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Dublex IntroductionVersion 1.0.0 - 11/9/99 Dublex is a langmaking game -- think of it as Scrabble for people who like to invent words. Rather than the letter tiles of Scrabble, Dublex has 400 word tiles. You combine the word tiles in as many ways as desired to come up with new words. For instance:
You can coin as many words as you like. Most of the words will be compiled into a dictionary and listed on the LangMaker.com web site. Whoever coins the most listed words by January 1, 2000, will win a $100 gift certificate to Amazon.com. The final judge of whether words are entered into the lexicon is myself (though of course I plan on admitting most words). By submitting words and definitions to dublexgame@onelist.com, you are agreeing to place those words in the public domain. The Dublex dictionary that will be compiled and edited by myself will also be in the public domain and will be a resource for anyone who wants it. I am planning on writing a JavaScript application that will prompt you for a list of 400 words in your own conlang and will then suggest compounds for your language using the dictionary. This will be a quick way for you to get more ideas for words for your own language. Additionally, others in the langmaking community are encouraged to come up with their own uses for the completed Dublex dictionary. To participate in the contest, you must submit words and definitions to dublexgame@onelist.com. You can subscribe to the list at https://www.onelist.com/subscribe/dublex or by e-mailing dublex-subscribe@onelist.com. Its a good idea to see other people's suggested words -- they may inspire words of your own. However, you can easily set your subscription to "Web Only" if you don't want to read other people's suggestions. If you don't want to participate in the contest, but want to review the Dublex word list and grammar, surf to https://www.onelist.com/files/dublexgame/. All word definitions must be provided in English, and you are encouraged to adapt definitions from the WordNet database. It's also completely appropriate to invent words without any English equivalents, such as 'cisdesir', "story hunger", above. Since the game mailing list is open to the public, all definitions must avoid obscenity; if you want to define words about copulation and excretion, please use the Latinate vocabulary of English to do so. The heart and soul of the Dublex game is the Dublex language, the language invented for the 400 word tiles. Once you subscribe to the mailing list, you will be e-mailed the Dublex-English lexicon of root words. The name Dublex is a combination of 'dub' ("to give a name to facetiously or playfully; to nickname") and 'lex' (from Greek 'lexis', "word", present in English 'lexicon'). It's also a play on 'duplex' ("twofold; double") since many of the Dublex words you can create have two parts: e.g., 'vocsist', "word system = language"; 'sihbin', "health building = hospital"; and 'nassens', "nose sense = smell". Solitaire PlayFor solitaire play, choose any seven Dublex words at random, then begin to combine them to form new words. See the Wordmaking rules below. The object is to coin as many words as possible. You decide what the words mean. It's just for fun, but if you want to compete with yourself, keep track of how many words you can coin from any seven Dublex words and strive to improve your personal best. It's not just 7 times 7 or 49 words, since you can string more roots together ('vocsistlet', "language (diminutive) = dialect"), apply four built-in infixes, create phrases and even create acronyms ('vadap' = 'VAtDArtPart', "watery dirt part = mud part = brick"). Please e-mail any words you define to dublex@langmaker.com, if you are not a contestant in the Dublex game (if you are, please e-mail to dublexgame@onelist.com). Two-Player PlayTwo players each choose seven different Dublex words (at random or by choice) and try to form the most words from them in a given time period -- say, five minutes. The winner is the player with the most words coined. Three-Or-More PlayWhen you have three or more players, there's an even better way to play (come on, play Dublex with a few friends and spread the joy of conlanging!). Choose seven Dublex root words at random. For five minutes, everyone tries to coin words from these roots. When the five minutes are up, each player reads his list. Any time two or more players have the same word form with the same basic meaning, they each get one point. Whoever has the most points wins the hand, and you can play up to 50 points a game. The goal is to create as many consensus word compounds as possible with your fellow players. Whoever succeeds in this best wins. In effect, you and your fellow players are creating a common language together. ContestTo spur initial interest in Dublex, I'm offering a US$100 gift certificate to Amazon.com to the person who submits the most words to the dublexgame@onelist.com list before January 1st, 2000. Pronounciation GuideDublex, as a language for use in a game, has a simplified sound system that should be easy for you to learn. VowelsDublex has just five vowels, each written by a single letter.
a - as in 'father' Whenever two vowels occur together, they are pronounced as separate syllables: 'moap' ("male parent, father") is pronounced /moh-AHP/. ConsonantsVoiceless Voiced Stops p - as in 'pot' b - as in 'bought' t - as in 'tot' d - as in 'dot' c /k/ - as in 'cot' g - as in 'got' Fricatives f - as in 'fought' v - as in 'vote' s - as in 'sought' z - as in 'zit' h /sh/ - as in 'shot' j /zh/ - as in 'de jure' or 'pleasure' Liquids l - as in lap r - as in rap Nasals m - as in map n - as in nap As an experienced English speaker, you will need to get use to the following:
When consonants occur together in a Dublex word, you may -- if you find pronouncing the consonant cluster difficult -- insert an indeterminate vowel between the consonants. The indeterminate vowel or schwa is a mid-central neutral vowel, typically occuring in unstressed syllables in English, such as the final vowel in 'sofa'. Schwa insertion is something native speakers of Polynesian languages and Chinese dialects will find especially helpful, since consonant clusters do not occur in those languages. As a speaker of English, you will need it less often than they would, but may find it helpful when pronouncing words with doubled consonants: for instance, 'vissens' /vees-SEHNS/ or /vee-s{e}-SEHNS/, where {e} represents the schwa, typically represented as an upside-down lowercase letter e or, in some ASCII notations, as the at sign, @. Stress & SyllablesIf a Dublex word ends in a consonant, its last syllable receives the stress. If a word ends in a vowel, its next-to-last (penultimate) syllable receives the stress. So 'comun' ("communication") is pronounced /koh-MOON/, with the emphasis on the final syllable, and 'comunu' ("to communicate") is pronounced /koh-MOO-noo/, with the emphasis on the penultimate syllable. This keeps the basic sound of the root word the same, regardless of the part-of-speech ending. (Please note that the final consonant always begins the syllable with the part-of-speech ending.) Part Of Speech EndingsThe part of speech of almost all Dublex words (except for a few particles not included in the 400 roots) is indicated by the final vowels, if any. unmarked - noun -a - noun modifier (adjective) -e - verb modifier (adverb) -i - multiword compound -o - preposition -u - verb -ie - adjective modifier (adverb) -io - clause modifier All Dublex roots are nouns. Word PatternsThe most important goal in creating a lexicon for Dublex was to have it always be obvious when a word is a compound form or a root form. To this end, almost all Dublex words begin and end with consonants and exclude consonant clusters from the beginning of syllables. So words are of forms like CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) 'muh' /moosh/, "rodent"; CVVC 'poer' /poh-EHR/, "man, male person"; CVCC 'sist' /seest/, "system"; CVCVC 'catoh' /kah-TOSH/, "cat"; CVCVCC 'malact' /mah-LAHKT/, "milk" . A root like *plant is not permitted, since initial consonant clusters are not allowed, and the word 'campus' /kahm-POOS/ could not be a root but would be a compound of the roots 'cam'+'pus' ("shirt" + "usage"). The word patterns make it easy to tell where one root begins and one ends (for instance, 'duvsir' is clearly 'duv'+'sir' and 'mentvoc' is clearly 'ment'+'voc'). Of course, all final vowels make up their own morpheme, marking the part of speech (for instance, 'vissensu' is 'vis'+'sens'+'u'). While the word patterns ("morphotactics") of Dublex may seem artificial, many languages have much greater restrictions on possible word forms than English. For instance, Polynesian languages typically allow only V and CV syllables; Chinese syllables are typically CV or CVC. This means that when roots are borrowed into these languages, they undergo a lot of change, such as when English 'pocket monster' becomes Japanese 'pokemon'. In Dublex, English 'plant' (from Latin) is present as 'palt', since both *plant and *palnt are invalid roots. Which brings us to the primary design tension of Dublex. On the one hand, root words must fit strict syllable patterns, but on the other hand root words should be as recognizable as possible to speakers of any language. Since it was not feasible to analyze thousands of languages for common forms, Dublex focused in on words from six of the most spoken languages in the world: Arabic, Chinese, English, Hindi, Russian and Spanish (called the six cardinal languages). The primary source of these natural-language words was the Lojban etymological dictionary, which presented phonetic information about over 1200 words. Where possible, forms in other languages were also considered, especially forms in German, Dutch, Italian, Esperanto and Novial, as derived from the Universal Language Dictionary. How recognizable are Dublex words? It is rare that you will have a Dublex word like 'motor' /moh-TOHRR/, "motor", which -- as a technical term derived from Latin -- has found its way into all the cardinal languages (though, in Mandarin Chinese, it takes the form /mada/). More typical is something like 'cafaz', "jump", from the Arabic /kafaz/, a form which won out because it fit the word structure of Dublex best and because its initial /k-/ was reinforced by Hindi /kud/. Matching the initial sound was considered quite important, as it has been demonstrated to be a strong mnemonic, and a high correspondence of word-initial sounds from Dublex to the speaker's native tongue makes Dublex sound "more natural". While early attempts were made to systemize word formation, these methods were rejected and it was done on ad hoc basis. The priority was to take any form more or less as is, if it were present in two of the cardinal languages. If it were a particular high-frequency form, it might be truncated to one syllable, such as 'per' from Latin 'persona', extant in Romance (Spanish, Italian, et al), Germanic (English, German, et al) and Russian, and reinforced by Hindi /puruc/. If no forms matched, but some matched on an initial letter, one of those forms was chosen. In some cases, conflicts with other words changed the available form: 'cat' in Dublex means "cut" as this form is supported in more cardinal languages than the form 'cat' for "cat"; therefore something longer than /kat/ was needed for "feline" and the selection was 'catoh', taking the /-osh/ from Russian /koshk/, with the -ato- reinforced by the Romance form 'gat(t)o'. While word forms could have been generated randomly by computer, looking to natural languages for inspiration provided some needed realism to the language -- and makes remembering the vocabulary a little easier, especially for English speakers. Wordmaking -- How To Combine RootsYou can coin new Dublex words using the following techniques:
Although it is not needed for game playing, a syntax specification for Dublex is available. Happy Langmaking! Jeffrey Acknowledgements
This work is placed in the public domain by Jeffrey Henning. However, Dublex is a trademark of LangMaker.com, used to describe the Dublex game and Dublex software. |
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