Fwd: Neo Patwa
Jens Wilkinson
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nikhil Sinha <nik...@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 3, 2007 8:35 PM
Subject: Neo Patwa
To: Jens Wilkinson <jenswi...@gmail.com>
Jens
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Nikhil Sinha <nik....@gmail.com>
>
> Dear Jens,
>
>
> Neo Patwa is a nice change from the kind of IALs I have seen. Its vocabulary
> does not favour any community (like English or western European). This is a
> positive thing for me and its grammar is simple too!
Dear Nikhil,
Thanks for the positive message. I have tried to make it that way, so
I'm happy that you like it. The idea in a way is to try to copy (it's
not really possible) how people actually communicate when they
encounter people with different languages. People don't use
complicated grammar in those situations. Actually, there is even one
language that I know of that is based on Hindi but is a creole
language (used in the Andaman islands) and I would love to know how
people communicate using it. But there is not very much data
unfortunately.
>
> Here are two questions for you to answer. :))
>
> 1. This one is about isolating languages in general, not only about Neo
> Patwa. With such a limited grammar, is it possible to say things in a way
> that its 'exact meaning' is preserved. Exactness in meaning is very
> important, isn't it?
This is quite a complicated question. I would say on a somewhat
philosophical basis that we can never have real exactness, so it is a
question of degree. But generally speaking, I think that when people
who do not share the same language communicate, there will be a loss
of exact meaning that is impossible to recover, even with a well
designed language. I have tried to accept that to a certain extent,
and let things be flexible. So you are correct that Neo Patwa may make
it more difficult than some other planned languages to convey exact
meanings in some cases.
But there are two important things to consider. One is that I think it
is usually possible to convey more exact meaning by using extra words.
So for example, in Neo Patwa there is only one word to cover "hot" and
"warm" (like some natural languages). But I think if necessary, you
can say "very warm" to mean "hot".
Then the other important thing is that I would generally encourage Neo
Patwa to evolve or "grow" as necessary. I have created a dictionary
and grammar notes, but it is not a "fundamento" like in Esperanto,
which I think needs to be preserved. As new people begin to use the
language, I would think that some words will be changed or added, and
that is natural. What I think is nice about this idea is that even if
words change, we have still learned something useful. For example,
even if at some point the word "chidya" for "bird" goes out of fashion
and a new word comes in, I will still remember a Hindi word for
"bird", which is a positive thing for me. Likewise, I now know that
the Swahili word for "spider" is "bwibwi" - a word I think is very
nice for spiders.
>
> 2. Neo Patwa doesn't have a 'j' in its alphabet. So, how is the word for
> 'meat' 'mjaso'? Should it be 'myaso' or something?
This one is much easier. It is a mistake, and yes, the word should be
"myaso". Thanks for pointing that out.
Best regads, Jens
dana....@gmail.com
> But there are two important things to consider. One is that I think
it
> is usually possible to convey more exact meaning by using extra
words.
> So for example, in Neo Patwa there is only one word to cover "hot"
and
> "warm" (like some natural languages). But I think if necessary, you
> can say "very warm" to mean "hot".
You could even reduce it down more. It's possible to just have a word
for "thermal", then apply modifiers to that to indicate "less than
normal" (="cool") and "more than normal" (="warm") and tack additional
modifiers to show "to a great degree" (="hot", or "cool" depending) or
"to a small degree" (="luke warm"). I'll make a quick prototype
language here to demonstrate.
tem = temperature; thermal; heat(-related)
et = less than usual/normal/typical/expected
eg = more than usual/normal/typical/expected
al = to a small degree
am = to a great dedree
temet = coolness (=shortage of warmth)
temeg = warmth
temegal = luke warm
temegam = hot
temetal = slightly cool
temetam = cold
This would economize greatly on vocabulary by minimize the roots
needed.
Jens
On 7月7日, 午前4:10, <dana.nut...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> You could even reduce it down more. It's possible to just have a word
> for "thermal", then apply modifiers to that to indicate "less than
> normal" (="cool") and "more than normal" (="warm") and tack additional
> modifiers to show "to a great degree" (="hot", or "cool" depending) or
> "to a small degree" (="luke warm"). I'll make a quick prototype
> language here to demonstrate.
>
> tem = temperature; thermal; heat(-related)
>
> et = less than usual/normal/typical/expected
> eg = more than usual/normal/typical/expected
>
> al = to a small degree
> am = to a great dedree
>
> temet = coolness (=shortage of warmth)
> temeg = warmth
>
> temegal = luke warm
> temegam = hot
> temetal = slightly cool
> temetam = cold
>
> This would economize greatly on vocabulary by minimize the roots
> needed.
Thanks for the suggestion. The problem I have is, when I see a series
of words like temegam and temetam, they seem too similar. One of the
things I've tried to do consistently with Neo Patwa is to always make
sure that I'm imitating things that are done in actual natural
languages. I have never learned a language that used the same root for
"hot" and "cold", and it may well be that they exist, but my own
opinion is that people probably want to use different roots for those
two concepts. That's one problem I have with Esperanto, actually, that
some concepts that it uses derivations for (I think, "good" and "bad")
seem so basic to me that I would presume that human beings would
naturally use two roots. By contrast, the idea of relating a body part
"back" to behind (as in "two days back" in English) seems rational
enough that real languages use it.
In any case, for the affixes you proposed, et and eg, Neo Patwa
already has a way to do that. There is the word "muito", which means
very, and there is the word "tuti", that means a little. So "muito
hot" would naturally mean hot, whereas "tuti hot" would mean warm. I
guess you have just replaced those two words with affixes. So in a
sense, Neo Patwa has what you proposed, except that there is one root
for "warm" and one for "cold".
-Jens
dana....@gmail.com
> > tem = temperature; thermal; heat(-related)
So the degree markers "muito" and "tuti" are already there. There is
a natural construction we use in English besides "hot" and "cold". We
often metaphorically use "low" and "high" in this sense as in "low
temperature" or "high tempurature; or similarly "low cost" = "cheap";
"high cost" = "expensive".
Not that something like this needs to be adopted, but I just wanted to
show an exaple of how you could economize on the number of roots and
still keep a workable language. It doesn't have to have affixes like
I showed above, and could just easily work with an isolating structure
too as with "very high tempurature" for "hot", which would still
retain a pidgin/creole-like feel to it.
Jens Wilkinson
So the degree markers "muito" and "tuti" are already there. There is
a natural construction we use in English besides "hot" and "cold". We
often metaphorically use "low" and "high" in this sense as in "low
temperature" or "high tempurature; or similarly "low cost" = "cheap";
"high cost" = "expensive".
Not that something like this needs to be adopted, but I just wanted to
show an exaple of how you could economize on the number of roots and
still keep a workable language. It doesn't have to have affixes like
I showed above, and could just easily work with an isolating structure
too as with "very high tempurature" for "hot", which would still
retain a pidgin/creole-like feel to it.
Thanks for the suggestions. Actually there is an important issue for me in your message, which is the point of how to say "what is the speed?" In Neo Patwa I have a word for fast, but no form for "speed". This may sound unnatural, but my thought about this is that the best way to say it is, "What fast is he running"? Which means, "at what speed is he running?" in English. So essentially, fast becomes speed, big becomes size, heavy becomes weight, etc. It could lead to ambiguity but I don't think it would. In ambiguous cases, one could say "fast degree" to mean "speed", but in general I don't think it's that necessary.
I think that it might be more interesting to talk about this on auxlang, because you and I are the only subscribers to this list! For posterity, it's nice to have some messages though.
-Jens
dana....@gmail.com
> > So the degree markers "muito" and "tuti" are already there. There
is
a natural construction we use in English besides "hot" and "cold". We
often metaphorically use "low" and "high" in this sense as in "low
temperature" or "high tempurature; or similarly "low cost" = "cheap";
"high cost" = "expensive".
> > Not that something like this needs to be adopted, but I just
wanted to
show an exaple of how you could economize on the number of roots and
still keep a workable language. It doesn't have to have affixes like
I showed above, and could just easily work with an isolating structure
too as with "very high tempurature" for "hot", which would still
retain a pidgin/creole-like feel to it.
> Thanks for the suggestions. Actually there is an important issue for
me in your message, which is the point of how to say "what is the
speed?" In Neo Patwa I have a word for fast, but no form for "speed".
This may sound unnatural, but my thought about this is that the best
way to say it is, "What fast is he running"? Which means, "at what
speed is he running?" in English. So essentially, fast becomes speed,
big becomes size, heavy becomes weight, etc. It could lead to
ambiguity but I don't think it would. In ambiguous cases, one could
say "fast degree" to mean "speed", but in general I don't think it's
that necessary.
"Fast" could be the same thing. Just have a word for "speed" or
"velocity", then use "low speed" for slow and "high speed" for fast.
Just like we say "How fast" in English, you could have "how much speed
he run?" A lot of these "opposites" aren't really opposites as all,
but just relative degrees. "Fast" and "slow" are both varying degrees
of "speed".