Not sure if you're being ironic now?
/Constructed/ languages
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Ektor's saying that constructed languages like Esperanto and interligua are unnecessary because lingua franca like latin (in the middle ages) and english are already widespread enough to be used for that purpose.
The hope with Esperanto was to avoid attempts for each country to make their language dominant,
and instead all people of the world would need only to learn one language.
English is getting close to universal, but its dominance is constantly being challenged,
and it's no easy language to learn. Esperanto has a simple grammar without exceptions from the rule.
and instead all people of the world would need only to learn one language.
English is getting close to universal, but its dominance is constantly being challenged,
and it's no easy language to learn. Esperanto has a simple grammar without exceptions from the rule.
I have sort of a constructed language I've been working on. I say sort of because it's not really constructed. It's basically what I think would be an ideal English (or more accurately, Ingvaeonic). It's named Þéodik, which is a cognate of Dutch and Deutsch, meaning something along the lines of "the language of the people."
The vocabulary is almost entirely from Old English, but with some stuff from later stages of English and a bit from Frisian and Saxon (fellow Ingvaeonic languages). It has 2500 words in its vocabulary so far.
The phonetics are from Modern English, so it's easy for an English speaker to pronounce it right. Old English sounds that aren't in Modern English get replaced by the sounds they developed into, generally. Words are also made easier to say in general, less tongue-twisty. For example, the Old English verb "hweorfan" loses its verb ending and gets modernised to "werv."
It has a fairly phonetic alphabet which uses 3 abandoned letters from the Latin Old English alphabet and 1 abandoned letter from Middle English's alphabet.
The grammar is based on Modern English but simplified, normalised, and expanded in some ways. An example of simplification is the perfect aspect, which is formed by simply adding ha- to a verb, rather than messing around with has/have/had. An example of normalisation is that there aren't any irregular past tenses or plurals. An example of expansion is the reintroduction of the frequentative aspect.
Some more detail:
This is what it sounds like:
http://youtu.be/xHyOWMgUK2E
The vocabulary is almost entirely from Old English, but with some stuff from later stages of English and a bit from Frisian and Saxon (fellow Ingvaeonic languages). It has 2500 words in its vocabulary so far.
The phonetics are from Modern English, so it's easy for an English speaker to pronounce it right. Old English sounds that aren't in Modern English get replaced by the sounds they developed into, generally. Words are also made easier to say in general, less tongue-twisty. For example, the Old English verb "hweorfan" loses its verb ending and gets modernised to "werv."
It has a fairly phonetic alphabet which uses 3 abandoned letters from the Latin Old English alphabet and 1 abandoned letter from Middle English's alphabet.
The grammar is based on Modern English but simplified, normalised, and expanded in some ways. An example of simplification is the perfect aspect, which is formed by simply adding ha- to a verb, rather than messing around with has/have/had. An example of normalisation is that there aren't any irregular past tenses or plurals. An example of expansion is the reintroduction of the frequentative aspect.
Some more detail:
This is what it sounds like:
http://youtu.be/xHyOWMgUK2E
Interesting, especially the simplified grammar. What is the audience for this?
Well, my friends and family generally find it boring, so I guess you're the audience for it.
Yes, I like simple. This project started out as a phonetic alphabet years ago because I was a bad speller and hated English spelling. Later after studying German and concluding its grammar is stupid, then reflectively noticing English's grammar is also stupid, I decided to expand the project to correct that evil too. It was only natural to purge the filthy Latin out of English while I was at it.
Although I alter English's grammar a bit, I base the changes on things already in English. For example, in English we show the progressive aspect (sort of) and the near future by saying "going to" so I simplified that into a verb prefix of ga-. So "Ic gaslæp" means "I am going to sleep." There are a handful similar changes to verbs that, in my opinion, make them less confusing. It can get complicated though because verbs can get built onto a lot; "I had been burned" has past tense, perfect aspect, and passive voice which in my language all get stacked onto the verb, so the sentence would be "ic haȝabernt."
It's easy to compose sentences that make sense to native speakers, but to master it takes a fair bit more rote memory than some other languages.
What makes it a million times harder in native speaking countries like the UK and 'murica is that you can get whole sentences composed of idioms without the speaker noticing. They're a dime a dozen, so don't cry wolf or you'll be back to square one.
Whether a language is easy to learn depends on your native language. It's of course easier to learn English if you're from a 'Germanic' area or exposed to it through culture/TV etc.
Objectively some languages have complex grammar. Other than that it's purely subjective.
Objectively some languages have complex grammar. Other than that it's purely subjective.
If I talk about the Turkish language, the ones who are very good at learning and speaking Turkish are the Japanese. I have never seen a European language origin person speaking Turkish quarter as good a Japanese person. I guess language family has a lot to do with it.Adorno said:
Just learn the grammar and make yourself exposed to the language, and Bob's your uncle, you've learnt the language. (Joke)jacobhinds said:
What about constructed alphabets? I have tried to construct an alien language as well as an alphabet for the language but it didn't go as I expected. I should give it another try.
Tatari_okan said:
You've got to do several iterations of it. The first few tries always look like wingdings and they're nearly impossible to write quickly with, but you can work with those and try and simplify them down to a believable scribble. After all that's where Chinese comes from, and it's actually just as easy to "scrawl" with that as it is with arabic or latin.
The thing is I only liked the result of two within the scribbles I made. Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it.jacobhinds said:
It is also funny you mentioned Chinese, because one of the letters I come up with looks a little bit like this Japanese letter (火).
I feel I should point out that my sig is completely gramattically accurate and such, and follows set rules, as well as being a conlang.
With roots in English and influence from Japanese, Sanskrit, German and binary.
With roots in English and influence from Japanese, Sanskrit, German and binary.
Yeah, I always wondered about that. I can pick out individual letters though and they look hella long.
Why? I'm just curious why you'd take notes in such a, huh, language.Amontadillo said:
jacobhinds said:
Numbers are glyphs based off Square Wave patterns, letters are based off a series of concentric circles crossed by radial lines. and the Sound Source in the centre.
This makes the letters recordings of the directionality and spreading of the words (Sound Energy) emitted by the Sound Source. Therefore, most of the letters are composed of straight lines that go over the Sound Source, concentric circles that have the Sound Source as their center, and horizontal lines and vertical lines around the Sound Source. The arching energy (shape) represents "peace (α-Waves)", the radiating energy represents "stimuli (γ-Waves)" and the vertical and parallel energy represents "tension (β-Waves)".
The entire language was made up by a man with a throbbing erection for linguistics and music for a video game world, and I was thoroughly impressed with the work that went into it.
For a rediculously indepth breakdown, feel freee to read this.
