Poll on Natlangs
Nathaniel Ament-Stone
attractive.
Question I: What, in your opinion, is the most beautiful script on
earth?
Question IB: What is the ugliest?
Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
fascination?
Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
Please give your opinions...I'm very interested. Here are my answers:
Question I: Han Zi (followed closely by Devanagari)
Question IB: Roman (sorry, but I just feel it is very
monotonous...maybe I should start writing in another script LOL)
Question II: Hindi easily, but French, Arabic and Portuguese sound
wonderful too
Question IIB: German
Question III: Indonesian
Question IIIB: English (I would imagine); Latin and Russian I found
surprisingly easy to pick up
Question IV: Hindi, Chinese or Arabic
Question IVB: Anything polysynthetic - I'm just scared of
polysynthetic langs
Now your turn.
Nathaniel
zbihniew
> earth?
runic by its simplicity
> Question IB: What is the ugliest?
I don't like Cherokee but "ugly" is a too strong word
> Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Latin pronounced in a church-like way (when "c" is not becoming "cx")
> Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
I've recently seen a Hungarian commercial at Discovery or something like
this and I didn't like the sound of the language.
> Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
I heard Chinese is one of the easiest. However, I have no experience
with it. To me, it is Norwegian although I don't like the fact it's a
bit tonal.
> Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
An idea of learning Polish (of which I am a native speaker) scares me.
> Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
> fascination?
Latin, Sanskrit
> Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
Every language is interesting but learning Tagalog would be of no use
--
zbihniew
ICQ# 340170009
email: zbihniew[at]op[dot]pl
"There is a goal, but no way; what we call a way is hesitation."
(Franz Kafka)
Marcos
> earth?
Arabic
> Question IB: What is the ugliest?
Cyrillic
> Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Brazilian Portugues (probably because of childhood memories of living
there, but maybe also because of its nasals, like French, which many
people like, and because of the slow pace of speech)
> Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
Swiss German
> Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
Esperanto (depends on your definition of natlang, but is certainly a
living language, unlike most other conlangs)
> Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
English
> Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
> fascination?
Chinese
> Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
Can't give an answer, because all languages fascinate me in some way,
and there is no language that I know for sure that I will never want
to learn it.
Marcos.
Dana Nutter
> attractive.
>
> Question I: What, in your opinion, is the most beautiful script on
> earth?
Hard to pick just one so...: Georgian, Armenian, Arabic.
> Question IB: What is the ugliest?
Hanzi/Kanji, Brahmi scripts.
> Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Japanese.
> Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
Vietnamese, Chinese, French.
> Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
Hard to say. For me so far it's been German.
> Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
Thai looks pretty rough.
> Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
> fascination?
Several: Finnish, Basque, Welsh, Tongva, Tolomako.
> Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
Can't really think of any, but some are lower on the list than others.
Viktoro 9
"Nathaniel Ament-Stone" <nat...@linkline.com> wrote
> This is a poll to see what common themes in natlangs people find
> attractive.
>
> Question I: What, in your opinion, is the most beautiful script on
> earth?
Katakana. They look like sharp daggers... :)
> Question IB: What is the ugliest?
Roman is not really ugly, but there is the saying, "Familiarity breeds
contempt." Plus, plain Roman is inadequate for the English language: 26
letters for 40+ phonemes.
>
> Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Most Polynesian languages are most beautiful sounding. They go well with a
tropical paradise: clear azure water, white sands, and coconut trees.
> Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
It depends on my mood, but I have found beauty in all languages I've heard,
including rough-sounding Arabic and choppy sing-song Cantonese.
>
> Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
Indonesian is quite easy, although I have not seriously learned it. My only
beef is that it uses one grapheme <e> for both the /E/ and the schwa.
> Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
>
Greek, modern or ancient, is really difficult because of all the conjugations
and cases...
> Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
> fascination?
Inuktitut (Eskimo).
> Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
>
I don't want to learn dead ones, but I do like the looks of Ancient Egyptian and
Mesopotamian Cuneiform even then.
--Viktoro
Jan van Steenbergen
> Question I: What, in your opinion, is the most beautiful script on
> earth?
Difficult. I have a weakness for Armenian and Georgian, but otherwise
I'd say Javanese.
> Question IB: What is the ugliest?
Ogham perhaps?
> Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Well, from the ones I've heard I hesitate between Welsh and Georgian.
> Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
Arabic.
> Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
> Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
I don't think one language is easier than another. Every language has
its difficulties, and every language can nevertheless be learnt.
> Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
> fascination?
Lithuanian.
> Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
Any non-European language.
Jan
Prai Jei
> Question IB: What is the ugliest?
them
> Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Italian
> Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
Portuguese - sounds like Italian but with too many SH's
> Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
English
> Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
Welsh
> Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
fascination?
Finnish
> Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
None
--
Paul V. S. Townsend
Interchange the alphabetic elements to reply
Mardy
> Question I: What, in your opinion, is the most beautiful script on
> earth?
Hangul, forsan.
> Question IB: What is the ugliest?
Le alphabeto roman, con diacriticos. :-)
> Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Italiano, Interlingua, Espaniol.
> Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
Io non ha un opinion.
> Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
Interlingua.
> Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
A causa del scriptura, le chinese (o le japonese?).
> Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
> fascination?
Chinese, norvegese.
> Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
Esperanto, o altere linguas artificial sin fundamento scientific,
artistic o cultural.
--
Saluti,
Mardy
http://interlingua.altervista.org
Szczepan Holyszewski
> beautiful script on earth?
Generally old-style cyryllic but for scripts that are used by many
languages there is great variance of prettiness depending on language.
> Question IB: What is the ugliest?
Ogham.
> Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding
> language on earth?
Shona.
> Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
No answer.
> Question III: What do you think is the easiest
> language in the world?
Not sure.
> Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
Basque.
> Question IV: What language would you love to
> learn out of pure fascination?
Susu (spoken in Guinea).
> Question IVB: What language would you never
> want to learn?
Perhaps any language with clicks.
Szczepan Holyszewski
Ygor Coelho
> > Question I: What, in your opinion, is the most beautiful script on earth?
> Sinhalese
> > Question IB: What is the ugliest?
> No real choice since all scripts seem to have some elements of beauty to
> them
>
> > Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
> Italian
> > Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
> Portuguese - sounds like Italian but with too many SH's
Do you really think Portuguese sounds like Italian but with too many
/S/? Most of the people I've asked what language Portuguese sounds
like answered that it sounds like a Slavic language with some Romanic
elements. In fact, the entonation of Portuguese, Brazilian or
European, is different from Italian or Spanish, though more similar to
the French entonation, and many sounds, when together, sound a bit
Slavic. There are also nasal vowels, which Italian doesn't have.
Let me ask you something... Are you sure you've heard Portuguese
enough?
Ygor Coelho
> This is a poll to see what common themes in natlangs people find
> attractive.
>
> Question I: What, in your opinion, is the most beautiful script on
> earth?
I think the Roman script is the most practical in terms of writing,
considering that it's also quite beautiful.
> Question IB: What is the ugliest?
The cyrillic is awful!
> Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Brazilian Portuguese, not only because it's my native language, but
because of the slow and melodical entonation and the nasal vowels.
> Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
The languages from Southeast Asia (Chinese, Vietnamese, etc), because
they are really ugly, and some varieties of German, because of the
'rudeness' of their speech.
> Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
Esperanto and... English!
> Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
I think Portuguese is a difficult language, but not as much as Polish,
Hungarian or Chinese (in terms of pronunciation). People also say
German is tricky!
> Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
> fascination?
Italian, Russian...
> Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
Chinese.
Jan van Steenbergen
> > Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
>
> An idea of learning Polish (of which I am a native speaker) scares me.
Well, personally I had little trouble with it. Of course, the
subtleties in pronunciation might be hard in the beginning, but that's
just a matter of getting used to it. But for the rest, Polish grammar,
syntax and orthography are pretty straightforward.
No, in comparison to Polish I found Russian much harder to catch -
especially Russian stress is something I just cannot grasp.
Jan
alberto colombo
> earth?
Roman, in traditional Irish font
> Question IB: What is the ugliest?
Roman, in courier/typewriter font
> Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Gaeilge (Irish)
> Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
German
> Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
For me, Italian. (Well, I'm Italian :-)
> Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
Latin
> Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
> fascination?
Gaeilge
> Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
Latin. (I had to at school, but I succeeded in never managing to learn it)
PS: maybe my answer are a little biased by my love for Ireland, and my
disgust for Latin...
alberto colombo
zbihniew
hmmm.... I think the pronunciation is not so difficult. You just have to
find the right way of prouncing some crazy sounds. Actually, I think
coniugation of verbs might be a real problem. I don't like also idea of
different coniugations in Russian.
Marcos
> artistic o cultural.
This statement seems to implicate that Esperanto has no scientific,
artistic or cultural fundament. I'm not sure what you mean by
scientific or artistic fundament, but I can't think of a way of
interpreting these in such a way that Esperanto doesn't have it but
other conlangs do.
And talking about a cultural fundament, Esperanto is the conlang which
has that most of all. No other conlang has developed such a wide range
of culture as Esperanto has (Music, Literature, Poetry, Dramas etc).
Prai Jei
news:br23cu$26dpkr$1...@ID-191934.news.uni-berlin.de...
> >>>Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
> >>
> >>An idea of learning Polish (of which I am a native speaker) scares me.
> >
> >
> > Well, personally I had little trouble with it. Of course, the
> > subtleties in pronunciation might be hard in the beginning, but that's
> > just a matter of getting used to it. But for the rest, Polish grammar,
> > syntax and orthography are pretty straightforward.
> > No, in comparison to Polish I found Russian much harder to catch -
> > especially Russian stress is something I just cannot grasp.
>
> hmmm.... I think the pronunciation is not so difficult. You just have to
> find the right way of prouncing some crazy sounds. Actually, I think
> coniugation of verbs might be a real problem. I don't like also idea of
> different coniugations in Russian.
Back in my student days (late 70's) I tried to learn the language, from a
fellow student of Polish descent. It was a bit of a fad following the
accession of JP2. I managed the pronunciation but boggled immediately
afterwards and dropped out.
Paul O. BARTLETT
> > Esperanto, o altere linguas artificial sin fundamento scientific,
> > artistic o cultural.
>
> This statement seems to implicate that Esperanto has no scientific,
> artistic or cultural fundament. [...]
Neighbors, let's please try to avoid in getting into another
auxlang war. Such wars have been going on for generations, and they
never seem to resolve anything except to just stir up more bad blood.
Thanks.
--
Paul Bartlett
bartlett at smart.net
PGP key info in message headers
zbihniew
> fellow student of Polish descent. It was a bit of a fad following the
> accession of JP2. I managed the pronunciation but boggled immediately
> afterwards and dropped out.
Everybody is talking about this pronunciation but it really the least
important thing :D You can pronounce words in a somehow similar way and
you'll still be understandable. Most of native Polish speakers ignore
nowadays nasal vowels and say something like "em", "en" or "eŋ". These
so-called soft consonants pronounced like "sh", "ch" or something will
be still very well understandable.
Mardy
>> Esperanto, o altere linguas artificial sin fundamento scientific,
>> artistic o cultural.
>
> This statement seems to implicate that Esperanto has no scientific,
> artistic or cultural fundament. I'm not sure what you mean by
> scientific or artistic fundament, but I can't think of a way of
> interpreting these in such a way that Esperanto doesn't have it but
> other conlangs do.
Scientific: le vocabulario del Esperanto es un collection casual de
parolas de varie linguas.
Artistic: Esperanto es estheticamente horribile; io numquam lo ha
audite, ma io pote imaginar que illo es equalmente horribile.
Cultural: le selection (casual) del parolas de tote le linguas europee
non ha le effecto que le Esperanto absorbe le cultura de tote le Europa,
ma que illo lo nullifica, perque un persona qui apprende le Esperanto
gania accesso solmente al textos scripte in Esperanto, e non a illos de
qualcunque altere lingua europee.
> And talking about a cultural fundament, Esperanto is the conlang which
> has that most of all. No other conlang has developed such a wide range
> of culture as Esperanto has (Music, Literature, Poetry, Dramas etc).
Io non ha scribite que in Esperanto il non ha cultura, ma que Esperanto
non ha *fundamento* cultural.
In altere parolas, que quando Zamenhof lo realisava, Esperanto esseva
un lingua sin cultura.
Szczepan Hołyszewski
> but with too many /S/? Most of the people I've asked
> what language Portuguese sounds like answered that
> it sounds like a Slavic language with some Romanic
> elements.
Yes, I too think it sounds much like Russian and sometimes even
Polish. When the fado fad first came to Poland I and my friends used
to play a language game with it, we would take a fado song and put
together some text in Polish that resembled Portuguese when pronounced
(you need ISO-8859-2 font):
"Ty masz już talerz,
gdzież ta brzoskwinia?
Miąższ już przegryzasz..."
and so on...
Szczepan Hołyszewski
Javier BF
are so biassed and fallacious that urge a reply.
> Scientific: le vocabulario del Esperanto es un collection casual de
> parolas de varie linguas.
That's what you understand by "scientific"?
Is not Interlingua "un collection casual
de parolas de varie linguas" - e.g. how
many reference languages use "io" for "I"?
(the "scientifically chosen" word - according
to your particular understanding of what is
scientific - should have been "ego", which
is the only common root for that concept
among the reference languages)
Besides, compared to Lojban, Interlingua has
nothing "scientific". Interlingua teems with
irregularities and idiomatic usages which look
unintelligible and nonsensical even to speakers
of those "reference" languages where a similar
idiom is not used, let alone to "scientific"
computers.
> Artistic: Esperanto es estheticamente horribile; io numquam lo ha
> audite, ma io pote imaginar que illo es equalmente horribile.
That's exclusively your SUBJECTIVE appreciation.
To me, as a Spanish native speaker, Interlingua
looks like a pidgin-like corruption of Romance
languages, while Esperanto features its own proper
feel and look that is not dependent on nor derived
("corrupted") from that of other languages.
That your dislike of the look of Esperanto proves
that language isn't "artistic"? Well, many people
dislike the look of German, so from your argument
it follows immediately that German is a language
devoided of "artistic" quality.
> Cultural: le selection (casual) del parolas de tote le linguas europee
> non ha le effecto que le Esperanto absorbe le cultura de tote le Europa,
> ma que illo lo nullifica, perque un persona qui apprende le Esperanto
> gania accesso solmente al textos scripte in Esperanto, e non a illos de
> qualcunque altere lingua europee.
Do you think anybody learning Interlingua "gains
access" to languages like English, Swedish, Polish
or Russian? Or is it those aren't languages of
"tote le Europa"?
Besides, by taking away things like noun and verb
agreement, which are an ESSENTIAL part of their
grammar (a Spanish without them doesn't look like
Spanish anymore, AT ALL), Interligua "nullifies"
the identity of Romance languages which are the
main and essential source of it. So Interlingua
"nullifies" that "cultural" fundament and essence
you loudly claim it to have.
> > And talking about a cultural fundament, Esperanto is the conlang which
> > has that most of all. No other conlang has developed such a wide range
> > of culture as Esperanto has (Music, Literature, Poetry, Dramas etc).
>
> Io non ha scribite que in Esperanto il non ha cultura, ma que Esperanto
> non ha *fundamento* cultural.
> In altere parolas, que quando Zamenhof lo realisava, Esperanto esseva
> un lingua sin cultura.
So was Interlingua. And still is: How many
books are available in that language? There
are hundreds of thousands of books and lots
of original literary works available in
Esperanto already, and there's a whole
cultural movement around Esperanto. And how
many people speak Interlingua? About one
thousand (even such minority languages as
Navajo can claim to have way more speakers).
Javier BF
> earth?
Egyptian hieroglyphic
> Question IB: What is the ugliest?
Canadian aboriginal
> Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Italian
> Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
New Yorker English
> Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
Written Vietnamese
> Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
Written Japanese
> Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
> fascination?
Bella Coola
> Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
Minority Indo-European languages
hs
> On 8 Dec 2003, Marcos wrote:
>
>
>>>Esperanto, o altere linguas artificial sin fundamento scientific,
>>>artistic o cultural.
>>
>>This statement seems to implicate that Esperanto has no scientific,
>>artistic or cultural fundament. [...]
>
>
> Neighbors, let's please try to avoid in getting into another
> auxlang war. Such wars have been going on for generations, and they
> never seem to resolve anything except to just stir up more bad blood.
> Thanks.
>
And the poll is about _natlangs_ only anyway...
--
Hans Straub
The Dębiua language: http://home.datacomm.ch/straub/lang
Ebenezer T. Squint
news:4e14a02d.03120...@posting.google.com...
> This is a poll to see what common themes in natlangs people find
> attractive.
I will qualify some of my answers with:
a) living only
b) living and dead
> Question I: What, in your opinion, is the most beautiful script on
> earth?
a) Arabic
b) Egyptian hieroglyphics, Mesopotamian cuneiform
> Question IB: What is the ugliest?
Cyrillic
> Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Spanish, French
> Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
Russian, most Slavic languages
> Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
Spanish, Portuguese
> Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
a) High German, Finnish (hard for me to get the agglutination right)
b) old Anglo-Saxon
> Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
> fascination?
a) Welsh, Greek, Swahili
b) Hittite, Latin
> Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
Tagalog, Hottentot, Tamil
I hope the answers to your poll help with whatever you are trying to do.
Ebenezer T. Squint
news:4e14a02d.03120...@posting.google.com...
> attractive.
I will qualify some of my answers with:
a) living only
b) living and dead
> Question I: What, in your opinion, is the most beautiful script on
> earth?
a) Arabic
b) Egyptian hieroglyphics, Mesopotamian cuneiform
> Question IB: What is the ugliest?
Cyrillic
> Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Spanish, French
> Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
Russian, most Slavic languages
> Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
Spanish, Portuguese
> Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
a) High German, Finnish (hard for me to get the agglutination right)
b) old Anglo-Saxon
> Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
> fascination?
a) Welsh, Greek, Swahili
b) Hittite, Latin
> Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
Tagalog, Hottentot, Tamil
Ygor Coelho
I've also known that there's a myth or a thought that European
Portuguese sounds like Russian, because of all those schwas and the
fast speech of them, and Brazilian Portuguese sounds like Czech (or
even Polish!), because it's spoken slower and without any or little
schwa. This belief that Portuguese sounds like a Slavic language is
particularly true if we are talking about European Portuguese or the
Carioca accent in Brazilian Portuguese. I don't speak any Slavic
language, but, for example, the phrase 'O medo estimula a covardia',
in a Carioca way of speech would sound very Slavic - /u'mjedU StSi'mu
lakOvah'dZi3/.
Could you give me the phonetic transcription of that Polish fado? :)
Mardy
[...]
> And the poll is about _natlangs_ only anyway...
Argh!!! Tu es correcte!
Excusa me, io non lo observava. :-)
Mardy
Javier BF <uaxu...@hotmail.com> ha scribite:
>> Scientific: le vocabulario del Esperanto es un collection casual de
>> parolas de varie linguas.
>
> That's what you understand by "scientific"?
Un selection del vocabulario basate super regulas linguistic, e non
super preferentias de un sol individuo.
> Is not Interlingua "un collection casual
> de parolas de varie linguas" - e.g. how
> many reference languages use "io" for "I"?
No: interlingua es le vocabulario commun del anglese, francese,
espaniol/portuguese e italiano.
De facto, comocunque, io admitte que non totes le parolas grammatical de
interlingua non es vermente international; ma iste es perque il esseva
impossibile facer lo! Infortunatemente, cata lingua ha su proprie
parolas grammatica.
Ma fortunatemente :-), le numero del parolas grammatical a apprender non
es grande.
Quanto al caso specific de "io", vole leger infra.
> (the "scientifically chosen" word - according
> to your particular understanding of what is
> scientific - should have been "ego", which
> is the only common root for that concept
> among the reference languages)
No: "ego" e "io" ambes existe in interlingua, ma ha duo significationes
differente. "Ego" es le ego philosophic; ma io crede que nulle lingua
inter le linguas fonte de interlingua lo usa como pronomine personal.
Le pronomine personal es "io":
[en] I
[fr] je
[es] yo
[it] io
Illo deriva del medieval "eo", que de facto deriva de "ego".
> Besides, compared to Lojban, Interlingua has
> nothing "scientific". Interlingua teems with
> irregularities and idiomatic usages which look
> unintelligible and nonsensical even to speakers
> of those "reference" languages where a similar
> idiom is not used, let alone to "scientific"
> computers.
No, io non crede que il ha expressiones idiomatic in interlingua, que
non es facilemente comprensibile.
Quanto al "irregularitates", vide per favor (le texto es in anglese):
http://www.geocities.com/linguablau/appendix_double_stems.html
> To me, as a Spanish native speaker, Interlingua
> looks like a pidgin-like corruption of Romance
> languages
Si, isto es normal. De facto, le italianos inculte (e io imagina que le
mesme es ver pro le espaniolos) le linguas medieval es pidgin-like.
E interlingua a prime vista appare como un lingua medieval, perque illo
retene un orthographia simile a illo latin, ma sin declinationes.
> That your dislike of the look of Esperanto proves
> that language isn't "artistic"? Well, many people
> dislike the look of German, so from your argument
> it follows immediately that German is a language
> devoided of "artistic" quality.
No, io parlava super le linguas artificial: il non ha multo senso usar le
adjectivo "artistic" pro un lingua natural, viste que illo non es un
creation voluntari de un homine, ma le resultato de un evolution.
>> Cultural: le selection (casual) del parolas de tote le linguas europee
>> non ha le effecto que le Esperanto absorbe le cultura de tote le Europa,
>> ma que illo lo nullifica, perque un persona qui apprende le Esperanto
>> gania accesso solmente al textos scripte in Esperanto, e non a illos de
>> qualcunque altere lingua europee.
>
> Do you think anybody learning Interlingua "gains
> access" to languages like English, Swedish, Polish
> or Russian? Or is it those aren't languages of
> "tote le Europa"?
No, interlingua absorbe le cultura solmente de su linguas fonte:
italiano, francese, espaniol, portugese e, partialmente, anglese.
> Besides, by taking away things like noun and verb
> agreement, which are an ESSENTIAL part of their
> grammar (a Spanish without them doesn't look like
> Spanish anymore, AT ALL), Interligua "nullifies"
> the identity of Romance languages which are the
> main and essential source of it. So Interlingua
Illo es un aspecto grammatical, que non ha relevantia super le
comprension de un texto. Un svedese qui cognosce interlingua, pro
exemplo, pote comprender un texto in italian; ille non sape que
"automobile" es feminin e "leone" es masculin, ma isto non es necessari.
>> In altere parolas, que quando Zamenhof lo realisava, Esperanto esseva
>> un lingua sin cultura.
>
> So was Interlingua. And still is: How many
No.
> books are available in that language? There
Io non lo sape, ma illo es un numero parve parve. :-(
> are hundreds of thousands of books and lots
> of original literary works available in
> Esperanto already, and there's a whole
Bum! Io scribeva un *plonk*, ma io lo ha cancellate perque
probabilemente tu non sape vermente le numero, e es un victima (como io)
del propaganda esperantista.
> cultural movement around Esperanto. And how
Si, isto es ver.
> many people speak Interlingua? About one
> thousand (even such minority languages as
> Navajo can claim to have way more speakers).
Ma uno qui apprende interlingua non lo apprende (usualmente; io es un
exception) pro leger textos in interlingua o pro communciar con altere
interlinguistas; uno lo apprende pro haber accesso al cultura neolatin,
e pro le tourismo (al minus, io crede).
Prai Jei
news:b5748cbf.03120...@posting.google.com...
Sorry if I've insulted your native tongue, no offence was meant but that's
the immediate impression it conveyed to me. Actually, thinking about it, I
remember that the Jersey dialect of Portuguese (from the large Madeiran
element in the population) had a considerably softer sound to it, so much so
that I once tried to chat up one of the local beauties using my limited
knowledge of Italian : ) She soon put me down by putting me straight : (
Szczepan Hołyszewski
> the phrase 'O medo estimula a covardia',
> in a Carioca way of speech would sound very
> Slavic - /u'mjedU StSi'mu lakOvah'dZi3/.
If there are umlauts e -> je and o -> u then we should add Bulgarian
to the list of Slavic languages that Brasilian Portuguese resembles
;-)
> Could you give me the phonetic transcription
> of that Polish fado? :)
Hmmmm... not an outstandingly exact match but...
"Umie dusić muła kowal Dzija"
which roughly means:
"Dzija the smith is capable of strangling the mule"
Note that "dusić muła" semantically resembles the phrase "walić konia"
which in turn is an idiom the meaning of which is best learned by
consulting a locally resident Polish speaker, preferably male and
adult ;-)
Szczepan Hołyszewski
Ygor Coelho
> Sorry if I've insulted your native tongue, no offence was meant but that's
> the immediate impression it conveyed to me. Actually, thinking about it, I
> remember that the Jersey dialect of Portuguese (from the large Madeiran
> element in the population) had a considerably softer sound to it, so much so
> that I once tried to chat up one of the local beauties using my limited
> knowledge of Italian : ) She soon put me down by putting me straight : (
You don't need to apogolize for anything! Sorry if I was a little
ignorant or arrogant in my previous message.
I suppose you have heard European Portuguese, or maybe a Brazilian
accent such as Carioca or Northern accents, because they are the only
varieties of Portuguese which have many /S/ or /Z/. I don't really
think their pronunciation sound ugly, but it's a question of opinion.
In most of the Brazilian accents, we have /s/ and /z/ as in Italian
(though the entonation is completely different from the Portuguese
one). Anyway, the Portuguese language has many different
pronunciations, accents, so that we have to choose which one is the
most beautiful. :)
Saudações brasileiras,
Ygor Coelho
Crandadk
> earth?
Sinhalese.
> Question IB: What is the ugliest?
Cursives such as Arabic, because they look hard to learn to read, with the
characters all joined together.
> Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Hawaiian and other Polynesian.
> Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
To my ear, Cantonese; in my mouth, German.
> Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
Afrikaans seemed pretty easy for me, an English-speaker.
> Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
Spoken Russian, written Chinese.
> Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
> fascination?
Japanese.
> Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
Arabic (too hard to read and write cursive backwards).
hs
> hs <h...@kaba.com> ha scribite:
> [...]
>
>>And the poll is about _natlangs_ only anyway...
>
>
> Argh!!! Tu es correcte!
> Excusa me, io non lo observava. :-)
>
Javier BF
> super preferentias de un sol individuo.
Esperanto was not based merely "super preferentias
de un sol individuo". Many root choices that may
seem "arbitrary" have in fact an objective and
reasonable explanation for its choice.
Interlingua's algorithm for choosing words is just
one among the many choices possible, and no better
nor worse in absolute terms than the method
followed by Zamenhof, but simply a different
method chosen for a different purpose.
> De facto, comocunque, io admitte que non totes le parolas grammatical de
> interlingua non es vermente international; ma iste es perque il esseva
> impossibile facer lo! Infortunatemente, cata lingua ha su proprie
> parolas grammatica.
Which makes the choice of grammatical words
arbitrary, i.e. the grammar of Interlingua was
made up "unscientifically, like Esperanto".
> No, io non crede que il ha expressiones idiomatic in interlingua, que
> non es facilemente comprensibile.
I can tell you I've found unintelligible
expressions in the messages in Interlingua that
Kjell Rehnstrom posts in Auxlang. I even once
pointed him out some of them and he was grateful
for the input because he likes to be aware of what
idiomatic expressions in Interlingua aren't so
"facilemente comprensibile" as they may seem to
a native speaker of a language that uses them.
I can dig up that comment for you if you like.
> Quanto al "irregularitates", vide per favor (le texto es in anglese):
>
> http://www.geocities.com/linguablau/appendix_double_stems.html
To put it bluntly, that page is calling black
white (so as to _conjure out the black specter
of irregularity_) by claiming that irregular word
derivations aren't really irregular because those
words have "two regular stems" that look "natural"
and "easy" to Western speakers. Well, then so
English irregular verbs aren't irregular, they
just have "several easy regular stems"; and
English orthography isn't irregular either, it
just features "several regular easy spelling
options".
If you have a verbal root "extrah-" and a derivative
suffix "-ive", the regular derivation is "extrahive",
and NOT "extractive", because of exactly the same
reason why in English a form like "explosion" is not
a regular derivation from the root "explode" and the
suffix "-tion". But Interlingua, in its attempt to
"look natural" to Westerners, had to accomodate
many irregular derivations present in the natural
languages of those. These irregularities may be
explained on etymological grounds, but that is no
enough to turn them into regular derivations in
Interlingua. To make them regular, you would need
to define a clear-cut set of rules that determine
and govern e.g. the shift from -h- to -ct- and
have those rules applied consistenly and autonomously
in the languae, i.e. not subject to whether the
resulting form is used or not in a set of "outside"
reference languages (i.e. not subject to whether
the native speakers of certain languages will find
them "natural", that is familiar-looking).
> > No, io parlava super le linguas artificial: il non ha multo senso usar le
> > adjectivo "artistic" pro un lingua natural, viste que illo non es un
> > creation voluntari de un homine, ma le resultato de un evolution.
Why do you think "artificial" languages are to be
judged differently as for their "artistic" quality?
To start with, Esperanto is no longer just an
"artificial" language - it already has its own native
speakers and a century-old history and evolution
behind it (there are creoles that can't claim to
be that old). But also, the history of how a linguistic
system has come into existence is of no relevance
as for the judgement of its "esthetic qualities".
As a linguistic system, Esperanto has no different
properties from any other language that a linguist
could use to identify it as "artificial". People know
it is a constructed language only because they have
been told so, but if you knew nothing about it and
someone showed you an array of descriptions of
different languages, including one of Esperanto
and other of Aymara, and asked you to sort out
which of those languages are "natural" and which
are "artificial" basing your judgement upon the
data of their linguistic properties, you would most
probably point out Aymara as an "artificial" language
because of its astonishing degree of grammatical
regularity and because it features grammatical
properties that look very "alien" to Europeans.
But then, someone would tell you Aymara is the
native tongue of many Bolivians, so what then?
Would you say "Oh well, then I change my mind
and now I no longer claim it doesn't look
'artistic' because it actually is a natural
language and I am very careful using the
adjective 'artistic' for natural languages"?
> > Besides, by taking away things like noun and verb
> > agreement, which are an ESSENTIAL part of their
> > grammar (a Spanish without them doesn't look like
> > Spanish anymore, AT ALL), Interligua "nullifies"
> > the identity of Romance languages which are the
> > main and essential source of it. So Interlingua
>
> Illo es un aspecto grammatical, que non ha relevantia super le
> comprension de un texto.
But that grammatical aspect has all relevance
in making Interlingua look like a jarring artificial
invention to Romance ears (similar to the effect that
in English produces hearing "Him want that things"),
which is the complete opposite effect to the loud
claim that Interligua looks "natural" (and thus
supposedly "beautiful" as opposed to the alleged
"ugly artificialness" of Esperanto).
> > > In altere parolas, que quando Zamenhof lo realisava, Esperanto esseva
> > > un lingua sin cultura.
> >
> > So was Interlingua. And still is: How many
>
> No.
How come not? Do you think that mere word borrowing
endows a language with the "culture" of the source
language? If so, then English is a tremendously
"multicultural" language, while Icelandic is almost
"cultureless".
Languages by themselves do not have "culture" (except
maybe for the amount of original literature written
in that language, and in this respect Esperanto far
outbeats Interlingua). Languages _reflect_ cultures,
which is quite a different matter. And in this respect
Esperanto is a language of the European culture,
because its semantics and pragmatics reflect the
European world view, and Interlingua is no different
(nor "better") than Esperanto in this respect.
> probabilemente tu non sape vermente le numero, e es un victima (como io)
> del propaganda esperantista.
I'm not a victim of Esperantist propaganda, be sure
of that (in fact, I've been known in this group for
criticizing some linguistic aspects Esperanto).
Nobody knows for sure how many people actually
speak ANY language. The number of one million
Esperanto speakers is the pessimist's estimate
figure (the optimist's one is around 10 million).
> > cultural movement around Esperanto. And how
>
> Si, isto es ver.
Then, how come you claim Esperanto has "no culture"?
> > many people speak Interlingua? About one
> > thousand (even such minority languages as
> > Navajo can claim to have way more speakers).
>
> Ma uno qui apprende interlingua non lo apprende (usualmente; io es un
> exception) pro leger textos in interlingua o pro communciar con altere
> interlinguistas; uno lo apprende pro haber accesso al cultura neolatin,
> e pro le tourismo (al minus, io crede).
But that's quite a limited scope for an
allegedly "international" language, isn't it?
(it wouldn't even qualify for "intereuropean",
since it is not meant to gain you access to
Germanic and Slavic areas).
Cheers,
Javier
Mardy
> de un sol individuo". Many root choices that may
> seem "arbitrary" have in fact an objective and
> reasonable explanation for its choice.
Si, "many".
> Interlingua's algorithm for choosing words is just
> one among the many choices possible, and no better
> nor worse in absolute terms than the method
> followed by Zamenhof, but simply a different
> method chosen for a different purpose.
Si, io es de accordo super le facto que esperanto e interlingua non es
facilemente comparabile, a causa del scopos differente.
Ma durante que le "algorithmo" de construction del vocabulario de
interlingua es replicabile (i.e.: si tu usa le mesme methodo, tu obtene
le mesmo resultato -- o multo simile), le "algorithmo" de construction
del esperanto non existe: cata persona obtenerea un resultato
differente.
Un ex esperantista ha scripte que ille non comprendeva le ration pro
"lernejo" == "school", viste que "skolo" haberea essite multo plus
international.
>> De facto, comocunque, io admitte que non totes le parolas grammatical de
>> interlingua non es vermente international; ma iste es perque il esseva
[io realisa que io poneva un "non" in excesso! Ma tu ha comprendite ben :-) ]
>> impossibile facer lo! Infortunatemente, cata lingua ha su proprie
>> parolas grammatica.
>
> Which makes the choice of grammatical words
> arbitrary, i.e. the grammar of Interlingua was
> made up "unscientifically, like Esperanto".
No, no, no!!! Non face conclusiones in haste! Isto significa que non
tote le parolas grammatical de interlingua es prendite secundo le
methodologia usate per le resto del vocabulario. Illos es prendite in
maniera de ganiar le maxime comprensibilitate.
Pro exemplo, pro "[en]but", interlingua usa "ma", que non suffice le
regulas del tres linguas fonte, ma que es sufficientemente internation
gratias al expression italian (e international, musicalmente) "allegro
ma non troppo".
> I can tell you I've found unintelligible
> expressions in the messages in Interlingua that
> Kjell Rehnstrom posts in Auxlang. I even once
Si, isto es possibile; e il es possibile que io mesme usa tal
expressiones in mi textos.
Ma istos non es expressiones idiomatic de interlingua, ma expressiones
idiomatic del proprie lingua matre (pro me le italiano, pro Kjell le
svedese) que inadvertitemente nos "reversa" in interlingua.
Ma isto es un error que io pote facer in omne lingua, mesmo in
esperanto.
Per exemplo, in italiano "to be clever" es "essere in gamba"
(literalmente: "to be in leg"); assi, alicun italianos scribe "you are
in leg!", e illes poterea facer le mesme error sia in interlingua sia in
esperanto.
> words have "two regular stems" that look "natural"
> and "easy" to Western speakers. Well, then so
> English irregular verbs aren't irregular, they
> just have "several easy regular stems"; and
> English orthography isn't irregular either, it
> just features "several regular easy spelling
> options".
1) Il ha un differentia inter le "irregularitates" de interlingua e
illos del anglese: in anglese, le passato irregular "fallen" non es
presente in alicun altere parola, ergo illo debe esser memorisate per
se. Le forma contracte del passatos de interlingua, in vice, es presente
in al minus quatro-cinque altere parolas INTERNATIONAL.
2) Le plus grande error de Zamenhof, in mi opinion, es que ille
supponeva que le major difficultate in le apprendimento de un lingua
esseva le grande vocabulario e le irregularitates lexical. Ma omne
linguista sape que isto es ver solmente in (minime) parte!
De facto, le difficultate del anglese non es le passatos irregular.
Io non ha trovate un sol persona qui habeva difficultate a apprender
"speak, spoke, spoken"!
3) Le verbos que in Interlingua admitte un duple forma pro le passato
non pote esser appellate "irregular": illos es verbos perfectemente
regular; lo que manca es le exacte correspondentia inter le verbo e le
{substantivos, adverbios, adjectivos} que deriva ex illo.
Io lege, io legeva, io ha legite: regular
|
correspondentia irregular
|
lection, lectura, lector
Ma il es importante notar que iste correspondentia manca (del toto, o in
grande parte) in altere linguas, como p.ex. in anglese:
I read, I read, I have read
|
lesson/lection, reading, reader
Ma necuno (secundo mi cognoscentia) ha trovate le anglese difficile pro
iste ration.
> Interlingua. To make them regular, you would need
> to define a clear-cut set of rules that determine
> and govern e.g. the shift from -h- to -ct- and
> have those rules applied consistenly and autonomously
> in the languae, i.e. not subject to whether the
No, ma quasi. :-)
Le formas collateral es contractiones que se ha evolvite in le tempore,
e es facilemente reproducibile; illos es pauc e, in ultra, multe verbos
ha le mesme radice, que ha le mesme forma in tote le derivatos.
Isto, in union con le punctos 1), 2), 3), face que le duple formas del
radice verbal in interlingua es nullemente un problema.
Le difficultates de interlingua es alteres, ma io nunquam los scribera
publicamente! ;-)
Tu debe apprender lo, e criticar successivemente. :-)
> Why do you think "artificial" languages are to be
> judged differently as for their "artistic" quality?
Perque linguas natural non pote esser creationes artistic, ma solmente
le resultato de un evolution (plus o minus fortiate).
> To start with, Esperanto is no longer just an
> "artificial" language - it already has its own native
> speakers and a century-old history and evolution
Evolution? Isto es un surprisa pro me!
Io sape que il ha habite plure tentativas de reformation del esperanto
(e ido es le plus famose), ma le communitate "religiose" del
esperantistas non pote acceptar modificationes a lor Biblia. ;-)
> be that old). But also, the history of how a linguistic
> system has come into existence is of no relevance
> as for the judgement of its "esthetic qualities".
E io non ha dicite isto.
> But then, someone would tell you Aymara is the
> native tongue of many Bolivians, so what then?
Isto es interessante. Esque tu sape explicar me plus precisemente quante
es illes "many"?
> Would you say "Oh well, then I change my mind
> and now I no longer claim it doesn't look
> 'artistic' because it actually is a natural
> language and I am very careful using the
> adjective 'artistic' for natural languages"?
Solmente un creation pote esser artistic, al minus in mi opinion.
Assi, esperanto poterea esser artistic, ma le Aymara non (si illo es un
lingua natural).
>> Illo es un aspecto grammatical, que non ha relevantia super le
>> comprension de un texto.
>
> But that grammatical aspect has all relevance
> in making Interlingua look like a jarring artificial
> invention to Romance ears (similar to the effect that
> in English produces hearing "Him want that things"),
> which is the complete opposite effect to the loud
> claim that Interligua looks "natural" (and thus
> supposedly "beautiful" as opposed to the alleged
> "ugly artificialness" of Esperanto).
Tu cambia thema con un facilitate impressionante. :-)
Quando io legeva interlingua pro le prime vice, io pensava que illo
esseva espaniol. A alteres, illo sembla un italiano medieval. Ma io
ancora non ha trovate un sol persona que comprendeva immediatemente que
illo esseva un lingua planificate.
> How come not? Do you think that mere word borrowing
> endows a language with the "culture" of the source
> language? If so, then English is a tremendously
> "multicultural" language, while Icelandic is almost
> "cultureless".
Quanto al anglese, io concorda. Quanto al islandese, io non ha bastante
informationes pro exprimer un opinion.
> Languages by themselves do not have "culture" (except
> maybe for the amount of original literature written
> in that language, and in this respect Esperanto far
> outbeats Interlingua). Languages _reflect_ cultures,
> which is quite a different matter. And in this respect
> Esperanto is a language of the European culture,
> because its semantics and pragmatics reflect the
> European world view, and Interlingua is no different
> (nor "better") than Esperanto in this respect.
rotfl!
In qual senso Esperanto reflecte le cultura Europee?
>> > cultural movement around Esperanto. And how
>>
>> Si, isto es ver.
>
> Then, how come you claim Esperanto has "no culture"?
Qui diceva isto??
>> Ma uno qui apprende interlingua non lo apprende (usualmente; io es un
>> exception) pro leger textos in interlingua o pro communciar con altere
>> interlinguistas; uno lo apprende pro haber accesso al cultura neolatin,
>> e pro le tourismo (al minus, io crede).
>
> But that's quite a limited scope for an
> allegedly "international" language, isn't it?
E qual es le scopo del esperanto? Illo de parlar con altere
esperantistas? Illo de leger cento libros in esperanto?
Perque non le Aymara?
Javier BF
> > de un sol individuo". Many root choices that may
> > seem "arbitrary" have in fact an objective and
> > reasonable explanation for its choice.
>
> Si, "many".
Yes, many with their many reasonable explanations.
You can have a look at the Auxlang archives for the
past weeks, where some of these explanations have
been shown.
> Ma durante que le "algorithmo" de construction del vocabulario de
> interlingua es replicabile (i.e.: si tu usa le mesme methodo, tu obtene
> le mesmo resultato -- o multo simile), le "algorithmo" de construction
> del esperanto non existe: cata persona obtenerea un resultato
> differente.
So what? Unless each speaker acquires and carries
with them a set of diccionaries of the reference
languages to be able to perform the algorithm by
themselves or else they learn all the reference
languages in advance, that algorithm is of no use
for them as learners and users of the language,
because they still need to learn what word the
algorithm determines to be the chosen one. I,
as a Spanish speaker, have no means to figure out
whether a certain Spanish word happens to be shared
or not by French or Italian unless I check it out
in a dictionary of those languages or else learn
them in advance. So what difference does it make
to use the method of Interlingua or the method
of Esperanto, if either way the learner must
memorize which words are finally the chosen ones.
> Un ex esperantista ha scripte que ille non comprendeva le ration pro
> "lernejo" == "school", viste que "skolo" haberea essite multo plus
> international.
What's the _reason_ for "lernejo"?? And what's the
_reason_ for, say, "policeman", if may I know?
"Lernejo" is a straightforward derivation, which anybody
who has learned the basic roots "lern" and "ej" can
understand, while "skolo" is a whole new root to memorize.
To a Westerner, it may seem obvious what the meaning of
that new root "skol" is, but it's not quite so for speakers
of Arabic or Chinese. An Arabic speaker would be expecting
something like "madraso" for that concept - the Arabic
word for 'school', "madrasa" being itself a derivative
from the Arabic root that means 'to learn', so for an
Arabic speaker a word like "lernejo" makes straightforward
sense once they've learned the basics of the language
while a new word like "skolo" looks cryptic until they
look it up in a dictionary and memorize its meaning).
If there's a point in Esperanto that undeniably helps
in making it easy to learn and use, that's precisely
the fact that with just a limited set of basic roots the
speaker can already pretty much cope with most everyday
communicative needs, which makes it possible for the
learner to acquire good level of fluency within a short
period of time (which can even amount to 10 times
shorter than the average time to acquire fluency in
a natlang). While to learn languages like Interlingua
or English, the learner that is not already acquainted
with related languages must waste an enormous amount
of time and effort in learning a huge vocabulary with
thousands and thousands of new words and a myriad
irregular derivations for concepts that could instead
be easily named by means of simple regular derivatives
and compounds.
> > Which makes the choice of grammatical words
> > arbitrary, i.e. the grammar of Interlingua was
> > made up "unscientifically, like Esperanto".
>
> No, no, no!!! Non face conclusiones in haste! Isto significa que non
> tote le parolas grammatical de interlingua es prendite secundo le
> methodologia usate per le resto del vocabulario. Illos es prendite in
> maniera de ganiar le maxime comprensibilitate.
Interlingua uses many idiomatic grammatical
structures that appear to be taken randomly (at
least that's what seems to me as a Spanish speaker)
from the source languages. E.g. it's use of "et
[...] e [...]" and "durante que", which from a
Spanish perspective look cryptic - I remember
the first time I found "durante que" in one
of Kjell's posts, I had to pause and for a
minute think it over and over wondering
"_Durante que_?! What on earth does that
mean?", until finally I realized that he had
taken the Spanish preposition 'durante' (during)
and unexpectedly turned it into a conjunction
to mean 'mientras' (while), a usage which is
completely absent in Spanish.
> Pro exemplo, pro "[en]but", interlingua usa "ma", que non suffice le
> regulas del tres linguas fonte, ma que es sufficientemente internation
> gratias al expression italian (e international, musicalmente) "allegro
> ma non troppo".
It seems you aren't aware that many people ignore
the individual meaning of the words within a borrowed
expression and even _which_ words there are there.
E.g. many people are likely to misanalyze a Latin
phrase like "in omnia paratus" into "in omni aparatus".
> Ma istos non es expressiones idiomatic de interlingua, ma expressiones
> idiomatic del proprie lingua matre (pro me le italiano, pro Kjell le
>svedese) que inadvertitemente nos "reversa" in interlingua.
Taking them borrowed isn't enough to make them
less idiomatic.
> Ma isto es un error que io pote facer in omne lingua, mesmo in
> esperanto.
> Per exemplo, in italiano "to be clever" es "essere in gamba"
> (literalmente: "to be in leg"); assi, alicun italianos scribe "you are
> in leg!", e illes poterea facer le mesme error sia in interlingua sia in
> esperanto.
I wasn't talking about such kind of idioms that one
inadvertently copies from one's mother tongue, but
about those that are already a part of Interlingua.
> 1) Il ha un differentia inter le "irregularitates" de interlingua e
> illos del anglese: in anglese, le passato irregular "fallen" non es
> presente in alicun altere parola, ergo illo debe esser memorisate per
> se. Le forma contracte del passatos de interlingua, in vice, es presente
> in al minus quatro-cinque altere parolas INTERNATIONAL.
Being an "international" irregularity doesn't make
it less irregular. It is an irregularity, and that's
what matters for the speakers of non-Western languages
when faced with the task of learning where to use
the irregular form and where not.
> 2) Le plus grande error de Zamenhof, in mi opinion, es que ille
> supponeva que le major difficultate in le apprendimento de un lingua
> esseva le grande vocabulario e le irregularitates lexical. Ma omne
> linguista sape que isto es ver solmente in (minime) parte!
> De facto, le difficultate del anglese non es le passatos irregular.
> Io non ha trovate un sol persona qui habeva difficultate a apprender
> "speak, spoke, spoken"!
That a big vocabulary and lexical irregularities,
along with grammatical and orthographical irregularities,
are what makes languages difficult to learn is not
a supposition, it is a well-known fact for anyone
teaching (and learning) foreign languages.
Have you ever tried to learn Arabic and memorize
all its irregular plurals, the appropriate masdar
form to be used with each verb, etc.? If you ever
try to, you'll realize that learning all those
irregularities is no piece of cake for the speakers
of non-Semitic languages, exactly in the same way
as memorizing all the irregularities of Interlingua
is no piece of cake for speakers of non-Western
languages.
> 3) Le verbos que in Interlingua admitte un duple forma pro le passato
> non pote esser appellate "irregular": illos es verbos perfectemente
> regular; lo que manca es le exacte correspondentia inter le verbo e le
> {substantivos, adverbios, adjectivos} que deriva ex illo.
>
> Io lege, io legeva, io ha legite: regular
> |
> correspondentia irregular
> |
> lection, lectura, lector
>
It doesn't matter whether the past tense is formed
on the regular root or not - the point is that the
learner must memorize two different roots for one
same concept and then memorize what derivations are
formed on which one of them. That memorizing task
is only a burden for the learner and user of the
language, and the presence of irregularities only
makes the learner be unconfident when trying to
speak, thus delaying the acquisition of fluency,
because until they have already mastered them all,
they will always hesitate whether the verb
corresponding to a noun like "lector" happens to
be "lecere" or "legere", or whether a form like
"extrahive" happens to be used in the Western
reference languages and so they can use it or
instead is not present in those languages and so
they must know and learn that the 'correct'
derivation is "extractive".
> Ma il es importante notar que iste correspondentia manca (del toto, o in
> grande parte) in altere linguas, como p.ex. in anglese:
What's the relevance of that? Does that help the
non-Western learner in coping with the irregularities,
merely to know that such irregularities are present
in Western natlangs? Why bothering to learn a auxlang
that mimics the irregularities of natlangs? If people
are going to have to cope with a myriad irregularities,
they will be much better off learning English, which
already has much more to reward the learner for that
tedious chore than Interlingua.
> Ma necuno (secundo mi cognoscentia) ha trovate le anglese difficile pro
> iste ration.
Then you must have had little experience learning
foreign languages and meeting non-Westerners trying
to cope with those "easy" irregularities of English.
> Isto, in union con le punctos 1), 2), 3), face que le duple formas del
> radice verbal in interlingua es nullemente un problema.
Ask a Chinese, e.g. Lee Sau Dan at sci.lang.
> Le difficultates de interlingua es alteres, ma io nunquam los scribera
> publicamente! ;-)
There you're showing your bias. If Interlingua were
such good a candidate, you shouldn't mind acknowledging
its cons because its pros should far overshadow those.
> Tu debe apprender lo, e criticar successivemente. :-)
Don't expect me to waste my time learning a con-auxlang
full of irregularities which I can already more or
less understand and which won't gain me any access
to other areas outside my own Romance area. I'll much
rather use that time in learning the irregularities
of a real natlang like, say, Arabic or Hindi, which
will gain me access to the Arab and Indian areas,
something which Interlingua won't do.
> > Why do you think "artificial" languages are to be
> > judged differently as for their "artistic" quality?
>
> Perque linguas natural non pote esser creationes artistic, ma solmente
> le resultato de un evolution (plus o minus fortiate).
An auxlang is not meant to be a work of art, but a
useful tool. If you're interested in conlangs made
for the sake of art, have a look at some conlang
website where you'll find many examples of artlangs.
Besides, the "artistic" quality is not really in
a language itself, but in the use of it that the
*artist* does. Saying that e.g. Interlingua is
artistic is like saying that watercolours are
artistic. Neither Interlingua nor watercolours
are "artistic" in themselves, it's the *use* that
the writer or painter makes of them what will make
the resulting work possess artistic value (or be
lacking it). Interlingua in the hands of a bad
writer will appear ugly, while in the hands of
a good writer it may render a masterpiece, and
it will be the *work* what will be the piece of
art and NOT the language itself. And that's
exactly the same for Esperanto and for any other
language, constructed or natural. "Don Quixote"
doesn't make Spanish a "beautiful masterpiece
of a language", because it's not the Spanish
language but the individual work "Don Quixote"
what is a masterpiece and has artistic value,
and in Spanish you can find many mediocre, ugly
works lacking any beauty or artistic quality
side by side with "Don Quixote" and other
masterpieces.
> > To start with, Esperanto is no longer just an
> > "artificial" language - it already has its own native
> > speakers and a century-old history and evolution
>
> Evolution? Isto es un surprisa pro me!
> Io sape que il ha habite plure tentativas de reformation del esperanto
> (e ido es le plus famose), ma le communitate "religiose" del
> esperantistas non pote acceptar modificationes a lor Biblia. ;-)
Esperanto is not the only language with a fundamento,
*all* languages have a 'fundamento' (but one that
usually remains unspoken). In English, I cannot freely
change word order, or the articles, pronouns, numbers,
or the way plurals or tenses are made, and say "Twoteen
las housen" or "Beed hän haved", but such constraints
do not prevent a degree of variation and evolution
within the given frame. And the same applies for
Esperanto, where e.g. over time there have evolved
verbal forms like "amantas", by combining existing
morphemes according to existing rules.
> > be that old). But also, the history of how a linguistic
> > system has come into existence is of no relevance
> > as for the judgement of its "esthetic qualities".
>
> E io non ha dicite isto.
You said Esperanto is "horrible" and that, as it
is a constructed language, it can be judged that
way, while German cannot because it is a natlang.
And that's using the history of how a linguistic
system has come into existence as a parameter to
judge its "esthetic qualities".
> > But then, someone would tell you Aymara is the
> > native tongue of many Bolivians, so what then?
>
> Isto es interessante. Esque tu sape explicar me plus
> precisemente quante es illes "many"?
What's the relevance of those statistical data
for the present discussion? Anyway, it takes
nothing more than merely checking the Ethnologue:
"1,785,000 in Bolivia (1987), 23.7% of the population"
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=AYM
> Solmente un creation pote esser artistic, al minus in mi opinion.
> Assi, esperanto poterea esser artistic, ma le Aymara non (si illo es un
> lingua natural).
"Natural" languages are creations too (the use of
the adjective "natural" is merely metaphoric), the
difference with "constructed" languages being that
the former are the result of an unconscious creative
process undertaken by the members of a society as
a whole over a long period of time (similarly to
how the artistic manifestations of a culture, e.g.
the oral literary traditions, their architecture, etc.
are the result of a collective creation over a long
time), while the latter are the result of a more
conscious creative process by a more reduced amount
of people over a more reduced period of time
(similarly to how the artistic work of present
artists and writers comes into existence). So, if
conlangs may be judged esthetically like architecture
or literature, so may natlangs, because both are
the result of a creative process, like not only the
work of individual architects and writers but also
the traditional architecture and literature may
be and are actually judged as for their esthetic
artistic qualities.
> > > Illo es un aspecto grammatical, que non ha relevantia super le
> > > comprension de un texto.
> >
> > But that grammatical aspect has all relevance
> > in making Interlingua look like a jarring artificial
> > invention to Romance ears (similar to the effect that
> > in English produces hearing "Him want that things"),
> > which is the complete opposite effect to the loud
> > claim that Interligua looks "natural" (and thus
> > supposedly "beautiful" as opposed to the alleged
> > "ugly artificialness" of Esperanto).
>
> Tu cambia thema con un facilitate impressionante. :-)
No, it was you who changed the topic, because my
mentioning of that grammatical aspect was previous
to your refusal to acknowledge its consequences
as for the "natural" look of Interlingua.
> Quando io legeva interlingua pro le prime vice, io pensava que illo
> esseva espaniol. A alteres, illo sembla un italiano medieval. Ma io
> ancora non ha trovate un sol persona que comprendeva immediatemente que
> illo esseva un lingua planificate.
I still remember the first time I encountered Interlingua
and how "artificial" it looked to my Spanish ears.
Well, it would be as risky to affirm that it is a
constructed language as to affirm whether Aymara is
or isn't without knowing that in advance, because there
are many different Romance languages and e.g. there
exist word derivations that are not present in Spanish
and that sound to me odd ("artificial") when I see them
used in Italian or French because they aren't part
of my mother tongue and thus are not the ones that have
been familiar to me since I was a child and thus they
don't look "natural" to me as a Spanish speaker
(although, of course, they look completely "natural"
to the speakers of those languages where they are
used). E.g. the French derivation "amical", taken
into Interlingua, sounds odd and artificial to my
Spanish ears, because to me the "natural" derivation
from "amigo/amico" is "amigable/amicable" and not
"amigal/amical".
> > How come not? Do you think that mere word borrowing
> > endows a language with the "culture" of the source
> > language? If so, then English is a tremendously
> > "multicultural" language, while Icelandic is almost
> > "cultureless".
>
> Quanto al anglese, io concorda. Quanto al islandese, io non ha bastante
> informationes pro exprimer un opinion.
Icelandic is a language known for its strong reluctance
to take borrowed words, substituting native derivations
and compounds for them (quite an opposite attitude to
the borrow-them-all tendency of English).
And English is not a "multicultural" language, English
is a language of the Western culture, and this is
clearly reflected in its grammar, semantics and
pragmatics. English does not feature any Oriental-type
characteristics like those shared by Chinese and
Japanese, even though it has borrowed an amount of
words from those languages.
> > Languages by themselves do not have "culture" (except
> > maybe for the amount of original literature written
> > in that language, and in this respect Esperanto far
> > outbeats Interlingua). Languages _reflect_ cultures,
> > which is quite a different matter. And in this respect
> > Esperanto is a language of the European culture,
> > because its semantics and pragmatics reflect the
> > European world view, and Interlingua is no different
> > (nor "better") than Esperanto in this respect.
>
> rotfl!
> In qual senso Esperanto reflecte le cultura Europee?
E.g. in its emphasis on stating the temporal location
of actions and the number of entities being referred
(which must be unavoidably expressed even when those
specifications are conversationally irrelevant or
redundant, which happens to be most of the time), both
of which are aspects that are seen as secondary and
only seldom specified in Oriental languages; in the
almost complete lack of grammatical forms to show
honorific levels, an aspect which is of utmost
relevance for Oriental cultures, but that Esperanto
neglects as European languages do; in its semantics
of colours, which again is clearly European; etc, etc.
> E qual es le scopo del esperanto? Illo de parlar con altere
> esperantistas? Illo de leger cento libros in esperanto?
> Perque non le Aymara?
The scope of Esperanto is to be a language more easily
learnable and useable than natlangs so as to facilitate
communication between people from different linguistic
backgrounds, and to put everyone on the same foot
because all of them have to learn it. Aymara would
qualify for the easiness because of its regularity,
but not for the neutralness, while Interlingua doesn't
qualify for either criterion.
Interlingua may qualify as a common language for the
European Union, because it is heavily based on Western
languages. But for a global use around the world it
represents little (if any) advantage over English:
a) it is full of irregularities, both grammatical and
orthographical (irregularities that may seem "easy" for
Westerners because they mimic those of Western languages,
but that aren't easy at all for speakers of all the
other non-Western languages), b) it is not readily
understandable outside the Romance areas, which means
the immense majority of the world population would
still need to learn it in order to be able to use
and understand it, c) there's almost no literature
available in it (knowing Interlingua only allows you
to be more or less understood by Romance speakers,
but hardly to be able to read literature in Romance
languages). Esperanto, for its part, far overtakes
Interlingua in points a) and c) and English in
point a).
Cheers,
Javier
Mardy
Javier BF
I've already told you I'm not an Esperantist
(I'm currently working on a quite different
auxlang design and have never refrained myself
from pointing out and criticizing the design
flaws of Esperanto, both here and in Auxlang).
What you demonstrate with your reply it that
it is useless to try to discuss with a follower
of the 'Interlingua religion'.
Garth Wallace
That can be generalized to apply to a follower of *any* auxlang, really.
--
Happy denizen of the Nightstar IRC Network
Webcomics discussion: irc://us.nightstar.net/webcomics
Progressive rock chat: irc://us.nightstar.net/progrock
Linguistics and foreign languages: irc://us.nightstar.net/babel
dragonprince99
> earth?
Arabic
> Question IB: What is the ugliest?
Cherokee
> Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Finnish, Hawaiian
> Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
I don't particularly like German (I hesitate to call it "the ugliest")
> Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
I'll probably be criticized, but any major Romance language, except
possibly Romanian (for *English-speakers* only...I can't offer an
opinion for others)
> Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
Arabic (although I'd love to learn it someday)
> Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
> fascination?
Finnish, Quechua, Turkish (I don't think it's a suprise that I tend to
create agglutinating languages) + Arabic
> Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
I don't want to rule out any.
Posi
> Interlingua may qualify as a common language for the
> European Union, because it is heavily based on Western
> languages. But for a global use around the world it
> represents little (if any) advantage over English:
> a) it is full of irregularities, both grammatical and
> orthographical (irregularities that may seem "easy" for
> Westerners because they mimic those of Western languages,
> but that aren't easy at all for speakers of all the
> other non-Western languages), b) it is not readily
> understandable outside the Romance areas, which means
> the immense majority of the world population would
> still need to learn it in order to be able to use
> and understand it, c) there's almost no literature
> available in it (knowing Interlingua only allows you
> to be more or less understood by Romance speakers,
> but hardly to be able to read literature in Romance
> languages). Esperanto, for its part, far overtakes
> Interlingua in points a) and c) and English in
> point a).
>
Interlingua was not designed to be regular, nor easy to learn (especially
for a non-western speaker) that's simply the point. You blamed about
irregular verbs, but I can tell you, just give an eye to the pronunciation:
it's something awful, more irregular than many natural languages like
Italian or Spanish. If you think, as a prejudice, that a regular spelling
and pronunciation is always a necessary feature for an artificial language,
then just don't look at Interlingua, but if you want to judge that language
you must compare it with the scope it was designed for: Interlingua was
designed to be easly understood by Italian, French, Spanish, Portoguese and
someway English speaking people. That's all. Quite a limited scope? Maybe,
it's a matter of opinion, at least it is a realistic scope.
So, for example, if you, as a Spanish-speaking person, can honestly say
that you din't have any idea of the possible meaning of the statement
"durante que" (assuming that it is really correct Interlingua and not a
mistake of the speaker), as it seems you was saying, then *that* is a fault
point of Interlingua, not the irregular verbs.
On the other side, the fact that you managed to keep up a conversation with
people that talked to you in Interlingua, is a hit point.
As far as non-western people (but also european that don't speak a romance
language) is concerned, I just can tell you this: if a Chinese wants to
learn Interlingua he surely needs more time and effort than learning
Esperanto, and he has to struggle with a lot of irregularities, as well as
lot many others features that seems non-senses to him; but at the end he
doesn't only speak an artificial language: he is half-way to manage five of
the most important languages of the world, he can be understood by more
than a bilion of people in hundreds of nations all over the world, he can
travel among Europe and America and comunicate maybe more easly than
europeans itself.
Jacek Purfluxius
>No: "ego" e "io" ambes existe in interlingua, ma ha duo significationes
>differente.
>
Hmm?
>"Ego" es le ego philosophic; ma io crede que nulle lingua
>inter le linguas fonte de interlingua lo usa como pronomine personal.
>Le pronomine personal es "io":
>
>
Sur le pagina 127 in mi le edition del Interlingua-English Dictionary de
1970 que ego possede il es scribite: [ego] pers. pron. I (= io); Hence:
ego, egoismo, egoista, egolatria etc.
Le signos [ ] indica que le parola es admissite in interlingua ben que
illo non es le resultato del methodos de selection de vocabulario de
interlingua ma nonobstante constitue un parola international.
Ego pote ben comprende que on prefere le forma "io" que es le standard
interlingua, viste que illo es curte e facilmente se pronuncia, ma
quando io ha probate parlar interlingua, non solo a affectionatos
(aficionados) ma anque a non-inauguratos, illes ha ben comprendite "ego"
lo que vermente es un parola international si un parola lo es.
Le termino philosophic naturalmente ha su fundo in le pronomine ego. Il
non es un cosa nove que parolas es usate metaphoricamente...
Amicalmente
Kjell R
Jacek Purfluxius
ego me ha expressite incomprensibilemente in interlingua. Ego es in tal
casos multo grate a personas qui me indica tal inadvertentias.
Ego comprende le differentia inter le selection de vocabulario de
esperanto e interlingua assi que le duo linguas ha differente objectivos
e supporta differente manieras de propagation. Le supportante idea de
esperanto es un multo regularisate grammatica e un derivation de parolas
que forsan pote esser describite como plus lexical que purmente
morphologic.
Interlingua del altere latere pote esser vidite como le scandinavo del
linguas occidental - ante toto le linguas romance ma anque pro omne le
material lingual que es un supervivente resto del latino in quasi omne
le linguas occidental.
Le idea de interlingua es que multes lo pote comprender sin anterior
studios. Esperanto quasi preconditiona anterior studios. Solo le
personas qui ha apprendite esperanto lo comprende, ma interlingua es
plus clar al personas qui sape linguas occidental, particularmente
linguas romance, e iste sapientia pote, como in mi caso, esser multo
passive e pro lectura ma anque plus active.
Pro me personalmente interlingua es un multo melior option que
esperanto, le qual ego anque ha studiate.
Kjell R
Paul O. BARTLETT
> if you want to judge that language
> you must compare it with the scope it was designed for: Interlingua was
> designed to be easly understood by Italian, French, Spanish, Portoguese and
> someway English speaking people. That's all. Quite a limited scope? Maybe,
> it's a matter of opinion, at least it is a realistic scope.
For whatever it's worth, some of the most active users of
Interlingua seem to be Scandinavians.
--
Paul Bartlett
bartlett at smart.net
PGP key info in message headers
Jacek Purfluxius
>> Back in my student days (late 70's) I tried to learn the language, from a
>> fellow student of Polish descent. It was a bit of a fad following the
>> accession of JP2. I managed the pronunciation but boggled immediately
>> afterwards and dropped out.
>
>
> Everybody is talking about this pronunciation but it really the least
> important thing :D You can pronounce words in a somehow similar way
> and you'll still be understandable. Most of native Polish speakers
> ignore nowadays nasal vowels and say something like "em", "en" or
> "eŋ". These so-called soft consonants pronounced like "sh", "ch" or
> something will be still very well understandable.
>
Pro un parlator de svedese le pronunciation de polonese es satis facile.
Le problema es que certe sonos appare in inexpectate positiones.
Kjell R
Harold Ensle
"Mardy" <ma...@despammed.com> wrote in message
news:20031208005015....@pupilla.local...
> Nathaniel Ament-Stone <nat...@linkline.com> ha scribite:
> > Question I: What, in your opinion, is the most beautiful script on
> > earth?
There are many I like.
Some of the Sanskrit offshoots are nice. I particularly like Tibetan.
> > Question IB: What is the ugliest?
There are many that don't seem to be particularly attractive..and the
roman script I don't think is near the worst (I would call it average.)
If you have ever seen Bugunese, Batak, Miao or Cree, you'll know
what I mean.
> > Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Of the ones I've heard, I like Finnish and Portuguese.
> > Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
Sometimes the context is important. I typically would not like the
sound of Arabic (mainly because of the pharyngials), but, if a
beautiful girl speaks to you in a sort of coy manner, it suddenly
sounds quite nice. Or Russian is not too appealing. But when
you hear a mother talking to her children with it, it too sounds
nice.......
If I had to pick, I would pick any tonal language, Navaho, German.
> > Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
Any scandinavian language. Basic English may be the easiest of all, but
writing it is difficult and speaking accurately in complex situations is
difficult due to the ambiguities and idioms (only surpassed by Japanese).
> > Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
Speaking, I would say Czech. Some claim that Finnish is difficult because
it has 16 cases, but actually no. The cases in Finnish simply replace the
prepositions found in other languages and since they are completely regular,
it is no more difficult to learn. Plus Finnish is completely regular, with
only
ONE irregular verb and it is irregular only in the 3rd person (on). Czech
on the other hand has the usual slavic difficulties such as different verbs
of aspect and multiple declensions (Czech has 7 cases and 13 declensions).
But beyond this Czech retains many usually-archaic slavic features, like
additional irregular forms in both verbs and nouns, the vocative case, and
a dual plural.
Another difficult one would be Navaho, due to pronunciation and the
verb system which requires 6 different verb forms depending on the
type of object being referred to.
Writing, I would say Chinese since one has to learn 10,000 characters.
Japanese comes in second since it uses less Kanji and supplements it
with the two syllabaries Katakana and Hirogana.
> > Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
> > fascination?
Basque
> > Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
I do not think I would exclude any, if I had the time.
H.Ellis Ensle
Karl Dyson
> > earth?
> > Question IB: What is the ugliest?
Er... maybe Brahmi or Iberian. They look like a badly designed wingdings
font. ;)
> > Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Welsh or maybe Norwegian. Finnish is also nice.
> > Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
Far in the lead above all others - German. Why did the modern german
language turn out so badly? It sounds disgusting and looks very unpleasant
when written down in the roman alphabet.
> > Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
I've found Spanish to be incredibly straightforward.
> > Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
Malay? Maybe. Don't know. Finnish looks pretty tricky with all those cases.
On a side note, Japanese was a little challenging. Although I found it very
agreeable and easy to learn, I'd maybe go one week without contact with it
and the whole lot would just vanish from my brain.
> > Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
> > fascination?
Mayan. I love the hieroglyphics they use(d). Its next on my list of
languages to look at in depth.
Oh and there's Rapanui (from Easter Island apparently) which i have a
certain interest in right now.
> > Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
I have no interest in the languages of africa or the middle east (beyond
idol curiosity). Though I did learn a little Afrikaans which I quite
enjoyed.
8
Brian B
> earth?
Mongolian goes straight up and down but they all connect. Katakana and
Hiranga are nice too.
> Question IB: What is the ugliest?
I'm not particularly fond of gothic script for roman characters. It's
hard to read. Cuneform too. Blah.
> Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
French is pretty nice, IMO.
> Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
German. Too throaty.
> Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
French has been pretty easy for me.
> Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
English, it's such a bulls't language. (And it's my mother tongue.)
> Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
> fascination?
Basque, Ancient Egyptian, Chinese, Japanese. I donno, hard choice.
> Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
Probably German. Might do some of it anyway just for the sake of being
well-rounded.
gunananda
<kailas...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
> Probably German. Might do some of it anyway just for the sake of being
>well-rounded.
thats a question of usefulness; why learning languages you will not
use in future
far stay muh see ey
DJensen
>>Question I: What, in your opinion, is the most beautiful script on
>>earth?
Tibetan, Hangeul, or 12480 Cursive
>>Question IB: What is the ugliest?
Buhid/Mangyan
>>Question II: What is the most beautiful sounding language on earth?
Te Reo Maori
>>Question IIB: What is the ugliest?
n/a
>>Question III: What do you think is the easiest language in the world?
The only one I know.
>>Question IIIB: What is the hardest?
n/a
>>Question IV: What language would you love to learn out of pure
>>fascination?
Mandarin, I suppose.
>>Question IVB: What language would you never want to learn?
Would I ever be in a position that this would really be an issue?
--
DJensen