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This Month's Posts: Semitic Conlangs ·
Past Tense ·
Language Loves ·
Zompist Romp ·
Klingons & Elves on Game Shows ·
Word Lists Re-listed ·
Two Types of Philosophical Languages ·
Grim Law ·
The Finlay
Next Month's Entries Semitic Conlangs - 1/19/04 - 8:32 pmGarth Spencer writes in:I am trying to compile materials for a rather abstract project: constructing a fictitious but plausible Semitic language, by beginning from Proto-Semitic roots, and by parallelling, without copying, the vowel systems in existing Semitic languages. But it seems difficult to find online vocabularies for Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Akkadian, Coptic and Ancient Hebrew. Making comparative vocabulary lists from existing texts by hand will be immensely time-consuming. Is there any way around this? I can't think of a way around it. I would assume some academic publication has the word list you need, though you'd probably have to request it through an interlibrary loan. One brief summary online is from the American Heritage dictionary and covers Proto-Semitic roots.
For others interested in creating Semitic-inspired languages, check out Rick Morneau's great essay on Semitic morphology.
Past Tense - 1/13/04 - 10:37 amEver wonder how much time it takes to maintain a site like Langmaker.com? Last year every three or four days I would spend about an hour updating the site, for a total of 91.33 hours of work on 102 different days. Since I love the site but have a lot of other responsibilities, my rule is not spend more than an average of 15 minutes a day on the site. Last year I spent an average of 15.01 minutes a day on the site. I probably could have saved that 1/100th a minute overage if I hadn't kept a timesheet...
Language Loves - 1/12/04 - 10:34 amThe Google ads regularly rotate, based on a complex algorithm of relevancy and payment rates. They are not quite covering my hosting costs yet, but they are getting there. The ads are usually language related, but apparently a lot of you out there are looking for mail-order brides, since those are being included with frequency. Viva l'amour!
Zompist Romp - 1/11/04 - 10:09 am
Klingons & Elves on Game Shows - 1/10/04 - 10:58 amThe September 2003 issue of HolQeD (journal of the Klingon Language Institute) reported that their Klingon translation of Hamlet was referred to on "Hollywood Squares." It goes on to say:Meanwhile, Cram, a show on the Game Show Network which forces two two-player teams to stay awake all night studying a stack of materials and then tests their mastery (or at least recollection), has joined the fray. Contestants studied both Marc Okrand's The Klingon Dictionary and Ruth Noel's The Languages of Tolkien's Middle Earth and then had to correctly match seven target phrases. The accuracy of the Elvish phrases will be left to the editors of Vinyar Tengwar to debate, but the rendering of several of the Klingon phrases left a bit to be desired... Tragically, the team that selected Elvish performed better than the team that matched the Klingon phrases. Their dishonor will extend for generations.
Word Lists Re-listed - 1/09/04 - 10:15 am
Two Types of Philosophical Languages - 1/08/04 - 10:25 amAndrew Nowicki wrote in about philosophical languages:
I distinguish two kinds of philosophical languages: taxonomic and compound. Taxonomic languages resemble the Dewey Decimal Classification System used in libraries while the compound languages have compound words defined in such a way that their meanings can be guessed from the meanings of their root words. For example, if you know the meaning of the root words "mail" and "man," you can guess the meaning of the compound word "mailman." Ro and Roxhai are taxonomic languages, while Ygyde is a compound language. It seems to me that the compound languages are more fun to work with because it takes some creativity to invent the compound words. The goal of Roxhai seems to be broad phonology, so that different words sound differently. In its present form Roxhai's phonology is not perfect. If its classification system is precise and easy to understand, its phonology cannot be broad. If its classification system is simple and its phonology is broad, it will be no better than the Chinese language. I struggled with the phonology problem in Ygyde. Short Ygyde words do not have redundant letters, for example: eel = y-bu-bo-bo == ybuobo = "noun-slippery-wet-animal"
"ybubobo" is Standard Ygyde. "ybuobo" is Short Ygyde. It sounds better. I also the changed order of some roots within the compound words to make them more distinct.
Grim Law - 1/06/04 - 10:14 pmJoel Vaugn writes, "I was wondering about what it means for the Dublex work to be in the public domain. Could you please elaborate on what that means? Also, I'd really like to know what legalities in general applied to coined words and artificial languages. I'm wondering at what point a lexicon combined with a given grammar are no longer public domain."
As far as Dublex being public domain, it means I've permanently and irrevocably given up any claim to copyright. You can do anything with the text, as if it was something you had written.
Coined words and languages are implicitly copyright by the original author. You may need permission to print a lexicon and discussion of grammar; it is arguable that under fair use you can publish an analysis of the language, as I have done on this site for Atlantean, Furbish, Lapine, etc. You can also compile your own lexicon for another author's language, if you write your own definitions for each word. However, words can be trademarked (especially the names of prominent characters and places), in which case you would need to indicate the trademark. Certain languages are completely in the public domain, including Esperanto and Lojban.
Obviously I'm not a lawyer, intellectual-property laws vary from country to country, and this opinion is worth what you paid for it.
The Finlay - 1/05/04 - 9:50 pmThe Finlay writes, "Just reading your page on naming here about really long names, and it reminded me of a scene in Hergé's Tintin book The Calculus Affair, where an Italian man's name is so long (Arturo Benedetto Giovanni Giuseppe Pietro Archangelo Alfredo Cartoffoli da Milano) that the gendarme is scared to write it down and charge him with speeding!" Neat story. Speaking of Herge, check out the profile of his invented language Syldavian, used in the Tintin comics.
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