Postitused: 23
Keel: English
sudanglo (Näita profiili) 1. märts 2015 10:41.43
Vikungen:A forest is essentially a group of trees, the only reason you might would classify a forest differently from a group of trees is because your language does soAll forests are logically a group of trees, but not all groups of trees are forests.
Real world fact. Nothing to do with linguistic relativity - whatever that might be (your link doesn't seem to work).
Incidentally for a speaker of the Queen's English an arabaro is a wood, and a forest is an arbarego, and a forsto and a kopso are something else again.
erinja (Näita profiili) 1. märts 2015 18:34.46
I don't think there is a language that is 100% regular always, no exceptions, unless it is a language that doesn't allow the full range of human expression. What works logically in a person's mind doesn't necessarily make for a 100% regular language. Toki pona might be fully regular, I am not sure. But it isn't intended as a language that works for everything, so you'd have to be happy with only two words for animals of any sort.
robbkvasnak (Näita profiili) 1. märts 2015 19:52.57
Vygostky gave us a wonderful description of the human mind. We see thinks in our minds like films. Once we try to verbalize them, we are forced to "sting" the individual elements together like beads in a necklace. Image" A little boy dressed in blue carrying red balloons running barefoot down the street." In Turkish that becomes: caddede yürürken yalınayak kırmızı balonlar tutan mavi giymiş küçük bir çocuk (the street on running barefoot red balloons holding blue dressed little a boy.
So, English speakers and Turkish speakers order the elements in different ways.
But let us suppose that we came from a culture or society where there are no "roads" - only paths - or no "balloons" - we would have to describe that. And to a person from a society with no roads or balloons the first two sentences would be not understandable at all even if they did manage to translate the individual words
Now, go back to the film in your brain, i.e. "your mind's eye". Maybe there are some other details that you would like to communicate but didn't in the first sentences - yet those things may not be meaningful to the listener(s). Maybe there are some details that we with our languages don't yet pick up - it is possible, dimensions that only some see and others don't.
The human mind has unimaginable depth and insight - I think that we are just beginning to understand the minute outside or most blatant characteristics in our brains. It is no wonder if language, then, has to play "catch up". We should not try to fence outselves in or paint ourselves into corners.
So, English speakers and Turkish speakers order the elements in different ways.
But let us suppose that we came from a culture or society where there are no "roads" - only paths - or no "balloons" - we would have to describe that. And to a person from a society with no roads or balloons the first two sentences would be not understandable at all even if they did manage to translate the individual words
Now, go back to the film in your brain, i.e. "your mind's eye". Maybe there are some other details that you would like to communicate but didn't in the first sentences - yet those things may not be meaningful to the listener(s). Maybe there are some details that we with our languages don't yet pick up - it is possible, dimensions that only some see and others don't.
The human mind has unimaginable depth and insight - I think that we are just beginning to understand the minute outside or most blatant characteristics in our brains. It is no wonder if language, then, has to play "catch up". We should not try to fence outselves in or paint ourselves into corners.
oreso (Näita profiili) 1. märts 2015 21:32.10
I was going to question your motives, OP, like, "How can you be so crazy as to reject a language with a 1,000,000+ speakers and 96% regularity in favour of one which has 100- speakers and 100%? Are you crazy?" But ya know, I kinda like that.
I don't think there's anything magic about exceptions and irregularity that makes them more expressive. Depends what you mean, I guess.
I mean, while Toki Pona is pretty grammatically regular, if you take it out of context then to be expressive you need to make complicated compound phrases which are essentially idiomatic (coffee is "strong dark water"). Are these irregularities?
I'd guess Lojban is probably closest, if you're interested in a language purely for the aesthetics, not to communicate.
erinja:I don't think there is a language that is 100% regular always, no exceptions, unless it is a language that doesn't allow the full range of human expression. What works logically in a person's mind doesn't necessarily make for a 100% regular language. Toki pona might be fully regular, I am not sure. But it isn't intended as a language that works for everything, so you'd have to be happy with only two words for animals of any sort.Hey! Toki Pona has 5 words for animals (translatable to bird, fish, furry-thing, scaley-thing, bug) ^_^
I don't think there's anything magic about exceptions and irregularity that makes them more expressive. Depends what you mean, I guess.
I mean, while Toki Pona is pretty grammatically regular, if you take it out of context then to be expressive you need to make complicated compound phrases which are essentially idiomatic (coffee is "strong dark water"). Are these irregularities?
Alkanadi:I don't know the answer to your question but I would presume that Klingon, Elvish, or Navi might be better because they are simpler. Or just stick to Ido.Woah, woah, woah! Those conlongs are simpler than Esperanto? They have smaller vocabularies, sure, but they're all as irregular as heck! Klingon was deliberately designed to be counter-intuitive and obtuse! ^_^
I'd guess Lojban is probably closest, if you're interested in a language purely for the aesthetics, not to communicate.
robbkvasnak (Näita profiili) 1. märts 2015 22:05.16
The first problem that other "conlangs" (the expression always reminds me of the American expression "con man": a dishonest person who tries to cheat you out of something) is that they have not passed the Feuerprobe as they say in German - akin to the English "test of time". Just because I create what appears to be a "logical language" (mmmmm?) does not mean that it will prove to be such. What until tokipuna or pona has a PIV and a couple of hundred classics translated into it, has original literature inluding fiction, non-fiction, poetry, theater, etc. Ido never really made it that far. Neither did Volapük. Just because I say that a language is logical and ideal does not by any means prove that it is. After several thousand people have used it over a period of time can we say that.
Look! You don't just take any drug because someone comes up with it and tells you that it will cure you. We have laboratories and agencies that test it first. The same is true of cars, airplanes, gadgets ... we are still working on government. Just because I invent wikipuki and tell you that it is the perfect language to solve all the world's needs does not mean that I am anywhere near the truth.
Z went about translating some well-known works first. And then there was Bologne-sur-Mer and and everybody held their breath ... remember history?
Look! You don't just take any drug because someone comes up with it and tells you that it will cure you. We have laboratories and agencies that test it first. The same is true of cars, airplanes, gadgets ... we are still working on government. Just because I invent wikipuki and tell you that it is the perfect language to solve all the world's needs does not mean that I am anywhere near the truth.
Z went about translating some well-known works first. And then there was Bologne-sur-Mer and and everybody held their breath ... remember history?
nornen (Näita profiili) 1. märts 2015 22:14.28
robbkvasnak:Neither did Volapük.Hm. If you can believe anything that's written in Wikipedia, then Volapük in its time was at least as successful as Esperanto is now. And that without internet.
Bad management brought Volapük down and it created the basis for future attempts at ConIALs.
Tempodivalse (Näita profiili) 1. märts 2015 23:35.21
nornen:The rise and demise of Volapük is fascinating. But I think that it set the stage for Esperanto's subsequent (relative) success. There was a real feeling (up all the way to WWI) that an auxlang could succeed; Volapük awakened the interest, Esperanto caught it at the top of the wave. I find it very lucky that Volapük emerged when it did. Esperanto might not have ever gotten traction otherwise.robbkvasnak:Neither did Volapük.Hm. If you can believe anything that's written in Wikipedia, then Volapük in its time was at least as successful as Esperanto is now. And that without internet.
Bad management brought Volapük down and it created the basis for future attempts at ConIALs.
Volapük itself, however, is a sadly underappreciated language. There are obvious similarities with Esperanto - word compounding, extensive affix system, total regularity. It does not deserve the complete obscurity to which it has been relegated (nor the pathetic Vükiped, whose 50k-odd articles are all one-liners written by a bot). To "eurocentric" tastes, it looks harsh, clunky, and arcane with its ümlauts, heavy inflection and its unrecognisable lexicon. But you can tell that some real care and *thought* was put into it - unlike the knee-jerk reactions that were Ido, Hom-Idyomo, and the other Esperantidos. Schleyer was a genius - a genius with no political sense, but a genius.
Anyways, to return to the original poster: if you really are that dissatisfied with Esperanto, give Volapük a try. You may appreciate the heavy agglutination and inflection. Maybe you can stop the language from dying out altogether - I think there are under 20 people in the world today who can speak it well.
robbkvasnak (Näita profiili) 2. märts 2015 3:41.40
Mea culpa! I didn't want to dis Volapük - just point out that Esperanto is vital, Vola not. And why is Esperanto successful where other languages are not? I think that one main reason is the there is an ideal behind it AND that Z just gave it away to the users, did not seek to profit from it, did not seek to "own" it and "guide" it - unless you deem his further writings as guidance. Actually, the day that Z gave out his first book, it was no longer his, but that of the community. Languages are social acts. They are not one-man shows. The stage of life is constantly supporting new actors who take up where the earlier actors left off. Z taught his part to others and tipped his hat in recognition. Chapeau, mon cher docteur! Merci! thank you! As they say today: Way to go, bro! 
Alkanadi (Näita profiili) 2. märts 2015 6:35.46
I know some languages that are 100% rigid with no exceptions and no irregularities. You should learn Python, Java, or C++. Also, if you learn these languages there is a financial payoff.
I suppose you could also make up your own language. You could write a program that will automatically generate words according to your requirements. Also, you can dictate your own syntax and semantics.
I suppose you could also make up your own language. You could write a program that will automatically generate words according to your requirements. Also, you can dictate your own syntax and semantics.
Bemused (Näita profiili) 2. märts 2015 9:40.53
Alkanadi:I know some languages that are 100% rigid with no exceptions and no irregularities. You should learn Python, Java, or C++. Also, if you learn these languages there is a financial payoff.Thanks for reminding me. Once upon a time I did learn a second language as part of a Uni course. It was called BASIC (Beginners All Purpose Instruction Code). It was a lot of fun and I ended up getting straight A's in all computing related subjects. But computing was not my major and so it fell by the wayside.
I suppose you could also make up your own language. You could write a program that will automatically generate words according to your requirements. Also, you can dictate your own syntax and semantics.
I'm guessing that by now BASIC would count as a dead language
I looked a Java once and it seemed to consist less of actual composition and more of gluing together prewritten pages (what we called subroutines in BASIC) but they had some fancy new name to disguise the fact that nothing original was being generated, it was just shuffling around old components to create new products, like building something from off the shelf components.