Lilipu: The Bonsai Language
Viktoro
Lilipu is a conlang or "constructed language." Like the miniature
Japanese bonsai tree, Lilipu exemplifies "Small is beautiful." It is
designed as a language in which to create haiku, a Japanese poetic
style, usually about nature, which generally has three lines with 5
syllables on the first, 7 on the second, and 5 on the last.
In Papua New Guinea, there is a natural language called Rotokas spoken
by about 4000 people. It has only 11 phonemes (sounds), consisting of
5 vowels and 6 consonants. This is the smallest known phonemic
inventory in the world.
In Lilipu, my ambition was to beat Rotokas in being even smaller. I
wanted only 9 phonemes: 3 vowels, 6 consonants. The whole Lilipu
alphabet is: a, i, k, l, m, p, u, v, '. (The names of these letters
in Lilipu are: 'a, 'i, ka, la, ma, pa, 'u, va, 'iki.)
The three vowels are:
a as in <father>
i as in <machine>
u as in <lunar>
The six consonants are:
k as in <skin>
l as in <love>
m as in <moo>
p as in <spin>
v as in <victory>
' is a glottal stop, which is like the catch in the throat between
the two o's in "co-ordinate."
The stress in Lilipu is always the last syllable of a polysyllabic
word like vuluLU or mimaVU. The syllable structure is always
consonant+vowel. There are no consonant clusters or diphthongs.
--Viktoro
Peter T. Daniels
Among the languages of the world, one would expect f and b rather than p
and v (cf. Arabic). (Of course since voicing isn't significant in your
language, you might have simply chosen the graphs randomly.) Presumably
/k/ varies between [k] and [t], with the phonemic representation chosen
arbitrarily (as with Hawaiian <k> vs. Tahitian <t> for essentially the
same phoneme).
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Sol Taibi
Japanese bonsai tree, Glopo exemplifies "Small is beautiful." It is
designed as a language in which to create nullu, a Gambozan poetic
style, usually about food, which generally has zero lines with 0
syllables on the zeroth, and so forth.
In Geocitia, there is a language called Lilipu spoken
by about 4 people. It has only 9 phonemes (sounds), consisting of
5 vowels and 6 consonants. This is the smallest known phonemic
inventory in the world.
In Glopo, my ambition was to beat Lilipu in being even smaller. I
wanted only 7 phonemes: 2 vowels, 5 consonants. The whole Glopo
alphabet is: e, g, h, k, l, o, p. (The names of these letters
in Ghopam: e, ge, he, ke, lo, o, po.)
The two vowels are:
e as in <like>
o as in <through>
The six consonants are:
g as in <through>
h as in <through>
k as in <knife>
l as in <calf>
p as in <psitticosis>
The stress in Glopo is always the zeroth syllable.
Rick Harrison
Does Glopo have a word for "the sound of one hand clapping"?
If so, you may use that word to describe our applause for your design.
Etherman
"Viktoro" <DELET...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:98346818.0207...@posting.google.com...
> The stress in Lilipu is always the last syllable of a polysyllabic
> word like vuluLU or mimaVU. The syllable structure is always
> consonant+vowel. There are no consonant clusters or diphthongs.
You may want to vary that a bit because with such a small phonemic
inventory all the words are going to sound alike or be very long.
--
Etherman
AA # pi
EAC Director of Ritual Satanic Abuse Operations
AMTCode(v2): [Poster][TĘ][A5][Lx][Sx][Bx][FD][P-][CC]
Viktoro
Etherman <ether...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Viktoro" <DELET...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:98346818.0207...@posting.google.com...
> > The stress in Lilipu is always the last syllable of a polysyllabic
> > word like vuluLU or mimaVU. The syllable structure is always
> > consonant+vowel. There are no consonant clusters or diphthongs.
>
> You may want to vary that a bit because with such a small phonemic
> inventory all the words are going to sound alike or be very long.
>
>
Actually, this system allows for 18x18x18=5832 distinct-sounding trisyllabic
words... It is sufficient, I think...
--Viktoro
http://www.geocities.com/vixcafe/lilipu.html
Henry Polard
Rick Harrison <ri...@harrison.nospam-net> wrote:
I would hazard to guess that its phonetic realization is [ ].
--
Henry Polard || Grant me the company of those who seek truth, and
protect me from those who have found it.
Tweel
come back here.
"Sol Taibi" <solomo...@computer.org> wrote in message
news:d3d33e5b.02071...@posting.google.com...
> Glopo is a conlang or "constructed language." Like the miniature
> Japanese bonsai tree, Glopo exemplifies "Small is beautiful." It is
> designed as a language in which to create nullu, a Gambozan poetic
> style, usually about food, which generally has zero lines with 0
> syllables on the zeroth, and so forth.
>
<Snipped mockery of Viktoro's post>
Viktoro
Tweel <x@y.z> wrote in message
news:9FjZ8.5566$QY4.1...@news20.bellglobal.com...
> Conlangers can be so cruel...If I were Viktoro I'd be too humiliated to
ever
> come back here.
>
Not at all, Tweel. I thought it was very funny! :)
--Viktoro
Viktoro
Peter T. Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote
> Among the languages of the world, one would expect f and b rather than p
> and v (cf. Arabic).
The Samoan alphabet has: a e i o u f g l m n p s t v '
It is interesting that it has f, p, and v, but no b.
--Viktoro
http://www.geocities.com/vixcafe
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Peter T. Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote
>
> > Among the languages of the world, one would expect f and b rather than p
> > and v (cf. Arabic).
>
> The Samoan alphabet has: a e i o u f g l m n p s t v '
>
> It is interesting that it has f, p, and v, but no b.
Note the g and t but not k and d. This is a matter of romanization, not
phonemics.
Paul L. Madarasz
wrote, perhaps among other things...:
Uh is a conlang or "constructed language." Like the miniature
Japanese bonsai tree, Glopo exemplifies "Small is beautiful." It is
designed as a language in which to create uh, an Uh poetic
style, usually about uh, which generally has zero lines with 0
syllables on the zeroth, and so forth.
In Geocitia, there is a language called Lilipu spoken
by about 4 people. It has only 9 phonemes (sounds), consisting of
5 vowels and 6 consonants. This is the smallest known phonemic
inventory in the world.
In Uh, my ambition was to beat Lilipu in being even smaller. I
wanted only 1 phoneme. There is no alphabet, since all of our
speakers are illiterate. Just grunt (and no, tonal -- or any other --
variations are not marked).
The stress is always on the "Uh."
--
"But please be reassured:
We seek no wider war."
-- Phil Ochs
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Paul L. Madarasz
<pl...@dakotacom.net> wrote, perhaps among other things...:
>On 16 Jul 2002 19:44:33 -0700, solomo...@computer.org (Sol Taibi)
>wrote, perhaps among other things...:
> Glopo exemplifies "Small is beautiful." It is
Of course, I meant "Uh" rather than "Glopo." I have evicerated my
entire steno pool, and promise that this kind of barbaritry will not
happen again.
Etherman
How distinct are they going to be in practice?
Ranava sounds a lot like ramava, for example (I forget which sounds are in
your language).
--
Etherman
AA # pi
EAC Director of Ritual Satanic Abuse Operations
AMTCode(v2): [Poster][TÆ][A5][Lx][Sx][Bx][FD][P-][CC]
Viktoro
Etherman <ether...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:G9CZ8.578867$cQ3.54517@sccrnsc01...
>
> "Viktoro" <DELET...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:D98Z8.68250$pi1.5...@news2.calgary.shaw.ca...
> >
> trisyllabic
> > words... It is sufficient, I think...
>
> How distinct are they going to be in practice?
>
> Ranava sounds a lot like ramava, for example (I forget which sounds are in
> your language).
>
The whole Lilipu alphabet is: a, i, k, l, m, p, u, v, ' (3 vowels, 6
consonants).
http://www.geocities.com/vixcafe/lilipu.html
The phonemes are psychophonetically far apart enough...
A Japanese-speaker would find his or her language sufficiently phonemically
diverse, even though for an English-speaker, Japanese has a sparse number of
phonemes. Note that Japanese also has a lot of homonyms and this does not
hinder communication too much.
--Viktoro
Colson Jean-françois
"Paul L. Madarasz" <pl...@dakotacom.net> a écrit dans le message news:
8fmdjukg5cirqbnd0...@4ax.com...
> On 16 Jul 2002 19:44:33 -0700, solomo...@computer.org (Sol Taibi)
> wrote, perhaps among other things...:
>
> Uh is a conlang or "constructed language." Like the miniature
> Japanese bonsai tree, Glopo exemplifies "Small is beautiful." It is
> designed as a language in which to create uh, an Uh poetic
> style, usually about uh, which generally has zero lines with 0
> syllables on the zeroth, and so forth.
>
> In Geocitia, there is a language called Lilipu spoken
> by about 4 people. It has only 9 phonemes (sounds), consisting of
> 5 vowels and 6 consonants.
5 + 6 = 9 !!!!!!!!!!!
Sol Taibi
> > The stress in Glopo is always the zeroth syllable.
>
> Does Glopo have a word for "the sound of one hand clapping"?
>
> If so, you may use that word to describe our applause for your design.
Glopo *is* the sound of one hand clapping.
Or maybe not. I think it was Martin Gadrner who pointed
out that you could clap one hand by the simple expedient
of moving it faster than the speed of sound.
Etherman
Bart Simpson already figured this one out. One hand clapping is the
fingers clapping against the palm.
John Atkinson
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:3D36AA...@worldnet.att.net...
Of course, g in Samoan denotes the velar nasal, not the velar stop -- a
common practice for languages in this area. It would be very unorthodox to
use the letter k for this phoneme.
John.
John Atkinson
Another typological oddity -- Lilipu has fixed word order
V(erb)S(ubject)O(bject), but A(djective)N(oun). I suspect (without
searching too hard) that this makes it unique among the world's languages.
John.
Sol Taibi
> come back here.
>
Maybe so, but I'm not much of a conlanger. Less so than Viktoro.
But I'm having fun. I hope I'm not hurting anyone.
hs
wrote:
>>
>> You may want to vary that a bit because with such a small phonemic
>> inventory all the words are going to sound alike or be very long.
>>
>> Etherman
>>
>
>Actually, this system allows for 18x18x18=5832 distinct-sounding trisyllabic
>words... It is sufficient, I think...
>
It is an interesting paradox that the art form of the haiku with its
ideal of maximal reduction and shortness was developed in the japanese
language with its comparatively reduced phoneme set and its many long
words! In fact, languages with reduced phoneme set seem to be not well
suited for this - except if you want it to be a bigger challenge to
write short poems...
As for art languages in general, there is another point speaking
against a reduced phoneme set: the less phonemes you have, the less
onomatopoetical possibilities you get!
A good test for an art language I consider to translate the following
old german poem (written by F. von Logau):
Kann die deutsche Sprache schnauben, schnarchen, poltern, donnern,
krachen,
Kann sie doch auch spielen, scherzen, liebeln, gütteln, tändeln,
lachen.
Which translates about as:
While the german language can snort, snore, rumble, thunder, crash,
It can also play, joke, flirt, dally, laugh.
How would this sound in Lilipu (or in Viko)? It seems to me that the
first line would not sound as impressive since the phoneme set tends
to make "pretty sounding" words. (So far for a little defending of my
mother's tongue!)
It may, of course, be a challenge to have a reduced phoneme set and
yet enough power to express pretty _and_ ugly things...
--
Hans Straub
Viktoro
John Atkinson <jo...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> Another typological oddity -- Lilipu has fixed word order
> V(erb)S(ubject)O(bject), but A(djective)N(oun). I suspect (without
> searching too hard) that this makes it unique among the world's languages.
>
> John.
>
Tagalog is generally VSO, but it allows Adjective Noun (more common) and
Noun Adjective.
Kumain ang pusa ng daga.
ate focus-art. cat agent-art. rat
The cat ate the rat.
malaking pusa
big cat
pusang malaki
cat big
--Viktoro
http://www.geocities.com/vixcafe/lilipu.html
Viktoro
hs <h...@kaba.com> wrote in message
>
> It may, of course, be a challenge to have a reduced phoneme set and
> yet enough power to express pretty _and_ ugly things...
> --
> Hans Straub
Well, ugliness can be expressed just as well with "pretty-sounding words."
Why not? For example, the French "poubelle" sounds pretty, but in means
"garbage can." There is irony in expressing ugliness in a beautiful way.
This appeals to me aesthetically. Lilipu does it this way.
--Viktoro
Colson Jean-françois
"Viktoro" <DELET...@hotmail.com> a écrit dans le message news:
38o_8.17809$Ag2.8...@news2.calgary.shaw.ca...
>
> hs <h...@kaba.com> wrote in message
>
> >
> > It may, of course, be a challenge to have a reduced phoneme set and
> > yet enough power to express pretty _and_ ugly things...
> > --
> > Hans Straub
>
> Well, ugliness can be expressed just as well with "pretty-sounding words."
> Why not? For example, the French "poubelle" sounds pretty, but in means
> "garbage can."
But "poubelle" is not a word created for that purpose. That's only the
inventor's name written with a small "p".
Also "Hitler" sounds pretty. Don't you think? ;-)
hs
wrote:
>
>Well, ugliness can be expressed just as well with "pretty-sounding words."
>Why not? For example, the French "poubelle" sounds pretty, but in means
>"garbage can." There is irony in expressing ugliness in a beautiful way.
>This appeals to me aesthetically. Lilipu does it this way.
>
I see, that makes sense. Just as you can say "I love you in Klingon...
--
Hans Straub
Jugoslav Dujic
news:<170720020007292566%ri...@harrison.nospam-net>...
| > > The stress in Glopo is always the zeroth syllable.
| >
| > Does Glopo have a word for "the sound of one hand clapping"?
| >
| > If so, you may use that word to describe our applause for your design.
|
| Glopo *is* the sound of one hand clapping.
May I volunteer to write a translator program for Glopo?
I'm an expert in Sartre programming language:
http://www.catseye.mb.ca/esoteric/sartre/index.html
--
Jugoslav
Javier BF
> and v (cf. Arabic).
?! Why? Cf. Finnish: p and v. I'm quite sure it's rather
more usual to have only p than only b; Arabic is an
exception in this respect. About f and v, well f appears
usually if there's a row of voiceless fricatives in the
phoneme chart, while v if either there's a row of voiced
fricatives (not as usual as the preceding) or if it is
in fact a way of pronouncing the approximant w (the case
of Turkish and Samoan). The phoneme chart of Lilipu shows
no trace of any fricative other than v, so I would
consider it to be an "weak" together with l.
plosives: p - k - '
weaks: v - l
nasals: m
vowels: i - a - u
If I were to create a language with a minimal sound system,
I think I'd rather go for something like:
plosives: p - t
weaks: v - l
nasals: m - n
vowels: i - a - u
Cheers,
Javier
Javier BF
> p
> > > > and v (cf. Arabic).
> > >
> > > The Samoan alphabet has: a e i o u f g l m n p s t v '
> > >
> > > It is interesting that it has f, p, and v, but no b.
> >
> > Note the g and t but not k and d. This is a matter of romanization, not
> > phonemics.
>
> Of course, g in Samoan denotes the velar nasal, not the velar stop -- a
> common practice for languages in this area. It would be very unorthodox to
> use the letter k for this phoneme.
The Samoan sound system is pretty consistent:
plosives: p - t - ' [Hawaiian: p - k - ']
nasals: m - n - g
fricatives: f - s
approximants: v - l
Neither the "t" of Samoan nor the "k" of Hawaiian are a "real t"
and a "real k", but they're rather the orthographical
representation of what I'd rather define as a palatal plosive
(IPA /c/--in fact, I believe "c" would be a more appropriate way
for writing that sound in both Samoan and Hawaiian; choosing "k"
for Hawaiian and "t" for Samoan was just a convention made by
European people not really aware that there exists a middle-sound
between "t" and "k" and different from both, and so the ones trying
to write Samoan eventually decided that it sounded to them more
like a t, while the ones trying to write Hawaiian thought it more
similar to a k). That palatal plosive is simply the result of a
process of "gulping-in" the original row of plosives (the usual
p-t-k), with the original /t/ been moved backwards to /c/, while
the original /k/ been moved as far back as to be turned into a
/?/. As this occurred, sound [k] was eventually discarded as an
allophone of /k/ (now /?/) and so merged with [t] as an allophone
of the ancient /t/ (now turned into /c/). That's why Polynesians
tend to confuse "t" and "k".
Cheers,
Javier
Peter T. Daniels
>
> > Among the languages of the world, one would expect f and b rather than p
> > and v (cf. Arabic).
>
> ?! Why? Cf. Finnish: p and v. I'm quite sure it's rather
> more usual to have only p than only b; Arabic is an
> exception in this respect. About f and v, well f appears
> usually if there's a row of voiceless fricatives in the
> phoneme chart, while v if either there's a row of voiced
> fricatives (not as usual as the preceding) or if it is
> in fact a way of pronouncing the approximant w (the case
> of Turkish and Samoan). The phoneme chart of Lilipu shows
> no trace of any fricative other than v, so I would
> consider it to be an "weak" together with l.
You'll have to ask Roman Jakobson. He discovered the tendencies
("markedness").
> plosives: p - k - '
> weaks: v - l
> nasals: m
> vowels: i - a - u
>
> If I were to create a language with a minimal sound system,
> I think I'd rather go for something like:
>
> plosives: p - t
> weaks: v - l
> nasals: m - n
> vowels: i - a - u
Alan Anderson
> I see, that makes sense. Just as you can say "I love you in Klingon...
Actually, you can't, because there's no verb "to love" in Klingon. :-)
You can say something which translates literally as "I un-hate you,"
or you can say "you are my beloved," or any of a number of recastings
of the idea, but the English phrase has no direct translation.
(By the way, I disagree with your implication that Klingon sounds
ugly. To *my* ears, the auditory gooiness of French is very
unappealing. In Klingon, what initially sounds "harsh" to most people
is more like "clear" to me.)
--
Alan Anderson, professional programmer and amateur Klingonist
proud member of the Klingon Language Institute since 1995
qo'mey poSmoH Hol -- language opens worlds -- http://www.kli.org/
Javier BF
> > > and v (cf. Arabic).
> >
> > ?! Why? Cf. Finnish: p and v. I'm quite sure it's rather
> > more usual to have only p than only b; Arabic is an
> > exception in this respect. About f and v, well f appears
> > usually if there's a row of voiceless fricatives in the
> > phoneme chart, while v if either there's a row of voiced
> > fricatives (not as usual as the preceding) or if it is
> > in fact a way of pronouncing the approximant w (the case
> > of Turkish and Samoan). The phoneme chart of Lilipu shows
> > no trace of any fricative other than v, so I would
> > consider it to be an "weak" together with l.
>
> You'll have to ask Roman Jakobson. He discovered the tendencies
> ("markedness").
Do you mean b is less marked than p? AFAIK the "default
position" regarding voicing is "voiced" for vowels and
vowel-like consonants (non-obstruents, i.e. nasals, laterals,
rhotics and approximants) and "voiceless" for non-vowel-like
consonants (obtruents, i.e. plosives, fricatives and
affricates). And to prove this you only need to have
a brief look at the phoneme inventories of sample languages
from several linguistic families. Only Arabic springs to
my mind as a weird example of a language with b but no
p. All other languages I'm aware of either have p and
b, or have just p (one or several kinds) with no b or b
used only as a secondary allophone of p.
I don't like when somebody tells me: "This is so because
reknowned person X says so". If you want to convince me,
better offer me those objective data that support your theory.
Can you offer a list of languages which use b as a primary
phoneme with no p or p used only as a secondary phoneme of b?
As I said, I can only think of Arabic as an example of that,
while I know dozens of languages which show the opposite
tendency (Chinese, Korean, Samoan, Hawaiian, Quechua, Nahuatl,
Cherokee, Finnish, Estonian...).
Cheers,
Javier
André G. Isaak
uaxu...@hotmail.com (Javier BF) wrote:
[snip]
> Do you mean b is less marked than p? AFAIK the "default
> position" regarding voicing is "voiced" for vowels and
> vowel-like consonants (non-obstruents, i.e. nasals, laterals,
> rhotics and approximants) and "voiceless" for non-vowel-like
> consonants (obtruents, i.e. plosives, fricatives and
> affricates). And to prove this you only need to have
> a brief look at the phoneme inventories of sample languages
> from several linguistic families.
This is a little more complex than you are making it out to be, since it
presupposes that the phonemic inventory of a given language is an
observable.
Many language families (e.g. Athapaskan, Algonquian, Pama-Nyungan, etc.)
are comprised of languages typically analysed as having no phonemic voiced
obstruents. However, in all of these languages, one finds both
phonetically
voiced alongside phonetically voiceless obstruents. I'm not actually
disputing the accepted analyses of these languages (which I consider
correct), but simply pointing out that the typological observation that
voiced obstruents imply voiceless obstruents is not nearly as empirically
obvious as you make it out to be. To complicate matters further, different
theoretical approaches offer a number of rather different approaches to
notions such as 'markedness', 'inventory', and 'underlying
representation'.
[snip]
André
--
André G. Isaak
n.b. there are no monotremes in my email address
Colson Jean-françois
"Alan Anderson" <aran...@netusa1.net> a écrit dans le message news:
24f07aba.0207...@posting.google.com...
> h...@kaba.com (hs) wrote:
> > I see, that makes sense. Just as you can say "I love you in Klingon...
>
> Actually, you can't, because there's no verb "to love" in Klingon. :-)
> You can say something which translates literally as "I un-hate you,"
> or you can say "you are my beloved," or any of a number of recastings
> of the idea, but the English phrase has no direct translation.
My Klingon is not very good, so I'll answer in English -- my English is a
little less not very good ;-)
In Klingon "to hate" is "muS". But how do you translate the "un-" of
"un-hate"?
In Esperanto there is no direct translation of "to hate". "I hate you" is
"Mi malamas vin". "Mal-ami" is in fact the opposite of "ami" which means "to
love" or "to like".
In French (of France) there is no direct translation of "ninety".
"ninety-nine" is "quatre-vingt-dix-neuf", i.e. literally
"four-twenty-ten-nine". I'm Belgian, then I commonly say "nonante-neuf". But
Belgium and Switzerland aren't the whole Frenchspeaking world. And in French
100 is "cent". You can't translate it literally in English, you must add an
article: "a hundred".
When you translate from a language to another you can nearly never translate
litterally. There are nearly always words which need to be translated as a
compound or as a word with an affix, even sometimes as a whole expression.
There are also sometimes expressions which can be translated as a single
word. But can't a word with a prefix be considered as a single word?
>
> (By the way, I disagree with your implication that Klingon sounds
> ugly. To *my* ears, the auditory gooiness of French is very
> unappealing. In Klingon, what initially sounds "harsh" to most people
> is more like "clear" to me.)
What do you think unappealing or not clear in French? Perhaps do you think
the accent is too monotonous?
And what does "gooiness" mean?
Alan Anderson
> In Klingon "to hate" is "muS". But how do you translate the "un-" of
> "un-hate"?
There is a Klingon verb suffix, {-Ha'}, which is usually translated as
"un-" or "dis-" or "mis-". It indicates undoing an action, or doing
the opposite of the action, or doing the action wrongly. To "un-hate"
is not quite the same as to "love", especially when you consider the
wide range of meanings carried by the English word "love".
The meaning expressed using a verb in "I love you" in English is most
closely translated using a noun in Klingon: {bangwI' SoH} "you are my
loved one."
> When you translate from a language to another you can nearly never translate
> litterally. There are nearly always words which need to be translated as a
> compound or as a word with an affix, even sometimes as a whole expression.
> There are also sometimes expressions which can be translated as a single
> word. But can't a word with a prefix be considered as a single word?
The Klingon term being considered here, {muSHa'}, is actually a verb
with a suffix, but the question is still valid. The answer is that
it's a single word in Klingon, but the most precise and accurate
translation into English often requires multiple words.
> What do you think unappealing or not clear in French? Perhaps do you think
> the accent is too monotonous?
Monotonous is a good description, but that's not what makes French
distasteful to me. I think the real problem I have with it is the
narrow range of phonemes -- most of the vowels sound nearly alike to
me, and so do a third of the consonants. Half of the other consonants
don't even count, since they're silent. :-)
> And what does "gooiness" mean?
Imagine trying to talk with a mouthful of peanut butter, or maybe
honey. Now imagine that your words don't actually make it directly
into the air in front of you, but that they form thick bubbles that
the sound has to make its way through before being heard.
That's what I mean by "gooiness". I find listening to French is like
having my ears plugged with chewing gum.
Esperanto, on the other hand, is just boring. :-)
Viktoro
> That's what I mean by "gooiness". I find listening to French is like
> having my ears plugged with chewing gum.
"Fluid" is how most people describe French.
>
> Esperanto, on the other hand, is just boring. :-)
The new music coming out in Esperanto is quite cool and exciting:
Listen to http://radio-esperanto.com
I think Klingon is rather corny, although I realize it's quite exotic
(OVS etc.). It's very marketable to connect the language with the
space-faring barbarians in the Star Trek universe, but I think that is
what makes it corny. Otherwise, the design of Klingon is quite
tastefully original.
--Viktoro
SleatorESM
> French is very unappealing.
Not to mention the way that you could render French speakers almost completely
silent just by sticking something in their noses.
Hey, that's a good idea. Now if only we can do something about that uvular r .
. .
Automort
>you could render French speakers almost completely
>silent just by sticking something in their noses.
>
>Hey, that's a good idea. Now if only we can do something about that uvular r
>.
Tell them it was borrowed from American English. They'll purge it.