This makes good sense to me,
because it provides a natural and "organic" way of reaching the best and
most self-consistent vocabulary. It also strikes me as a very enjoyable
way to work intuitively as well as analytically on this project.
Beneficium accipere libertatem est vendere.
regmeister@...

In a message dated 8/6/99 11:07:26 AM Pacific Daylight Time, dawes@...
writes:

<< How is status and age relationships among humans and common animals a
matter
  of biological gender? >>

I was referring to concepts like Male Chief-Female Chief, Male in Occupation
X-Female in Occupation X, Male Young-Female Young, Male Newborn-Female
Newborn, Male of Species X-Female of Species X.

I agree that informationless gender is an unecessary complication. Using
grammatical gender affixes facilitates the communication of biological gender
information. Basic Folkspraak grammar should stick to that concept. But I'm
not enamored of conlangs which are slavish about sticking a gender affix on
every living thing, and that reject coinings such as 'boy, girl' that
sidestep the conlang's gender rules. These conlangs just sound so,
so....constructed and artificial!

In a message dated 8/6/99 2:46:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time, schilkej@...
writes:

<<  It seems to me, a long-time Esperantist, that one exasperating
  and fatal flaw (perhaps amongst others) with that language is its
  orthography.  The superscripted letters are a nuisance, and the business
  of using ^, x, or h to as a substitute results, IMO, in an ugly mess. >>

I agree. We Sxouldn't cxanjxe the ortxography!
As Grimm said to Zamenhof, "Orthography is Destiny!"