On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 04:36:25 -0700, "simple_language@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"
<simple_language@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>Paul Bartlett wrote:
>
>> Despite the fact that nobody -- NOBODY! to my knowledge
>> -- besides himself has ever given much credence to his language...
>
>Did you notice foam coming out of your mouth?
Do you notice how you resort to personal insult when propagandising
your auxlang? I know this is typical behaviour of auxlangers, but it
really is bad form.
>About a dozen auxlangers told me they liked Ygyde. Patrick Hassel-Zein
>did most of the grammar work. A woman whose name I forgot posted Ygyde
>article on Wikipedia. It was later deleted. Someone posted Ygyde
>article on ial.wikia.com/. Several auxlangers posted Ygyde info on
>their websites...
I'm a non-auxlanger. I think Ygyde is cute (have always thought so);
but ultimately doomed to failure, falling far short of the claims you
make of it.
>If you have any brains, stop screaming and compare all features of
>Ygyde with the features of other auxlangs. You will quickly realize
>that euroclones are ridiculous.
>_________________________
>
>HALLMARKS OF GOOD AUXLANGS
Reading through this list of "hallmarks", I as a non-auxlanger, don't
see any of these as sensible marks of a good auxilliary language. But
I'm game, so will take a look.
>1. Are the words easy to pronounce? Are there any consonant clusters?
Consonant clusters are not hard to pronounce. Ease of communication is
a key, but words that are easy to pronounce is not the best means of
achieving that goal. Also, who decides what constitutes "easy"?
For example, [@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
is probably the easiest sound for the human vocal
tract to produce. If we study babies trying to phonate, the first
sounds tend to be [na], [wa], [da] and maybe [ba]. Reduce your
language to those four syllables and you'll have something easy to
pronounce for _everyone_ -- but also something that sounds ridiculous
and is ***bersome.
If a language facilitates communication but is NOT "easy to pronounce"
is still superior to any alternative.
Interlingua and English are both very easy to pronounce.
>2. Is it easy to understand fast speech? Can you easily tell where one
>word ends and the next word begins?
Understanding fast speech is a function of familiarity with the
language. That comes with practice and time. It's not a function of
the language itself. People don't talk in words. That's how we write.
People talk in semantic units -- phrases and sentences and even longer
units. In other words, if we were speaking face to face, I wouldn't
mentally break down your statement into its component words.
I've never _once_ heard a constructed auxlang being used by anyone not
writing on Usenet.
>3. Is it easy to make compound words? How long are these compound
>words?
This is a reasonable question, but not a central theme. Compounds
quickly become a burden (especially in a language like Ygyde that
relies so heavily on compounding ability but where the compounds don't
make sense when broken down into constituent parts).
Reasonable auxlangs can have either long or short compounds.
It's easy to make compounds in English; it's not hard to make
compounds in Esperanto or Interlingua either. Long compounds are
ungothroughsomely tiresome. An auxlang is best used to facilitate
communications between people of different language -- forcing both of
them to deal with long compounds is a detractor to easy
communications.
>4. If you do not know a word and do not know its morphemes, can you
>tell if it is an adjective, a noun, or a verb? Can you tell if it is a
>compound word?
This is certainly a useful trait. Familiarity with the language allows
one to answer such basic questions.
This is not easy in English, where we verb our nouns and nounify
anything we please. Esperanto and Interlingua verbs are transparent.
>5. Are there any mnemonic links between morphemes that make it easier
>to memorize the morphemes? Are there any other ideas that minimize the
>burden of memorizing the vocabulary?
Too specific. The phenomenon is only applicable to a language that has
menmonic links between morphemes that make it easier to memorise the
morphemes. I'm presuming that Ygyde has them. Therefore, in your
estimation, it is a superior auxlang.
>6. Is it possible to make arbitrarily long and arbitrarily complex
>sentences that have clear, unambiguous meaning?
Most languages have this ability -- it is not a property of auxlangs
alone.
I can make arbitrarily long and complex sentences in English that have
either obfuscatorily clear or clearly nebulous or any other kind of
meaning I choose. Esperanto and Interlingua seem as capable of long
sentences as English.
>7. Is the auxlang culturally neutral, or does it sound like a relic of
>colonialism?
This presumes that a "relic of colonialism" is makes for a bad
auxlang. Since NO culturally neutral conlangs have ever been
successful auxlangs, this is clearly not a hallmark of a good auxlang!
English _is_ a colonial relic in some places -- everywhere else, it's
just the auxlang of choice. Interlingua probably sounds a little
Italian, so it might be construed as sounding like a relic of
colonialism in -- I don't know, where did Italy colonise? I guess if
you make it sound Spanish, it might smack of Iberian colonialism, but
then, in ever place where the Spanish colonised (except the
Philippines), they already speak Spanish as a first language, so your
point loses its validity.
I willingly admit that Ygyde does _not_ sound like a relic of
colonialism. It sounds like meaningless syllables, otherwise known as
babble.
>8. Is it terse?
This contradicts point 6. Which is it? Terse or longwinded?
English can be as terse as you please. Or it can be mellifluous and
longwinded, taking windings here and there, meandering along semantic
forest paths that lead to candy coated digressions now and again
meeting with the riparian stream of actual communication. I suppose
the other auxlangs could keep up with English on that ability.
Hallmarks of a good auxlang are familiarity to its users, facility of
communication between users, a quality of greatest common denominator
among users and relative ease of learning.
I think it's a pointless exercise to create a wholly new and alien
language and expect people to start using it -- that _detracts_ from
communication rather than sup****ts it; especially given that there
already exists a supreme and worldwide auxlang. A lingua franca that
could be used by speakers of similar languages is a much smarter idea,
but also is not terribly useful for a speaker of a very different
language.
So, languages like Interlingua have their use as interlanguages,
because it meets all the sensible hallmarks of an auxlang; but in the
wider world, your choice is really between learning a native language,
using English or noncommunication.
Padraic
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
|
