Roberto12:The number of syllables will be unavoidably enormous!

Well, for ammonia you'd just say nitrogen hydrogen 3 (NH3) in whatever the words are in Vuyamu.

I do think though that a standardised approach to chemicals would be great, but for some reason I think I'd miss all the latin words. Not that I ever USE them

Out of the few people that would want to use Vuyamu, how many do you think would rather talk about chemicals rather than political cartoons and the Internet itself? Just a thought

Roberto12:Such languages are very interesting...

...but what are the names of the 100+ chemical elements, for example?

I guess they'll be of the form "chemical element one" (hydrogen), "chemical element two" (helium), etc. These are a bit long winded but okay, but what would molecules like methane and ammonia be called? The number of syllables will be unavoidably enormous!

Not that I'm defending Vuyamu, but human languages got along fine for thousands of years without words for Americium, Einsteinium, etc, or even helium.

The design philosophy with Vuyamu and similar projects is somewhat different than the design philosophy of Esperanto. Esperanto strives to be, and is, as fully complete as any modern natural language. Esperanto has words for methane, molybdenum, papyrus, prarie dog, rickshaw, cubit, oboe, groschen, obsidian... anything you can think of in English can be expressed in Esperanto. Minimalistic languages on the other hand try to have as small a vocabulary as possible while still allowing basic expression. They try to do as much as possible with as little as possible, to make things easier. Words for things that fall outside the realm of everyday experience are the first to be thrown out.

I personally am skeptical of this approach though, not because I think having words for Americium or methane are essential to a language, but because a smaller vocabulary doesn't actually make a language easier as a practical matter in my view. After all you don't need to know the entire vocabulary of English or Esperanto to be conversant or even fluent in it. My guess is that if one were to learn the 100 most common words of Esperanto (along with the grammar of course) it would be easier to express oneself in Esperanto than it would be to express oneself in Vuyamu if that same person learned the grammar rules and 100 words of Vuyamu.

That last bit may be a testable claim...

trojo:

Roberto12:Such languages are very interesting...

...but what are the names of the 100+ chemical elements, for example?

I guess they'll be of the form "chemical element one" (hydrogen), "chemical element two" (helium), etc. These are a bit long winded but okay, but what would molecules like methane and ammonia be called? The number of syllables will be unavoidably enormous!

Not that I'm defending Vuyamu, but human languages got along fine for thousands of years without words for Americium, Einsteinium, etc, or even helium.

The design philosophy with Vuyamu and similar projects is somewhat different than the design philosophy of Esperanto. Esperanto strives to be, and is, as fully complete as any modern natural language. Esperanto has words for methane, molybdenum, papyrus, prarie dog, rickshaw, cubit, oboe, groschen, obsidian... anything you can think of in English can be expressed in Esperanto. Minimalistic languages on the other hand try to have as small a vocabulary as possible while still allowing basic expression. They try to do as much as possible with as little as possible, to make things easier. Words for things that fall outside the realm of everyday experience are the first to be thrown out.

I personally am skeptical of this approach though, not because I think having words for Americium or methane are essential to a language, but because a smaller vocabulary doesn't actually make a language easier as a practical matter in my view. After all you don't need to know the entire vocabulary of English or Esperanto to be conversant or even fluent in it. My guess is that if one were to learn the 100 most common words of Esperanto (along with the grammar of course) it would be easier to express oneself in Esperanto than it would be to express oneself in Vuyamu if that same person learned the grammar rules and 100 words of Vuyamu.

That last bit may be a testable claim...

It might be true that you can't express yourself easily in minimal languages, but c'mon, they're still fun (apart from Puna, which is a little bit over-minimalized!)

I'm trying to make it as easy as possible to express yourself in Vuyamu. I just have to modify some of it on vuyamu.wikispaces.com. Although I know it might not really go to the level of Esperanto, Vuyamu will still be good and fun to use. Vuyamu is NOT meant to be a serious IAL like Esperanto is.

trojo:

methane, molybdenum, papyrus, prarie dog, rickshaw, cubit, oboe, groschen, obsidian...

I don't use any of these words, apart from methane, which you can call "gas-with-energy" (a fuel).

There's also always the approach the Dnghu project seems to be taking, where "non-essential" vocabulary (e.g. Scientific jargon, etc) tends to derive more from the daughter languages of Indo-European than IE itself. And let's face it - a LOT of scientific vocabulary, anything ranging from medicine to chemistry to computers, tends to be written the same across most western countries (with minor differences here and there - think "Lead", "Gold" and "Silver" and other rudimentary examples which have multiple variants, e.g. En: Lead, It: Piombo. Even then, many students should learn the Latin names in school when learning the symbols of elements (Pb = Plumbum, H = Hydrogenium (New Latin)).

So basically, scientific vocabulary in the western world has already, for the most part, been completely replaced by "international" variants which as a whole form something like a scientific IAL. I guess Vuyamu can just use Latin variants, or even local variants of chemical names etc.

(For latin variants, here's the examples:
H - Hydrogenium
C - Carbonium
Pb - Plumbum
Au - Aurum
Ag - Argentum
U - Uranium
He - Helium
Facilege, ne? How do those of you who don't speak English natively fare with these?)

So, with this language (and others like it), the "sphere of application" is narrower than in a full language like English or Esperanto. That's okay.

Based on ceigered's post above, I think it would be a nice solution to have two types of word in Vuyamu - native and foreign. The natives would be as described on the website, and the foreigns would be recognisable as such due to their being impossible to form out of roots, e.g. by having consonant or vowel clusters.

Roberto12:So, with this language (and others like it), the "sphere of application" is narrower than in a full language like English or Esperanto. That's okay.

Based on ceigered's post above, I think it would be a nice solution to have two types of word in Vuyamu - native and foreign. The natives would be as described on the website, and the foreigns would be recognisable as such due to their being impossible to form out of roots, e.g. by having consonant or vowel clusters.

In Vuyamu, you have to add "to" before and after "names".

I think I've heard that Neo Patwa has two types of words. The "native" words are the essential words and are like all the words a minimalistic language has. And the foreign words are like proper names.

Many other languages, which are natural, have a limited vocabulary, but English words are used for complex ideas e.g. electrolysis or immunosuppressant. These complex ideas aren't essential for basic communication.

k1attack:Many other languages, which are natural, have a limited vocabulary, but English words are used for complex ideas e.g. electrolysis or immunosuppressant. These complex ideas aren't essential for basic communication.

Haha, and even then those complex ideas are just Latin words pronounced with a heavy English accent.