FROM: Edmund Grimley-Evans, INTERNET:Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk TO: Jeffrey Henning, 74774,157 DATE: 12/8/95 12:09 PM Re: Re: CONLANG: Folkspraak: help us create this language! Sender: edmund.grimley-evans@cl.cam.ac.uk Received: from bescot.cl.cam.ac.uk by dub-img-1.compuserve.com (8.6.10/5.950515) id LAA12262; Fri, 8 Dec 1995 11:36:05 -0500 Received: from nene.cl.cam.ac.uk [128.232.1.86] (etg10) by bescot.cl.cam.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 0.21 #1) id E0tO5ll-0006zF-00; Fri, 8 Dec 1995 16:35:33 +0000 X-Mailer: exmh version 1.6.4+cl+patch 10/10/95 To: Jeffrey Henning Subject: Re: CONLANG: Folkspraak: help us create this language! In-reply-to: Your message of "07 Dec 1995 23:43:14 EST." <951208044313_74774.157_EHL129-1@CompuServe.COM> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Fri, 08 Dec 1995 16:35:32 +0000 From: Edmund Grimley-Evans Message-Id: > [Verbs end in /-en/.] You already have some exceptions: gaan, habban, seen, do Have you looked to see if any useful dictionaries of Germanic languages are on-line somewhere? Do all the Germanic languages have different subject and object forms for pronouns? I suppose so. Edmund FROM: Lars Henrik Mathiesen, INTERNET:thorinn@diku.dk TO: Jeffrey Henning, 74774,157 DATE: 12/8/95 8:23 AM Re: Re: CONLANG: Folkspraak: help us create this language! Sender: thorinn@diku.dk Received: from odin.diku.dk by arl-img-4.compuserve.com (8.6.10/5.950515) id IAA14777; Fri, 8 Dec 1995 08:18:56 -0500 Received: from tyr.diku.dk (thorinn@tyr.diku.dk [130.225.96.226]) by odin.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA10672 for ; Fri, 8 Dec 1995 14:18:54 +0100 Received: (thorinn@localhost) by tyr.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA27725; Fri, 8 Dec 1995 14:18:51 +0100 Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 14:18:51 +0100 Message-Id: <199512081318.OAA27725@tyr.diku.dk> From: Lars Henrik Mathiesen To: langmaker@langmaker.com In-reply-to: <951208044313_74774.157_EHL129-1@CompuServe.COM> (message from Jeffrey Henning on 07 Dec 95 23:43:14 EST) Subject: Re: CONLANG: Folkspraak: help us create this language! Please try to get a newer Danish dictionary. Your spellings are from before the 1948 reform. Date: 07 Dec 95 23:43:14 EST From: Jeffrey Henning spraak DA Sprog "sprog" do !! doon Or vice versa. DA g0re maken !! make DA g0re Obsolescent in this sense. Use "lave". gaan DA gaa "ga*". given DA given "give". master !! master DA mester "mester". (Of a trade or championship. Obs. in sense ``superior.'') Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) (Humour NOT marked) FROM: Jeffrey Henning, 74774,157 TO: Edmund Grimley-Evans, INTERNET:Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk DATE: 12/8/95 1:10 PM Re: Copy of: Re: CONLANG: Folkspraak: help us create this language! >>> [Verbs end in /-en/.] >>You already have some exceptions: gaan, habban, seen, do I meant to write "Verbs end in /-Vn/." Thanks for catching it. >>Have you looked to see if any useful dictionaries of Germanic >>languages are on-line somewhere? Rick Harrison has a German and Dutch dictionary. >>Do all the Germanic languages have different subject and object forms >>for pronouns? I suppose so. I'll do the pronouns next! Regards, Jeffrey FROM: Jeffrey Henning, 74774,157 TO: Lars Henrik Mathiesen, INTERNET:thorinn@diku.dk DATE: 12/8/95 1:13 PM Re: Copy of: Re: CONLANG: Folkspraak: help us create this language! >> Please try to get a newer Danish dictionary. Your spellings are from >> before the 1948 reform. It's a 1944 dictionary. Being cheap I tend to purchase these secondhand. Thanks for alerting me! Do you know of any electronic word lists? Regards, Jeffrey FROM: Edmund Grimley-Evans, INTERNET:Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk TO: Jeffrey Henning, 74774,157 DATE: 12/8/95 5:19 PM Re: Re: CONLANG: Folkspraak: help us create this language! Sender: edmund.grimley-evans@cl.cam.ac.uk Received: from bescot.cl.cam.ac.uk by dub-img-1.compuserve.com (8.6.10/5.950515) id QAA25980; Fri, 8 Dec 1995 16:49:08 -0500 Received: from nene.cl.cam.ac.uk [128.232.1.86] (etg10) by bescot.cl.cam.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 0.21 #1) id E0tOAej-000735-00; Fri, 8 Dec 1995 21:48:37 +0000 X-Mailer: exmh version 1.6.4+cl+patch 10/10/95 To: Jeffrey Henning Subject: Re: CONLANG: Folkspraak: help us create this language! In-reply-to: Your message of "08 Dec 1995 13:14:44 EST." <951208181443_74774.157_EHL95-2@CompuServe.COM> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Fri, 08 Dec 1995 21:48:36 +0000 From: Edmund Grimley-Evans Message-Id: > >>You already have some exceptions: gaan, habban, seen, do > > I meant to write "Verbs end in /-Vn/." Thanks for catching it. Wasn't "do" one of your verbs? FROM: Dale Morris, INTERNET:dmorris@tenet.edu TO: Jeffrey Henning, 74774,157 DATE: 12/8/95 7:59 PM Re: Re: CONLANG: Folkspraak: help us create this language! Sender: dmorris@tenet.edu Received: from francis.tenet.edu by dub-img-3.compuserve.com (8.6.10/5.950515) id TAA24372; Fri, 8 Dec 1995 19:54:55 -0500 Received: (from dmorris@localhost) by francis.tenet.edu (8.7.1/8.7.1) id SAA19208; Fri, 8 Dec 1995 18:54:54 -0600 (CST) Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 18:54:53 -0600 (CST) From: Dale Morris To: Jeffrey Henning Subject: Re: CONLANG: Folkspraak: help us create this language! In-Reply-To: <951208044313_74774.157_EHL129-1@CompuServe.COM> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I think that Folkspraak is a wonderfull idea! I would like to assist, and I am currently compiling some lists of germanic words. I had an idea for the vowels. I dont know how, but there might be some way to actually asign each vowel a value (based on rounding, front/back, etc.) and average these. That at least would give a basic idea. While I think getting rid of gender would be great, I dont think English should be held exaclty equal to the other langs. I mean, it is spoken by more people and all, but (of course) is the most un-Germanic of the languages! It also might be good to only use vowels with ASCII values, so they could be printed on the net more easily (hmm...maybe not, HTML sure is wacky about those letters past the basic 26 ...). I think it would be worthwile to also get a body of examples of how verbs are declined, so everyone can see how they work. More later ... Dale Morris FROM: Dale Morris, INTERNET:dmorris@tenet.edu TO: Jeffrey Henning, 74774,157 DATE: 12/8/95 10:31 PM Re: Re: CONLANG: Folkspraak: help us create this language! Sender: dmorris@tenet.edu Received: from francis.tenet.edu by arl-img-1.compuserve.com (8.6.10/5.950515) id WAA11482; Fri, 8 Dec 1995 22:18:11 -0500 Received: (from dmorris@localhost) by francis.tenet.edu (8.7.1/8.7.1) id VAA22887; Fri, 8 Dec 1995 21:18:10 -0600 (CST) Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 21:18:09 -0600 (CST) From: Dale Morris To: Jeffrey Henning Subject: Re: CONLANG: Folkspraak: help us create this language! In-Reply-To: <951209021041_74774.157_EHL114-1@CompuServe.COM> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On 8 Dec 1995, Jeffrey Henning wrote: > There are already dictionaries for German and Dutch online. The next best > language to have (because of number of speakers) would be Swedish. I can e-mail > you a file containing German, Dutch and English and you can pick a part of it to > hack away at, if you want. But before you do that... > I have the German and Dutch. In the _Loom of Language_ there are medium to large vocabs for Sweedish and Danish. Im working the math model, it could be awhile. I may need some help on it. I have a working modle of the vowel system. It will be in the first post... > Then, of course, how to spell these vowels? I like having unique two-vowel > labels using just 'aeiou' (e.g., 'aa') that invariably represent the same sound. > No umlauts, slashes or circumflexes! :-) > I definately agree. I used AA and UU. > So, Dale, what would you like to do next? I'd love to make you the > "vowelmaister", in charge of defining the vowel system, with an umlaut here, and > an umlaut there, e i e i o. Are you up to it?! :-) First, you can define the > word for vowel! Since the EN and GE words (vowel and vokal) are from Latin, you > might want to make it a compound meaning "open sound". Heheh...I could do that. I finished the numbers, and some afiixes, and tenses and stuff...man, this is fun! I have but on request, can you tell me about the Dutch person/number flections? I cant find 'em anywhere. Sorry my responses are so short now, but I have put the big one on CONLANG. god daag! (or something like that!) Dale ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Harding, George E." Date: Fri, 08 Dec 95 11:40:00 EST Subject: CONLANG: Folkspraak Weak verbs without inflection in Swedish? How about Afrikaans where NO verb is irregular in the present, and few are in the past. For example "wees" (to be) is "conjugated": ek is ons is jy is julle is hy, sy, dat is hulle is u* is *u=honorific "you," borrowed from Dutch Eddy ------------------------------ From: pardoej@lonnds.ml.com (Julian Pardoe LADS LDN X1428) Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 19:01:48 GMT Subject: Re: CONLANG: Folkspraak > *u=honorific "you," borrowed from Dutch Hang on! Isn't the whole of Afrikaans ``borrowed from Dutch''? - -- jP -- ------------------------------ From: kaihsu@ugcs.caltech.edu (Kai-hsu TAI) Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 11:22:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: CONLANG: Re: CONLANG DIGEST V2 #82 Jeffrey Henning wrote: > Folkspraak is a model language being designed as a common Germanic > language (an "Intergerman", if you will). Once complete, Folkspraak Yes! This should been done a long time ago! Everyone is doing Interromance, Interlatin, etc., forgetting the important Germanic language! Skaal, Folkspraak! TE Khai-su Ka-chiu Li-kang Hak-iN, Hoa-hak, Ji-ni https://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~kaihsu/ kaihsu@ugcs.caltech.edu ------------------------------ From: "Harding, George E." Date: Fri, 08 Dec 95 14:32:00 EST Subject: CONLANG: German(ic) pronouns Edmund Grimley-Evans writes: "Do all Germanic languages have two forms of the pronouns: subject & object?" Well, yes and no. Yes, because the pronouns forms belong either to (but perhaps not exclusively to) the subject forms or the object forms. What I mean by "not exclusively" is that some forms are shared, e.g., English "it" as a subject or as an object form. No, because the object forms have subsets. For example, in German there is the _accusative set_, used for the direct object of most verbs, objects of certain prepositions always and for other prepositions under specific circumstances; the _dative set_, used for indirect objects, objects of certain prepositions always and for other prepositions under specific circumstances, direct objects of a few so-called dative verbs; and _possessive pronouns_, similar to English "mine," "yours," "his," etc. There is even an archaic genitive pronoun set which is very rarely, if ever, used now, e.g., "Ich erinnere mich seiner" ("I remember him") would probably be written or spoken today as "Ich erinnere mich an ihn." In all but the most formal German, pronoun objects (and even noun objects!) of the _genitive prepositions_, "wegen," "(an)statt," etc., are placed in the dative to avoid the genitive forms. Subject pronouns: English German I ich you=sing. (cf. thou) du=familiar only er he she sie it es (er for masc. nouns, sie for fem.) (also he or she for neuter nouns referring to persons, e.g., das Maennlein, das Maedchen) man [non-specific: someone, anyone, etc] we wir you=pl. ihr=familiar only they sie (like Eng., sing. and pl.) [you] Sie=honorific, sing. and pl. Accusative me mich you=sing. dich=familiar only him ihn (also "it" for masc. nouns) her sie (also "it" for fem. nouns) es it (also him/her for neut. nouns) ["man" exists solely as a nominative form, third person, sing.] us uns you=pl. euch=familiar only them sie [you] Sie=honorific, sing. and pl. Dative [to/for] me mir [to/for] you=sing. dir=familiar only [to/for] him ihm (also "it" for masc. nouns) [to/for] her ihr (also "it" for fem. nouns) [to/for] it ihm (also "him/her" for neut. nouns) [to/for] us uns [to/for] you=pl. euch=familiar only [to/for] them ihnen [to/for (you)] Ihnen=honorific, sing. and pl. Possessive pronouns mine meiner, meine, mein(e)s, etc.* yours [cf. thine]=sing. deiner, deine, dein(e)s, etc.=familiar his, its [masc. noun] seiner, seine, sein(e)s, etc. her, its [fem. noun] ihrer, ihre, ihr(e)s, etc. its [neut. noun] seiner, seine, sein(e)s. etc. ours uns(e)rer, uns(e)re, uns(e)r(e)s, etc. yours=pl. eu(e)rer, eu(e)re, eu(e)r(e)s, etc.=fam. theirs ihrer, ihre, ihr(e)s [yours] Ihrer, Ihre, Ihr(e)s=honorific, sing. and pl. Eddy ------------------------------ From: "Harding, George E." Date: Fri, 08 Dec 95 15:49:00 EST Subject: CONLANG: Borrowings jP writes: "Hang on! Isn't the whole of Afrikaans "borrowed from the Dutch"? Not hardly. Whereas certain constructions, vocabulary items, etc. are taken from the language of the Netherlands, we could no more maintain that "the whole" of Afrikaans is borrowed from the Dutch than, say, that English is borrowed from Low German or that Haitian Creole is borrowed from French. This reminds me of one of my professors who, in noting that my Esperanto dictionary had a section for "neologisms," said, "That's funny. I thought the whole language was a neologism!" Eddy ------------------------------ From: Christopher Hogan Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 16:23:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: CONLANG: Folkspraak: help us create this language! (fwd) why not try to apply the lojban root construction algorithm to produce folkspraak vocabulary? i realize that doing so would take the fun out of designing a conlang by committee, but i would be interesting to see the results. would english drown out the rest of the languages? (with over three times as many speakers as the next most highly ranked language) what if you excluded english, as jeffrey seems to be doing when he requires that three languages, other than english, be used to create the roots. it seems to me that the method proposed here is trying to do essentially what the lojban algorithm does, although perhaps non-automatically (i dont remember how automatic the lojban algorithm is, but i would suppose that it was at least partially automated. furthermore, the algorithm as proposed here, seems to be ignoring the speaker populations by essentially considering all the languages as being equal. the result, of language design by committee, as proposed here, will be, it seems to me, a language that, while easily readable to speakers of many non-english germanic languages, will be no more readable to speakers of english than those other languages are already. this is important, because the vast majority of the germanic speakers speak english, and, as you have noted, english has an enormous majority if you count those who speak english as a second language. based on your initial vocabulary, my case does not seem very strong; for example, i would agree with your selection for 'spraak', 'maken', 'kommen', 'seggen', 'gaan', habban', 'seen', 'senden', 'doon', 'given' and 'master'. with 'beholden', i think one can start to see the kinds of problems that will arise. based on the languages presented, 'beholden' seems like the best choice for '!! keep', but certainly, if i didnt know german, i would have no way, as an english speaker to know that '!! keep' was meant (i'd be more likely to guess 'behold!' or at least 'hold'). but considering other words, what about 'kunst' (for !!art), or 'sache' (for !!thing), in short, what about for those words where english has lost its germanic cognate (or at least severly modified its meaning)? the current proposal will select the non-english word in these cases (provided they are shared by several germanic languages), and again, the english speaker will be left no better off than if he or she tried to read german (or dutch). while i will agree that there are a large number of cognates between the continental germanic languages and english, i think that an english speaker could just as easily be trained to recognize these in any given germanic language, as learn a new language. in short, i think that the position advocated here will result in a language that is inadequate, as measured by the standards of english speakers. the position of english within the germanic languages is unlike anything in the romance languages: the potential population of speakers is so much larger in english that a pan-germanic conlang should in some way bias its contributions. like i said before, it would be interesting to see what the lojban algorithm comes up with for germanic. - --chris christopher m. hogan philosophy department chogan@cs.cmu.edu carnegie mellon univ computational linguistics pittsburgh, pa https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/chogan/Web/HomePage.html ------------------------------ From: "Christopher B. Collins" Date: Fri, 8 Dec 95 20:31:32 EST Subject: Re: CONLANG: Folkspraak: help us create this language! According to the Folkspraakmeister, Jeffrey Henning: > principles. The position of Folkspraakmaister has a three-month term, > with each Folkspraakmaister to be elected from within the > Folkspraakgeist community. The first Folkspraakmaister is Jeffrey > Henning (langmaker@langmaker.com), with his term expiring 2/28/96. How are the elections to be held, candidates determined, etc.? This might pose a small problem since the Folkspraak community is probably going to be, for the most part, online. Wishing Folkspraak success, Chris Collins - -- Chris Collins ccollins@pen.k12.va.us ------------------------------ From: Dale Morris Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 21:22:23 -0600 (CST) Subject: CONLANG: Folkspraak words I decided to work some on Folspraak, and began with the more basic elements. Once I can get complete inflectional information I can start to work on verbs (may take some time...). Any mistakes are my fault and I welcome criticism :-). Here is my proposed Folkspra(a)k number system. (BTW I move for Folksprak). 1 en 2 twe 3 dre 4 fier 5 femf 6 seks 7 seven 8 act 9 nen 10 tien 11 elfe 12 tolf 13 dretien 14 fiertien 15 femftien 16 sekstien 17 seventien 18 actien 19 nentien 20 twintig 21 enuntwintig 22 tweuntwenteg ... 30 derdig 40 fiertig 50 femftig 60 sekstig 70 seventig 80 acttig 90 nentig 100 hunderd 1000 tusend Here is the source data for the numbers: # Danish Dutch German 1 en/et een ein/eine 2 to twee zwei 3 tre drie drei 4 fire vier vier 5 fem vijf fu:nf 6 seks zes sechs 7 syv zeven sieben 8 otte acht acht 9 ni negen neun 10 ti tien zehn 11 elleve elf elf 12 tolv twaalf zwo:lf 13 tretten dertien dreizehn 14 fjorten veertien vierzehn 15 femten vijftien fu:nzehn 16 sejsten zestien sechzehn 17 sytten zeventien siebzehn 18 atten achttien achtzein 19 nitten negentien neunzehn 20 tyve twintig zwanzig 21 en og tyve een en twintig einundzwanzig 22 to og tyve twee en twintig zweiundzwansig 30 tredive dertig dreissig 40 fyrre veertig vierzig 50 halvtres vijftig fu:nfzig 60 tres zestig sechszig 70 halvfjers zeventig siebezig 80 firs tachtig achtzig 90 halvfems negentig neunzig 100 hundrede honderd hundert 1000 tusinde duizend tausend WORD BUILDING. Many Germanic langs share prefixes and suffixes that are quite simmilar: Danish Dutch German Folkspraak King(dom) -dom -dom -tum -dom Write(er) -er -er -er -er Father(hood) -hed -heid -heit -het Warn(ing) -ing -ing -ung -ing King(ness) ---- -nis -nis -nis Friend(ship -skab -schap -schaft -skap/-scap (dont know which) Wish(ful) -fuld -vol -voll -fol Hell(ish) -isk -isch -isch -ic Life(less) -los -loos -los -los Lone(ly) -lig -lijk -lich -lic Loath(some) -som -zaam -sam -som Dust(y) -ig -ig -ich/ig -ig (Un)kind) u- on- -un- -un home(ward) ---- -waarts -wa:rts -warts like(wise) -vis -wijze -weise -wis (be)hold be- be- be- be- (for)bid for ver ver fer- (fore)see fore voor vor fore- (mis)take mis- mis- miss- mis- Between fer- and vore-, the F and V should be the same, I havent figured out exactly which one. i think the best way to solve the f/v question is to consult the more minor langs. Usually there is a tie in this case. Justification: I took a looked at the similarities between Dutch, Danish, German, and English, using the most common features. In some cases this is hard, the Danish and English are not always in concordance exactly with German and Dutch (which are, more often). The main problem I see is whether to choose voiced or unvoiced in the common pairs (t/d) and (f/v). For now I based it on how many languages shared the feature and went on plurality. I also used no accented vowels, and used "k" for hard k and "c" for the "ch" in Bach. I did not use "j" when it was in a dipthong. I think that in taking words into Folkspraak, they should conform first to its alphabet. Taking the German Z into TS, for example, maybe? I dont know. And with vowels I personally think that five simple (a,e,i,o,u) vowels are enough. Maybe it needs more. But that would add dificulty to printing them in computer media (unless doubling is used, like the "aa" in Folkspraak. BASIC VOWELS a "a" in father e "e" in bet i "i" in machine o "o" in code u "u" in rude COMPLEX (well, two-letter anyway) aa "a" in flat (Debating this) perhaps an umlaut vowel is needed (pronounced as "i/e" with lip rounding). This could be: uu CONSONANTS: bdfhklmnprstvw are as in english g is always hard j is like a "y" (I dont know if a "j" is needed) c is like "ch" in Bach ng is like "begining" That's 17 consonants and 5-7 vowels. It seems to me that when ever one language uses a vowel with a diacritic, many times the others do not (in the same cognate word). Another big problem is deciding when to use A and when to use AA. I would like to work out a mathematical scheme for combining vowel sounds from the four languages, but I know not much about such things. Any help would be truly appreciated. VERB TENSES Should be regularly formed off of the infinitive. Notice the Swedish pattern of tense: att kalla to call jag kallar i call " kallade i called " har kallat i have called " skal kalla i shall call " skulle kalla i should call Providing the other langs be similar, I think the tenses should be: WEAK infinitive STEM+er/ar present STEM+person/# past hab STEM+person/# future skol STEM+person/# habe and skol could be particles, not inflecting at all STRONG inf PRES STEM+er/ar pre PRES STEM+p/# pas PRET STEM+p/# pas part hab PART STEM+p/# fut skol PRES STEM+p/# (Wait...I seem to remember the Folkspraakmaister saying no inflection of the strong...hmmm...) Person and Number Inflection. On this one, Ill just present the info I have first. Bible English: I am We are Thou art You are He is They are That's it!! I would like to have some more in this formatt. CONCLUSION So these are my beliefs on Folkspraak. More later, I hope! Dale ------------------------------ From: Dale Morris Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 22:49:37 -0600 (CST) Subject: CONLANG: Whoops Regaurding my previous post, In the section on tenses the infinitve is formed by -en or -an, not -er or -ar (my mind is on Latin or something)! Also I would like to credit _The Loom of Language_ and the _Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language_ as my two main sources of info. Erare Humam Est. Dale Morris ------------------------------ From: dasher@NETCOM.COM (Anton Sherwood) Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 20:50:58 -0800 Subject: CONLANG: Folkspraak, Tutonish > > Folkspraak is a model language being designed as a common Germanic > > language (an "Intergerman", if you will). Once complete, Folkspraak > > should be quickly learnable by any native speaker of a Germanic language > > (see table below), a group numbering over 465 million speakers (with an > > additional 300 to 900 million speaking English as a second language). > > Yes! This should been done a long time ago! Everyone is doing > Interromance, Interlatin, etc., forgetting the important Germanic > language! I thought it _was_ done a long time ago. But how about Interslavic? Kiomgrade reakciaj kaj kontrawaj al la internaciisma principo povas farigxi la tendencoj en la fako de la prilaboro de artefarita lingvo - tion ilustras la ideoj de la norvego-usonano Elias Molee. En la j. 1888 Molee faris skizan planon por tutamerika lingvo kun anglo- germana bazo ["Plea for an american language, or Germanic-English", Chicago, 1888]. Post 15 jaroj li publikigis detale prilaboritan sistemon de la lingvo "Tutonish" ["Tutonish or anglo-german union tongue", Chicago, 1902; de la sama: "Tutonish - a teutonic international language", Tacoma, 1904]. La celo de la lasta estis akceli reunuigxon de la germanrasaj popoloj. Law la penso de l' awtoro, aparta diplomatia konferenco de koncernaj registaroj devus akcepti tiun intergermanan lingvon. Molee intence limigas la rolon de universala lingvo kaj estas ema transformi gxin je simpla ilo por hegemonio de unu nacio, aw nacigrupo. Li ecx estias deziranta renkonti la aperon de analogia interlatinida lingvo, kondicxe, ke tio ne gxenu la popolojn anglo-germanajn. Kiel cxefa materialo por la projekto "Tutonish" servis lingvo angla, sed kun granda almikso de elementoj prenitaj el lingvo germana. Por ilustri la aspekton de tiu cxi perfektigita miksita lingvo, ni prenu la frazon: _dis sprak must bi so rein tutonish as mogli_ (tiu cxi lingvo devas esti tiom pure tewtona, kiom eble). Pli malfrue en la j.1911, 1915 ktp. E. Molee dawrigis publikigadon de similaj projektoj, atribuante al ili cxiufoje novan nomon. Drezen: "Historio de la Mondolingvo" (kvara Esperanto-eldono, 1991) p.224-225 ------------------------------ From: dasher@NETCOM.COM (Anton Sherwood) Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 22:58:43 -0800 Subject: CONLANG: borrowings jP writes: > Hang on! Isn't the whole of Afrikaans "borrowed from the Dutch"? It's still useful to distinguish shared history from post-divergence innovations which the other branch later borrowed. (I have no idea whether the element in question is such a borrowing.) Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* DASher@netcom.com ------------------------------ FROM: Jeffrey Henning, 74774,157 TO: Christopher Hogan, INTERNET:chogan@NL.CS.CMU.EDU CC: Conlang, INTERNET:conlang@diku.dk DATE: 12/10/95 5:43 PM Re: Copy of: CONLANG: Folkspraak: help us create this language! (fwd) Christopher Hogan writes: >>why not try to apply the lojban root construction algorithm to produce >>folkspraak vocabulary? Why not?! Why don't you give it a go on a few dozen words, Christopher? :-) >>i realize that doing so would take the fun out >>of designing a conlang by committee, but i would be interesting to see >>the results. Keeping in mind that a camel is a horse designed by a committee, the goal is for individuals to coin their own words, based on a reasoned examination of a sample of the pan-Germanic vocabulary. The fun will come when defining words without common cognates; in such cases compounds are called for. How should the meaning "personal computer" be defined, for instance? Or "football (American-style)"? Or even "vowel" or "consonant"? >>what if you excluded english, as jeffrey seems to be doing >>when he requires that three languages, other than english, be used to >>create the roots. When I said in our proposal -- "listing your proposed word, its meaning and its form in three other Germanic languages (besides English)" -- I meant _besides_ as "in addition to," since the English word is already present in the meaning (more or less). Sorry about the confusion. >>furthermore, the algorithm as proposed here, seems to be ignoring the >>speaker populations by essentially considering all the languages as >>being equal. the result, of language design by committee, as proposed >>here, will be, it seems to me, a language that, while easily readable >>to speakers of many non-english germanic languages, will be no more >>readable to speakers of english than those other languages are >>already. Well, look at the population figures again, this time in order of size and with the percent of the overall percent. EN - English 325,000,000 70.1% GE - German 98,000,000 21.1% DU - Dutch 17,500,000 3.8% SW - Swedish 8,300,000 1.8% DA - Danish 5,100,000 1.1% AF - Afrikaans 4,500,000 1.0% NO - Norwegian 4,300,000 0.9% YI - Yiddish 350,000 0.1% FR - Frisian 300,000 0.1% IC - Icelandic 240,000 0.1% FA - Faroese 40,000 0.0% 463,630,000 100.0% How can any one interlanguage take this into account? You could have: 1) Basic Germanized English Model - Basic English vocabulary and grammar with a phonology and orthography simplified so that it would be more understandable to speakers of other Germanic languages. Perceived flaws of Basic English would be corrected, such as its reliance on idioms. 2) Anglo-German Model - Similar to #1 but just for the English and German languages, which account for 91.2% of the native speaker population. 3) Pan-German Model - A language designed to represent the "center of gravity" of current Germanic languages, with the learning curve for any speaker determined by the distance of their native language from the "center of gravity". I think Folkspraak should embrace the Pan-German Model, simply because anything else seems too "Englishy", though I welcome debate on this. >>this is important, because the vast majority of the germanic >>speakers speak english, and, as you have noted, english has an >>enormous majority if you count those who speak english as a second >>language. This is a good point, but then what do we design? The Basic Germanized English Model? >>modified its meaning)? the current proposal will select the >>non-english word in these cases (provided they are shared by several >>germanic languages), and again, the english speaker will be left no >>better off than if he or she tried to read german (or dutch). Well, the English speaker will be better off than reading German or Dutch because the spelling system of Folkspraak will have one symbol/one sound (a symbol may be a digraph), will have a completely regular grammar and will have a core vocabulary from which compounds are then formed (so only need to master a finite set of words and affixes). >>in short, i think that the position advocated here will result in a >>language that is inadequate, as measured by the standards of english >>speakers. Your implicit assumption almost seems to be "Any language other than English is inadequate." Now I know you don't feel that, but I need to understand your point of view more -- what are ways to make the language acceptable to English speakers? >>like i said before, it would be interesting to see what the lojban >>algorithm comes up with for germanic. I agree that it would be interesting and I would love you to see you post an experiment to this list. >>computational linguistics pittsburgh, pa Before I can assign the proper weight to your arguments, I need to know whether or not you are a Steelers fan. :-) Regards, Jeffrey ------------------------------ FROM: Jeffrey Henning, 74774,157 TO: William W. Collins, 72624,3140 CC: Conlang, INTERNET:conlang@diku.dk DATE: 12/10/95 5:56 PM Re: Copy of: CONLANG: Folkspraak The indefatigable Chris Collins writes: >>> principles. The position of Folkspraakmaister has a three-month term, >>> with each Folkspraakmaister to be elected from within the > >How are the elections to be held, candidates determined, etc.? >This might pose a small problem since the Folkspraak community >is probably going to be, for the most part, online. The vote will be a public vote -- no hidden ballot. Posted by e-mail to the list for all to see. But feel free to suggest and write up more formal guidelines. I'd love to see you contribute something to Folkspraak -- maybe a list of prepositions, or something else. Cheers! Jeffrey ------------------------------ FROM: Jeffrey Henning, 74774,157 TO: Conlang, INTERNET:conlang@diku.dk CC: Dale Morris, INTERNET:dmorris@tenet.edu DATE: 12/10/95 6:14 PM Re: Copy of: CONLANG: Folkspraak words Dale Morris writes: >> Here is my proposed Folkspra(a)k number system. ... >> WORD BUILDING. Cool! >> Between fer- and vore-, the F and V should be the same, I havent >>figured out exactly which one. I'd side with English F. (BTW I move for Folksprak). >> I think that in taking words into Folkspraak, they should conform first >>to its alphabet. Taking the German Z into TS, for example, maybe? German orthography is different than English: spellings 'b' & 'd' & 'g' are /p/ & /t/ & /k/ when final in a word for instance. Do you want to base the Folkspraak word on the spelling or pronunciation? >>BASIC VOWELS I think you could certainly have more vowels -- I would include any vowel that is present in the top five Germanic languages, say. >>j is like a "y" (I dont know if a "j" is needed) English + Yiddish use Y. German + Swedish use J. What does Dutch or Norwegian use? >>c is like "ch" in Bach I don't think this sound belongs at all, since it is not present in standard English, on the principal of ruling out sounds absent from any leading Germanic language. >>VERB TENSES I think this is great. I would just make every verb a weak verb -- i.e., make all the verbs regular. >>Person and Number Inflection. I do away with this altogether, given the posting on Afrikaans. Thanks for all the good ideas! Jeffrey VIS000