Eurolang & Interlingua (Was: One language ...)
dark_...@hotmail.com
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MESSAGE BEGINS
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Hey folks. I just wanted to let you know that my conlang page is up now.
http://students.ccsu.edu/cookcs/Conlang/index.html
A few points re: the current discussion:
The Chinese language is phonetically ambiguous in a way which European
languages are not. In my understanding, native Chinese speakers will
occasionally trace characters on their palms to specify the meaning of a word
they have spoken. Thus, the Chinese writing system serves to clarify certain
ambiguities which appear in the spoken language.
(This is true in English as well: for example, in the written language we
distinguish between "it's" and "its." However, only very rarely do we need to
spell a word out to make our meaning clear.)
There's a prevalent idea among Western scholars that Chinese ideographs are
somehow inherently inferior to an alphabetic script, because they are more
difficult to typeset, harder to learn, etc. etc. I would like to posit the
notion that it can be very difficult to make value judgments on languages,
because it can be very difficult to appreciate the work they do (in a social
or a practical sense).
Along the same lines - Does anyone else out there find it downright funny that
there's all this hostility between the constituencies of different auxlangs?
Everyone invented their auxlang for the same reason Doc. Zamenhoff invented
Esperanto - so we could easily communicate with each other and stop all the
fighting. What would he say if he knew that we spent all our time in this
really caustic bickering about which one is "better?"
In a very real sense, it does not matter which auxlang is better. The only
thing that matters is that a large percentage of the world's population learn
the same one. To this end, one would probably want to initiate a study with
sample populations from different areas and including people of different
economic backgrounds, and figure out which languages people learn faster, and
how much faster, and whether certain ones favor people with certain linguistic
or economic backgrounds.
Consumer reports of auxlangs, right?
It's not really an issue to get emotional over, IMHO. It's a knapsack problem
and we should treat it like one.
To be fair - I haven't really seen the flame wars here that I've seen
elsewhere (you know the ones I mean), so I hope that everyone here understands
what I'm saying in the way that I intend it - academically.
Last point - I've translated this post into German & back with
babelfish.altavista.digital.com - let's see what happens.
:)
Conrad.
after BABELFISH:
Okay, for brevity's sake, I'm just going to post a few pieces:
** Most lucid:
Some points relative: the current discussion:
Thus Chinese writing serves system to explain certain ambiguities which appear
in the spoken language.
Consumer report of auxlangs, right?
** Least lucid:
Hey of peoples. I required even inform you that my conlangseite above is now.
It is not really an output emotional to rueber receiving, IMHO. It is a
backpack problem and we should it to treat like in.
Last point - I translates this post into German and into rear side with
babelfish.altavista.digital.com - let us see, what occurs.
** And it looks like this passage was actually improved:
Along the same lines - does someone find it otherwise out there absolute merry
that there is this whole animosity between the constituencies of the different
auxlangs? Everyone invented it auxlang for the same invented Esperanto
Grunddoc. Zamenhoff - thus we could inform with each other easily us and stop
that whole fighting. Which it became, did you say, if it knew that we spent
our whole time in this really corroding bickering over, which one is
"better?",
** (sigh) - I guess I should start paying more attention to Word's grammar
checker. :)
-csc
> dvan...@vub.ac.be writes:
>
> >Might I ask why you are promoting a language that is designed following
> >the same principles and for the same reasons as Interlingua ? As far
> >as I'm concerned, there are only two serious candidates for the status
> >of a true international language: Esperanto/Ido and Interlingua, with
> >the first as a mondial and the second as a pan-european language.
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Paul O Bartlett
On Tue, 28 Apr 1998 dark_...@hotmail.com wrote (small excerpt):
> In a very real sense, it does not matter which auxlang is better. The only
> thing that matters is that a large percentage of the world's population learn
> the same one.
Forty years ago the linguist Mario Pei made essentially the same
point, with which I heartily concur. At some point an auxlang is good
enough for the purposes for which it is intended. There can be several
such. Then it does not matter which auxlang one or another individual
claims to be "better" than the others. All that is important is that
enough people agree to pick one and use it, warts and all, whether they
are happy with it or not. But some people just don't seem to get the
point.
Paul <pob...@access.digex.net>
..........................................................
Paul O. Bartlett, P.O. Box 857, Vienna, VA 22183-0857, USA
Finger, keyserver, or WWW for PGP public key
Home Page: http://www.access.digex.net/~pobart
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "dark" == dark cocoon <dark_...@hotmail.com> writes:
dark> The Chinese language is phonetically ambiguous in a way
dark> which European languages are not. In my understanding,
dark> native Chinese speakers will occasionally trace characters
dark> on their palms to specify the meaning of a word they have
dark> spoken. Thus, the Chinese writing system serves to clarify
dark> certain ambiguities which appear in the spoken language.
dark> (This is true in English as well: for example, in the
dark> written language we distinguish between "it's" and "its."
dark> However, only very rarely do we need to spell a word out to
dark> make our meaning clear.)
Well... how then would two Chinese talk to each other on the phone (a
traditional phone, not a non-video phone), do you think? They can no
longer see the tracings on each other's palms through the phone. How
would they talk then? Would you then believe or postulate that fax is
more popular in China than mobile phones?
dark> There's a prevalent idea among Western scholars that Chinese
dark> ideographs are somehow inherently inferior to an alphabetic
dark> script, because they are more difficult to typeset,
dark> ...
Chinese characters are easy, if not trivial, to typeset. They don't
introduce the troubles of hyphenation (esp. the breaking of "ck" into
"k-k" as in German), ligature ("fi", "ffi"), paragraph breaking (into
lines which are more or less evenly dense), etc. Since every
character occupies the an imaginary bounding square of the same size,
you can typeset the characters simply by fitting the lead types into
grids. Computer programs for typesetting Latin-letter-free Chinese
texts are also trivially simple. Besides, you have the freedom of
choosing to typeset them from left to right or from top to bottom.
--
Lee Sau Dan �,X)wAV(Big5) ~{@nJX6X~}(HZ)
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| http://www.cs.hku.hk/~sdlee e-mail: sd...@cs.hku.hk |
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dark_...@hotmail.com
In article <7fra2h1...@faith.cs.hku.hk>,
sd...@faith.cs.hku.hk (Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}) wrote:
> dark> The Chinese language is phonetically ambiguous in a way
> dark> which European languages are not. In my understanding,
> dark> native Chinese speakers will occasionally trace characters
> dark> on their palms to specify the meaning of a word they have
> dark> spoken. Thus, the Chinese writing system serves to clarify
> dark> certain ambiguities which appear in the spoken language.
>
> Well... how then would two Chinese talk to each other on the phone (a
> traditional phone, not a non-video phone), do you think? They can no
> longer see the tracings on each other's palms through the phone. How
> would they talk then? Would you then believe or postulate that fax is
> more popular in China than mobile phones?
It seems that you disagree with me, and at the same time I don't completely
understand what exactly you would take issue with. Are you saying that such
behavior as tracing characters on the palm during conversations does not
happen? Or are you saying that it does happen but demonstrates nothing about
the nature of the language? Or are you saying that what it demonstrates about
the nature of the language is trivial?
> dark> There's a prevalent idea among Western scholars that Chinese
> dark> ideographs are somehow inherently inferior to an alphabetic
> dark> script, because they are more difficult to typeset,
> dark> ...
>
> Chinese characters are easy, if not trivial, to typeset. They don't
> introduce the troubles of hyphenation (esp. the breaking of "ck" into
> "k-k" as in German), ligature ("fi", "ffi"), paragraph breaking (into
> lines which are more or less evenly dense), etc. Since every
> character occupies the an imaginary bounding square of the same size,
> you can typeset the characters simply by fitting the lead types into
> grids. Computer programs for typesetting Latin-letter-free Chinese
> texts are also trivially simple. Besides, you have the freedom of
> choosing to typeset them from left to right or from top to bottom.
I'm glad to hear it, and I hope that you understand I raised that point in
order to disagree with it. I personally feel that it is a mistake to evaluate
human languages (as well as their orthographies) in such terms, and I thought
that I expressed that belief in my first post.
> Lee Sau Dan �,X)wAV(Big5)
~{@nJX6X~}(HZ)
I noticed the unusual code in your signature and I wonder if you're Chinese.
I myself have never studied the language, so I only know about it second hand.
Conrad.