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Naturalismo e schematicismo, un problema in linguas auxiliar

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Kjell Rehnstroem

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Nov 30, 1996, 3:00:00 AM11/30/96
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There is a general opinion, particularly among Esperantists, that
Interlingua is strictly dependent from its control-languages and that
Esperanto is more autonomous. From my reading recently I think it may
be interesting to discuss this question.

In the scientific study of auxiliary languages (or artificial
languages as they are sometimes called) two main distinctions are
made: one is the one between a priori and a posteriori-languages.
This is an example of an a priori language:
kla bulmul hi mbasiosupu.
This is made by myself, and nobody can guess what it means. The
question is whether I know it myself :-)

An a posteriori language is based on existing language material, e.g.:

Jag puho mezikansig jazik "Eurounionidiom".
To understand this you must know Latin and some Finnish, Russian and
Swedish. But the language elements are good a posteriori material. If
you don't have this key, the example is as a priori as the first one.

For most people knowing European languages the following phrase is
easier to understand:

Mi parol la internaci lingv "Eurounionidiom".

A scematic language like Esperanto will have markers for pronoun,
verb/tence, adjective, noun, object:
Mi parolas la internacian lingvon "Euruniolingvo".

To me the -n is aposterioric, because I can think that Zamenhof got it
from German, that he dug it up from language history and saw the
similarity with the Finnish genitive/accusative case. But I must look
at Zamenhofs writings to be able to say something more substantial on
this.

As for the pronoun ending -i, the -as in the verb, the adjectival -a
and the noun -o I can only guess, unless Zamenhof clearly stated where
he got this or that from. It is obvious that he got the shi-pronoun
from English, and one can imagine that the _li_ is from the Romance
languages. But the observer cannot say anything about the adjective
and noun endings -o and -a.

-i (infinitive and pronoun)
-as - present tence verb
-a - adjective
-o - noun
are uncertain and this is what a schematic language has.
There is a system that the author has created and he has chosen the
morphemes to function in the system.

As a naturalistic language I imagine a language which is very similar
to existing well known languages. One could of course imagine a
naturalistic language looking like Swahili or Chinese, but this is
outside my competence.

One could imagine a naturalistic language using the word selection
method of Interlingua but built on the Indo-European languages on the
Indian Subcontinent instead of the European ones, but that is only
mentioned here as an interesting example. It is outside my competence
and the scoope of this article.

Interlingua uses only existing language material.


An example of a naturalistic language is:
Io parla le lingua international "Eurounionidioma".


Phil Hunt

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Nov 30, 1996, 3:00:00 AM11/30/96
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In article <57p39d$q...@oden.abc.se> m9...@abc.se "Kjell Rehnstroem" writes:
>A scematic language like Esperanto will have markers for pronoun,
>verb/tence, adjective, noun, object:
>Mi parolas la internacian lingvon "Euruniolingvo".
> [...]

>
>An example of a naturalistic language is:
>Io parla le lingua international "Eurounionidioma".

What about:
Me parle la inter-nationa lang "Eurounionidioma".

Is this schematic or naturalistic?

--
Phil Hunt
Eurolang, a common second language for the European Union. See:
Eurolang, comuna dua lang per la Europa Unized. Vidu:
<http://www.vision25.demon.co.uk/eurolang.htm>


Bruce R. Gilson

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Dec 2, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/2/96
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Most IALs are neither purely schematic nor purely naturalistic. There's
a continuum. Esperanto is much more schematic than Interlingua, with
Novial somewhere in the middle. (My preference is somewhere a slight bit
more schematic than Novial, but I think Phil Hunt's Eurolang, as I judge
it, is slightly LESS schematic than Novial. The distance between us is
rather small. In the mailing-list group I'm in, we've added a bit more
schematicity to Novial, bringing it pretty close to my ideal. But I think
Eurolang is well within the limits of what I consider a good candidate.)

I can't imagine an a priori but naturalistic language, so there are really
three canonical types: a priori, a posteriori schematic, and a priori
naturalistic. But just as the isolating/agglutinative/amalgamating distinction
is useful only as a rough categorization, so is this. Chinese is essentially
purely isolating, but pure examples of the other are hard to come by. And
there are purely a priori languages, but even E-o cannot be considered
totally schematic, and most Interlingua advocates insist that there are
schematic elements in their favorite.

Bruce R. Gilson
email: b...@netcom.com
IRC: EZ-as-pi
WWW: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3141
(for language stuff: add /langpage.html)

STAN MULAIK

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Dec 3, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/3/96
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b...@netcom.com (Bruce R. Gilson) writes:


> And
>there are purely a priori languages, but even E-o cannot be considered
>totally schematic, and most Interlingua advocates insist that there are
>schematic elements in their favorite.

Isto es ver con respecto a interlingua. Quando on lege le section del
Grammatica de Gode e Blair "Word Building" (Le construction de parolas)
on es exponite al systema de affixos neolatin incorporate a in
interlingua, usate in le varie linguas pro crear nove parolas. Le
Dictionario de Interlingua-Anglese anque monstra le serie derivational
in connection con cata verbo, e iste serie es multo schematic e
systematic. In un certe texto Dr. Gode parlava de iste systema
de affixos como si illo mesme es un grande prototypo del linguas
europee.

--
Stanley A. Mulaik
School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332
uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!pscccsm
Internet: psc...@prism.gatech.edu

Phil Hunt

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Dec 4, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/4/96
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In article <brgE1t...@netcom.com> b...@netcom.com "Bruce R. Gilson" writes:
>Most IALs are neither purely schematic nor purely naturalistic. There's
>a continuum. Esperanto is much more schematic than Interlingua, with
>Novial somewhere in the middle. (My preference is somewhere a slight bit
>more schematic than Novial, but I think Phil Hunt's Eurolang, as I judge
>it, is slightly LESS schematic than Novial.

How do you work that out? I'd say Eurolang is about as schematic
as Novial, perhaps more schematic.

Bruce R. Gilson

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Dec 7, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/7/96
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In article <849721...@vision25.demon.co.uk>,

Phil Hunt <ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <brgE1t...@netcom.com> b...@netcom.com "Bruce R. Gilson" writes:
>>Most IALs are neither purely schematic nor purely naturalistic. There's
>>a continuum. Esperanto is much more schematic than Interlingua, with
>>Novial somewhere in the middle. (My preference is somewhere a slight bit
>>more schematic than Novial, but I think Phil Hunt's Eurolang, as I judge
>>it, is slightly LESS schematic than Novial.
>
>How do you work that out? I'd say Eurolang is about as schematic
>as Novial, perhaps more schematic.
>
>

I base my estimate on the fact that (although there are some exceptions in
1928 Novial, which we are trying to get rid of) Novial uses POS markers
rather more consistently than Eurolang, which as far as I know only uses
an adjective ending -a. Unfortunately, 1928 Novial uses -e/-a/-o for two
different purposes (the greatest flaw in the scheme) so you need to decide
whether the base is an animate noun (in which case -a and -o are sexual
markers) or an inanimate noun (in which case -a is a derived verb, and -o
an abstract noun). This is the biggest change we have decided on, going to
-e/-ar/-atione for the latter case.

Kjell Rehnstroem

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Dec 8, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/8/96
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ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) wrote:

>In article <57p39d$q...@oden.abc.se> m9...@abc.se "Kjell Rehnstroem" writes:
>>A scematic language like Esperanto will have markers for pronoun,
>>verb/tence, adjective, noun, object:
>>Mi parolas la internacian lingvon "Euruniolingvo".
>> [...]
>>
>>An example of a naturalistic language is:
>>Io parla le lingua international "Eurounionidioma".

>What about:
>Me parle la inter-nationa lang "Eurounionidioma".

>Is this schematic or naturalistic?

A schematic language with aposteriori elements. As far as I understand
the definition there are only aposteriori elements in your example.
This is if I can think that the -a in the article _la_ and in
_nationa_ is feminine or just an adjective marker like in Esperanto.


As I remember the definition the fact that Interlingua generalizes the
romance languages' -us, -a, -um > e (e.g. sancte, grande) does not
make Interlingua a schematic language. For this Interlingua should
have to use the -e on every adjective.

The question I want to explore is if it were possible to build a
schematic language out of purely naturalistic elements.

In Esperanto and Eurolang I have to accept someone else's decision. An
example would be:
Esperanto Eurolang Interlingua
preg^ejo religion-place ecclesia
lernejo lern-place* schola
* I guess that it is _lern-place_ by analogy. It could be a university
as well.

Even in my Swedish I have memory-knobs where I can hang words. Like
this:
the word think of meaning
ecclesia ecklesiastik kyrka (church)
schola schola cantorum skola (school)
(for the spelling :-)
One could have imagined
studejo stud-place universitate
studanto ? studente/studiante
Why not
lernigisto ? instructor
studigisto ? professor, doctor, lector, tutor
+ all the types of teachers that
have at an university.

Esperanto does have the word _skolo_ like in _school of thought_,
_philosofical school_.
Interlingua have them in both meanings.

It is important to remember that most of Esperanto's vocabulary is
aposterioric, and for practical needs the Northeuropean can remember
lernejo as lerni > learn/la¨ra/lernen/ etc.

As I have noticed through the years there are two opposite trends in
Esperanto: 1. to create new suffixes: far, end, abl, ich, 2. to
substitute suffigated words with more international ones.

1. I would say that the three first suffixes - or perhaps I should
call them morphemes - are clearly aposteriori.
far facere, fare make
end -endum (in Latin) that which should or must be done.
legendum What should be read
delendum What should be deleted.

-abl- capable
capability
-ich- masculine?

In esperanto most(?) suffixes can be used as autonomous morphemes:
like this
-ig- grandigi ("make bigger", blow up, increase)
But you can igi (make) personon kompreni.

If this is possible then the opposit way should be possible. How would
it look?

It is nothing new that a certain suffix suddenly becomes productive.
Two examples of this is

suffix English Interingua Swedish

-arium aquarium aquario akvarium
dolphinarium delfinario delfinarium
herpetarium herpetario herpetarium
terrarium terrario terrarium
-teque - - - biblioteca bibliotek
discoteque discoteca diskotek
---- ---- klippotek (where you
can get a haircut
lekotek (where children can
play

-arium may mean the "inhabitant" or the "medium".

Could an international auxiliary language be built on totally
naturalistic morphemes but as a schematic language and at the same
time be as readable/understandable to the un-initiated speaker of one
of the big Western Languages? This is the interesting question.

For the time being we don't have such a language.

For me Interlingua fills the needs I have of an International
language. I can use it with those who have learnt it and all those who
know the international vocabulary as it is defined for Interlingua's
source languages. The theoretical possibility is what interests me.

Pro me interlingua satisface le besionios io ha de un lingua
international. Io pote lo usar con illes qui ha apprendite lo e con
omne illes qui sape le vocabulario international, assi como illo es
definite pro le linguas fonte de interlingua. Lo que me interessa es
le possibilitate teoretic.

Kjell


Don HARLOW

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Dec 9, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/9/96
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m9...@abc.se (Kjell Rehnstroem) lastatempe skribis:

An interesting posting. I only want to comment on pronouns:

>As for the pronoun ending -i, the -as in the verb, the adjectival -a

Please note that the -I in pronouns is consistent largely for
heuristic reasons, and does not qualify as an "ending" in the same
sense as -AS, -A and -O (which can be attached to anything, including
the pronouns...).

>and the noun -o I can only guess, unless Zamenhof clearly stated where
>he got this or that from. It is obvious that he got the shi-pronoun
>from English, and one can imagine that the _li_ is from the Romance
>languages. But the observer cannot say anything about the adjective
>and noun endings -o and -a.

> -i (infinitive and pronoun)
>-as - present tence verb
>-a - adjective
>-o - noun
>are uncertain and this is what a schematic language has.
>There is a system that the author has created and he has chosen the
>morphemes to function in the system.

For comments on the sources in existing lingustic materials of all
these Esperanto endings, see Waringhien, Gaston, _Lingvo kaj Vivo_,
pp.55-56 (-O, -A), pp. 57-58 (the various verb endings), pp. 58-59
(the pronouns).

Don HARLOW
http://www.webcom.com/~donh/
(English version available at http://www.webcom.com/~donh/dona.html)


Phil Hunt

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Dec 9, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/9/96
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In article <brgE21...@netcom.com> b...@netcom.com "Bruce R. Gilson" writes:
>In article <849721...@vision25.demon.co.uk>,
>Phil Hunt <ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>In article <brgE1t...@netcom.com> b...@netcom.com "Bruce R. Gilson" writes:
>>>Most IALs are neither purely schematic nor purely naturalistic. There's
>>>a continuum. Esperanto is much more schematic than Interlingua, with
>>>Novial somewhere in the middle. (My preference is somewhere a slight bit
>>>more schematic than Novial, but I think Phil Hunt's Eurolang, as I judge
>>>it, is slightly LESS schematic than Novial.
>>
>>How do you work that out? I'd say Eurolang is about as schematic
>>as Novial, perhaps more schematic.
>
>I base my estimate on the fact that (although there are some exceptions in
>1928 Novial, which we are trying to get rid of) Novial uses POS markers
>rather more consistently than Eurolang, which as far as I know only uses
>an adjective ending -a.

And the -ae adverb ending, and the -ar verb infinitive ending.

>Unfortunately, 1928 Novial uses -e/-a/-o for two
>different purposes (the greatest flaw in the scheme) so you need to decide
>whether the base is an animate noun (in which case -a and -o are sexual
>markers) or an inanimate noun (in which case -a is a derived verb, and -o
>an abstract noun). This is the biggest change we have decided on, going to
>-e/-ar/-atione for the latter case.

That looks better IMO (and also more like Eurolang).

Perhaps you'd like to post some info about your Novial project to a.l.a.

Phil Hunt

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Dec 9, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/9/96
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In article <58f86p$p...@oden.abc.se> m9...@abc.se "Kjell Rehnstroem" writes:
>>What about:
>>Me parle la inter-nationa lang "Eurounionidioma".
>
>>Is this schematic or naturalistic?
>
>A schematic language with aposteriori elements. As far as I understand
>the definition there are only aposteriori elements in your example.
>This is if I can think that the -a in the article _la_ and in
>_nationa_ is feminine or just an adjective marker like in Esperanto.

In _nationa_ it's an adjective marker (from the noun _nation_). In _la_
it isn't a separate morpheme because _la_ cannot be split into elements.

>The question I want to explore is if it were possible to build a
>schematic language out of purely naturalistic elements.

All the words and affixes in Eurolang come from European languages
(although sometimes they are used differently).

-a comes from:

(1) consistency with determiners such as _la, qua, da_.

(2) -ar and -al adjectival endings in various languages, ultimately
from Latin.

(3) -a feminine adjectival ending in Italian and Spanish.

>In Esperanto and Eurolang I have to accept someone else's decision. An
>example would be:
>Esperanto Eurolang Interlingua
>preg^ejo religion-place ecclesia
>lernejo lern-place* schola
>* I guess that it is _lern-place_ by analogy. It could be a university
>as well.

_lern-place_ could equally refer to a school or a university.

>One could have imagined
>studejo stud-place universitate
>studanto ? studente/studiante
>Why not
>lernigisto ? instructor
>studigisto ? professor, doctor, lector, tutor
> + all the types of teachers that
> have at an university.

In EL, _lernar_ = learn, so _lernizar_ = teach (ie cause someone
to learn). Ateacher, instructor, professor etc is therefore a _lernizer_.

>Could an international auxiliary language be built on totally
>naturalistic morphemes but as a schematic language and at the same
>time be as readable/understandable to the un-initiated speaker of one
>of the big Western Languages? This is the interesting question.

That's one of my goals for Eurolang.

>For the time being we don't have such a language.
>
>For me Interlingua fills the needs I have of an International
>language. I can use it with those who have learnt it and all those who
>know the international vocabulary as it is defined for Interlingua's
>source languages. The theoretical possibility is what interests me.

IMO a language like Interlingua but more regular, and with more Germanic
elements, would be desirable.

John Fisher

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Dec 10, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/10/96
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In article <850158...@vision25.demon.co.uk>, Phil Hunt
<ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk> writes

>In EL, _lernar_ = learn, so _lernizar_ = teach (ie cause someone
>to learn). Ateacher, instructor, professor etc is therefore a _lernizer_.

I'm not sure that `cause to learn' is a good gloss for `teach':

"An interest in bull-fighting caused me to learn Spanish"
"I taught her the piano every afternoon for a month, but
she didn't learn a thing"

--John
--
John Fisher jo...@drummond.demon.co.uk jo...@epcc.ed.ac.uk
Drummond is an independent site; its opinions are my own

Phil Hunt

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Dec 11, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/11/96
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In article <kGUpIGAX...@drummond.demon.co.uk>

jo...@drummond.demon.co.uk "John Fisher" writes:
>In article <850158...@vision25.demon.co.uk>, Phil Hunt
><ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk> writes
>>In EL, _lernar_ = learn, so _lernizar_ = teach (ie cause someone
>>to learn). Ateacher, instructor, professor etc is therefore a _lernizer_.
>
>I'm not sure that `cause to learn' is a good gloss for `teach':
>
> "An interest in bull-fighting caused me to learn Spanish"
> "I taught her the piano every afternoon for a month, but
> she didn't learn a thing"

You have a ponit here. Perhaps _instructar_ or _instruir_ would
be better words for "teach". Then we'd have:

Interestion de malbov-bation causav me lernar Espanja-lang.

Although it would be better to say:

Me interestav malbov-bation, so me lernav Espanja-lang.

The other sentence would be:

Me instructav la piano to she totae post midday per month, but
she no lernav ania ding.

Kjell Rehnstroem

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Dec 12, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/12/96
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d...@donh.vip.best.com (Don HARLOW) wrote:

>m9...@abc.se (Kjell Rehnstroem) lastatempe skribis:

>An interesting posting. I only want to comment on pronouns:

>>As for the pronoun ending -i, the -as in the verb, the adjectival -a

>Please note that the -I in pronouns is consistent largely for
>heuristic reasons, and does not qualify as an "ending" in the same
>sense as -AS, -A and -O (which can be attached to anything, including
>the pronouns...).

Isn't that only because the books say so? I saw in an Esperanto
posting the pronoun _shli_ for a third person gender-neutral pronoun -
like Finnish _hän_ (ha¨n).

I think you have a parallel in some descriptions of Interlingua verbs.
It is often said that they have three infinitives. But really there's
only one - -r. For historical reasons you can divide the verbs in
groups according to the end-vowel of the verb stem: -a, -e, -i. But
these differences don't affect the infinitive. You just add an -r.

From a paractical point of view you cannot talk of 3 infinitives as
there is nothing you have to do to form the infinitive from the
present tence stem - more than adding the -r, that is.

>>and the noun -o I can only guess, unless Zamenhof clearly stated where
>>he got this or that from. It is obvious that he got the shi-pronoun
>>from English, and one can imagine that the _li_ is from the Romance
>>languages. But the observer cannot say anything about the adjective
>>and noun endings -o and -a.

>> -i (infinitive and pronoun)
>>-as - present tence verb
>>-a - adjective
>>-o - noun
>>are uncertain and this is what a schematic language has.
>>There is a system that the author has created and he has chosen the
>>morphemes to function in the system.

>For comments on the sources in existing lingustic materials of all
>these Esperanto endings, see Waringhien, Gaston, _Lingvo kaj Vivo_,
>pp.55-56 (-O, -A), pp. 57-58 (the various verb endings), pp. 58-59
>(the pronouns).

>Don HARLOW
>http://www.webcom.com/~donh/
>(English version available at http://www.webcom.com/~donh/dona.html)

I dont have the book but I read it many years ago. A schematic
interlingua would perhaps permit forms like
_liberitate_ instead of _libertate_
_bonitate_ " " _bontate_
_bellitate_ " " _beltate_.

Eurolang is an a posteriori language with strong schematic character.
On the whole I am not very happy with the terms naturalistic and
schematic because they appear to contain a strong propagandistic
element.

I think the following story will shed some light on the idea. I think
Don can correct me on the details.

In one of Esperanto's early years there was a person who did not like
the idea of an international language like Esperanto. Then one of the
leading men around Zamenhof read a poem or something like that. The
first person thought this was Italian. This man would have said that
Esperanto was a naturalistic language.

Perhaps one could say that a naturalistic language is one where the
constructor (author) has avoided all the forms that may look unnatural
to a neutral observer who has the necessary linguistic background.

Perhaps one could make the division like this:
a priori - a posteriori (no discussion, the first is psychiatry :-)
and the second can be explored. The first can be explored as well, but
then there will be about associations etc. and this is not pure
linguistics to me.

schematic - naturalistic - comprehensible
and then subdivisions.

Then one would get:
volapu¨k: a posteriori, schematic
esperanto: aposteriori with a priori elements, schematic
Eurolang: a posteriori with a priori elements? schematic
ido: a posteriori, no a priori elements (as far as I know), schematic
occidental: a posteriori, schematic, naturalistic, comprehensible
IALA:s Interlingua: a posteriori, naturalistic, comprehensible with
elements of schematicism.

I was tempted to give Eurolang a better comprehensibility rating than
Esperanto, but I think it is fair to put them at the same level there.
On the other hand Esperanto is much more expressive and "plastic" than
Eurolang. This is my personal view and the reason for this is that
Eurolang - if I have understand it right - aims at simplifying not
only word formation but also the meanings.

Kjell Rehnstroem

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Dec 12, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/12/96
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ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) wrote:

Vole ben notar que

Me instructav la piano to she

es un clar anglicismo.
Le linguas artificial que io cognosce - esperanto e interlingua (e
passive ido e occidental) - non usa iste expression. In esperanto on
certo debe dicer
Mi instruis al shi pianoludon la tutan posttagmezon, sed shi ne
lernias ion (ajn).
Io le instrueva le sonar al piano tote le postmeridie, ma illo nihil
apprendeva.

Si tu ha un reflexivo in le grammatica de Eurolang il erea possibile
scriber
_Illa *se instrueva..._

Io ha pensate como on deberea traducer le titulo del libros Teach
yourself X-ish. On evidentemente debe render le frase in un maniera
como "Sia tu proprie instructor!"
"Apprende a proprie mano".

Don HARLOW

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Dec 14, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/14/96
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m9...@abc.se (Kjell Rehnstroem) lastatempe skribis:

>d...@donh.vip.best.com (Don HARLOW) wrote:

>>m9...@abc.se (Kjell Rehnstroem) lastatempe skribis:

>>An interesting posting. I only want to comment on pronouns:

>>>As for the pronoun ending -i, the -as in the verb, the adjectival -a

>>Please note that the -I in pronouns is consistent largely for
>>heuristic reasons, and does not qualify as an "ending" in the same
>>sense as -AS, -A and -O (which can be attached to anything, including
>>the pronouns...).

>Isn't that only because the books say so? I saw in an Esperanto
>posting the pronoun _shli_ for a third person gender-neutral pronoun -
>like Finnish _hän_ (ha¨n).

More commonly "ri" (there is a manifesto about this posted somewhere
on line). But, again, this is purely a heuristic device; the -i in
pronouns is not an independent morpheme, and cannot be attached to
other sorts of roots, as any genuine Esperanto ending can.

>I think you have a parallel in some descriptions of Interlingua verbs.
>It is often said that they have three infinitives. But really there's
>only one - -r. For historical reasons you can divide the verbs in
>groups according to the end-vowel of the verb stem: -a, -e, -i. But
>these differences don't affect the infinitive. You just add an -r.

>From a paractical point of view you cannot talk of 3 infinitives as
>there is nothing you have to do to form the infinitive from the
>present tence stem - more than adding the -r, that is.

The differences between the three Interlingua conjugations are minor,
and could easily have been omitted, but they are more (by, I believe,
one item in each conjugation) than simply changing between an -a, an
-e and an -i. I believe, for instance, that in one of the other forms,
while -A- remains -A- and -E- remains -E-, -I- becomes -IE-.

The story is actually told by Antoni GRABOWSKI, about himself. He was
at a party, where several people, aware that he spoke Esperanto, were
disparaging the language as monstrous and unnatural. "Let me read you
a passage from a poem in Esperanto," said Grabowski, "and then tell me
whether the language is indeed monstrous and unnatural." He then
proceeded to read part of a poem.

Reaction was, as expected, that, indeed, this was a terrible-sounding
language, with misformed vowels and consonants -- just what one would
expect of an artificial tongue. After a few minutes of this criticism,
Grabowski, looking uncomfortable, intervened. "I am sorry," he said,
"I seem to have taken the wrong poem out of my pocket. What I was
reading to you was in Provencal, written by the great poet Mistral."

After some hemming and hawing, the audience allowed as how they might
not have been listening all that closely, and would he please continue
with the poem, so that they could more carefully criticise the
language in question. Grabowski did so, and when he finished, the
attitude was quite different -- the delightful and sonorous sound of
the language, its beauty, the meter and rhyme -- a typical and obvious
example of the beauty of a natural Romance language.

Grabowski, again looking flustered, intervened. "I am sorry again," he
said, "but what I was reading to you that time was my Esperanto
translation of the poem by Mistral."

The moral of the story being that people pretty much hear what they
expect to hear.

Phil Hunt

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Dec 14, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/14/96
to

In article <58pp7f$s...@oden.abc.se> m9...@abc.se "Kjell Rehnstroem" writes:
>I think you have a parallel in some descriptions of Interlingua verbs.
>It is often said that they have three infinitives. But really there's
>only one - -r. For historical reasons you can divide the verbs in
>groups according to the end-vowel of the verb stem: -a, -e, -i. But
>these differences don't affect the infinitive. You just add an -r.

They do affect the other endings. Ie:

Infinitive -ar -er -ir
Present part. -ante -ente -iente
Past part. -ate -ite -ite

If Interlingua's participles were slightly changed, there would by
only one conjugation:

Infinitive -ar -er -ir
Present part -ante -ente -inte
Past part -ate -ete -ite

Another way of looking at this is to say that the letter before the -r
in the infinitve is part of the stem.

>I dont have the book but I read it many years ago. A schematic
>interlingua would perhaps permit forms like
>_liberitate_ instead of _libertate_
>_bonitate_ " " _bontate_
>_bellitate_ " " _beltate_.

Porbably. Better still, it wouldn't use -itate anyway. Consider

English -ity
French -it'e
Spanish -idad
Portuguese -idade
Italian -it`a
German -it"at

Interlingua -itate
Eurolang -iti
Esperanto -eco
Ido -eso
Novial -eso
Occidental -(i)t'a

Given IL's source languages, -ita would be more recognisable. It would
also have be benefit of being shorter than -itate.

The suffixes that E-o, Ido and Novial use are IMO flawed as they lead
to words that are less recognisable (eg libereco, libereso).

Phil Hunt

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Dec 14, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/14/96
to

In article <58q3qo$5...@oden.abc.se> m9...@abc.se "Kjell Rehnstroem" writes:

>ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) wrote:
>>You have a ponit here. Perhaps _instructar_ or _instruir_ would
>>be better words for "teach". Then we'd have:
>> Interestion de malbov-bation causav me lernar Espanja-lang.
>>Although it would be better to say:
>> Me interestav malbov-bation, so me lernav Espanja-lang.
>>The other sentence would be:
>> Me instructav la piano to she totae post midday per month, but
>> she no lernav ania ding.
>
>Vole ben notar que
>Me instructav la piano to she
>es un clar anglicismo.

No-one would say "I instructed the piano to her" in English. OTOH,
_la piano_ instead of _piano_ or _piano-jouation_ is an Anglicism.

>Si tu ha un reflexivo in le grammatica de Eurolang il erea possibile
>scriber
>_Illa *se instrueva..._
>
>Io ha pensate como on deberea traducer le titulo del libros Teach
>yourself X-ish. On evidentemente debe render le frase in un maniera
>como "Sia tu proprie instructor!"
>"Apprende a proprie mano".

"Teach yourself X" would be _Instructu X to se_.

Bruce R. Gilson

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Dec 15, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/15/96
to

In article <850602...@vision25.demon.co.uk>,
>--
>Phil Hunt
>Eurolang, a common second language for the European Union. See:
>Eurolang, comuna dua lang per la Europa Unized. Vidu:
> <http://www.vision25.demon.co.uk/eurolang.htm>
>

You may be interested in knowing that -eso was one of about 3 or 4 of the
Novial endings we rejected. The revived Novial uses -itate.

This was probably a result of two factors. Not only is -ita(t)(e) closer to
the natural endings, but -o on other than masculine nouns is something we
do not want to see, in keeping with a desire for greater consistency. The
-eso (an Idism) and -aro (an Esperantism) endings were thus changed to
-itate and -sie.

Don HARLOW

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Dec 15, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/15/96
to

b...@netcom.com (Bruce R. Gilson) lastatempe skribis:

>In article <850602...@vision25.demon.co.uk>,
>Phil Hunt <ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>The suffixes that E-o, Ido and Novial use are IMO flawed as they lead
>>to words that are less recognisable (eg libereco, libereso).

>You may be interested in knowing that -eso was one of about 3 or 4 of the


>Novial endings we rejected. The revived Novial uses -itate.

>This was probably a result of two factors. Not only is -ita(t)(e) closer to
>the natural endings, but -o on other than masculine nouns is something we
>do not want to see, in keeping with a desire for greater consistency. The
>-eso (an Idism) and -aro (an Esperantism) endings were thus changed to
>-itate and -sie.

-eso (Esperanto -eco) is in fact an Italicism (-ezza, from the Latin
-itia; also found in the French -esse and the occasional Spanish
-eza). -aro is apparently from the Latin -arium, from where it worked
its way into a number of Romance languages and others (e.g. English
"library"); it is also occasionally found (probably coincidentally) in
some other language groups, e.g. Russian _slovar'_.

Sometimes I wonder just what "natural" is meant to mean.

Phil Hunt

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Dec 15, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/15/96
to

In article <brgE2F...@netcom.com> b...@netcom.com "Bruce R. Gilson" writes:
>In article <850602...@vision25.demon.co.uk>,
>Phil Hunt <ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>Porbably. Better still, it wouldn't use -itate anyway. Consider
>>
>>English -ity
>>French -it'e
>>Spanish -idad
>>Portuguese -idade
>>Italian -it`a
>>German -it"at
>>
>>Interlingua -itate
>>Eurolang -iti
>>Esperanto -eco
>>Ido -eso
>>Novial -eso
>>Occidental -(i)t'a
>>
>>Given IL's source languages, -ita would be more recognisable. It would
>>also have be benefit of being shorter than -itate.
>>
>>The suffixes that E-o, Ido and Novial use are IMO flawed as they lead
>>to words that are less recognisable (eg libereco, libereso).
>
>You may be interested in knowing that -eso was one of about 3 or 4 of the
>Novial endings we rejected. The revived Novial uses -itate.

Why -itate and not -ita or -iti or -ite? What natlang uses -itate
(Romanian?).

Bruce R. Gilson

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Dec 16, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/16/96
to

In article <850668...@vision25.demon.co.uk>,
Why -itate rather than -ita? Because I need an -e ending. Remember, I am
regularizing the rule that ALL nouns end in -e (with the exceptions of -um
for certain abstract nouns, but there's a special rule for that which I'm not
going into here) unless they are gender-specific. -ita would imply femaleness
and I don't think that's appropriate. -ite (used in French) might be acceptable
but -itate is closer to the Sp. -idad and German -itaet, and Spanish + German
collectively carry more weight than French, I think.

Julian Pardoe

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Dec 16, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/16/96
to

Bruce R. Gilson wrote:
> In article <850668...@vision25.demon.co.uk>,
> Phil Hunt <ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >Why -itate and not -ita or -iti or -ite? What natlang uses -itate
> >(Romanian?).
>
> Why -itate rather than -ita? Because I need an -e ending. Remember, I am
> regularizing the rule that ALL nouns end in -e (with the exceptions of -um
> for certain abstract nouns, but there's a special rule for that which I'm not
> going into here) unless they are gender-specific. -ita would imply femaleness
> and I don't think that's appropriate. -ite (used in French) might be acceptable
> but -itate is closer to the Sp. -idad and German -itaet, and Spanish + German
> collectively carry more weight than French, I think.

You might add that Russian and Polish borrowed the German form as "-itet".

-- jP --

Edmund Grimley-Evans

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Dec 16, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/16/96
to

|> The suffixes that E-o, Ido and Novial use are IMO flawed as they lead
|> to words that are less recognisable (eg libereco, libereso).

Notice, however, that the English and German suffixes with the
closest meaning, as opposed to the closest form, to what you
seem to be talking about are not -ity and -it\"at as you listed
above but -ness and -heit/-keit. And I'm not sure about the
French equivalent being -it\'e, either. Can anyone tell us the
usual, default way, if there is one, for forming a noun from
an adjective in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese? (What do
you do with a new adjective borrowed from an exotic language?)

I would guess that the etymology of Esperanto's -eco is probably
the French ending -esse modified to avoid a clash with the
imperfect ending -es which existed in pre-release versions of
Esperanto, but that's just a guess. We Esperantists are not
really interested in etymology all that much, though we do now
have a couple of etymological dictionaries of Esperanto ...

STAN MULAIK

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Dec 16, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/16/96
to

ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:

>In article <brgE2F...@netcom.com> b...@netcom.com "Bruce R. Gilson" writes:

>>In article <850602...@vision25.demon.co.uk>,


>>Phil Hunt <ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>>Porbably. Better still, it wouldn't use -itate anyway. Consider
>>>
>>>English -ity
>>>French -it'e
>>>Spanish -idad
>>>Portuguese -idade
>>>Italian -it`a
>>>German -it"at
>>>
>>>Interlingua -itate
>>>Eurolang -iti
>>>Esperanto -eco
>>>Ido -eso
>>>Novial -eso
>>>Occidental -(i)t'a
>>>
>>>Given IL's source languages, -ita would be more recognisable. It would
>>>also have be benefit of being shorter than -itate.
>>>
>>

>>You may be interested in knowing that -eso was one of about 3 or 4 of the
>>Novial endings we rejected. The revived Novial uses -itate.

>Why -itate and not -ita or -iti or -ite? What natlang uses -itate

Phil: Keep in mind that Interlingua has its principles of determining
the form of the word in the international vocabulary. These principles
are generally applicable in an objective manner and produce an objective
form for the word or affix in the vocabulary.

You very nicely demonstrate the variants to -itate in the control languages
for Interlinuga. The reason -itate is chosen is because this is the
form of the prototype (standardized) from which the variants in the
control languages deviate in their characteristic ways. The prototype
is either a theoretical or actual ancestral form common to them. Keep
in mind that the followers of Interlingua believe that Interlingua
exists as an objective phenomenon, and they are only registering what
this phenomenon is and standardizing it. It is a natural language,
not a constructed one.

But you have to consider how -itate conforms with other formations,
like -itation, e.g. gravitate, gravitation.

STAN MULAIK

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Dec 16, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/16/96
to

With respect to the etymology of -ity in English and its relationship to
the ending -itate in Interlingua, the following is given in Webster's
Third International Dictionary of the English Language found in INFOPEDIA:
-ity n suffix , pl -ities [ME -ite, fr. OF or L; OF -ite', fr. L -itat-,
-itas, fr. -i- (stem vowel of adjs.) + -tat-, -tas -ity; akin to Gk -t-t-,
-t-s -ity] : quality : state : degree <alkalinity > <theatricality

Someone who knows Latin grammar can explain the use of the genetive
form -itatis, and if they further know the way this made its way as
the most frequent form in the Romance languages, I would be interested
to see the story.

Phil Hunt

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Dec 16, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/16/96
to

In article <brgE2H...@netcom.com> b...@netcom.com "Bruce R. Gilson" writes:
>>Why -itate and not -ita or -iti or -ite? What natlang uses -itate
>>(Romanian?).
>
>Why -itate rather than -ita? Because I need an -e ending. Remember, I am
>regularizing the rule that ALL nouns end in -e (with the exceptions of -um
>for certain abstract nouns, but there's a special rule for that which I'm not
>going into here) unless they are gender-specific. -ita would imply femaleness
>and I don't think that's appropriate. -ite (used in French) might be acceptable
>but -itate is closer to the Sp. -idad and German -itaet, and Spanish + German
>collectively carry more weight than French, I think.

But don't English French and Italian collectively carry more weight than
Spanish and German? What weightings do you use for New Novial? (Eurolang
uses the number of speakers of these languages inside the EU).

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal

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Dec 17, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/17/96
to

psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) wrote:

>With respect to the etymology of -ity in English and its relationship to
>the ending -itate in Interlingua, the following is given in Webster's
>Third International Dictionary of the English Language found in INFOPEDIA:
>-ity n suffix , pl -ities [ME -ite, fr. OF or L; OF -ite', fr. L -itat-,
>-itas, fr. -i- (stem vowel of adjs.) + -tat-, -tas -ity; akin to Gk -t-t-,
>-t-s -ity] : quality : state : degree <alkalinity > <theatricality

>Someone who knows Latin grammar can explain the use of the genetive
>form -itatis, and if they further know the way this made its way as
>the most frequent form in the Romance languages, I would be interested
>to see the story.

The Latin nominative, with a few exceptions, most notably Italian and
Romanian plurals, did not make it into Romance. What lives on in the
vast majority of Romance nouns and adjectives is the accusative. In
this case -itatem. Final -m had already been lost in Classical times,
at least in spoken Latin. -itate is therefore the "Proto-Romance" form.
I haven't starred it, because it still is Romanian.


==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
m...@pi.net |_____________|||

========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig


Fabrice Andrieux

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Dec 17, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/17/96
to psc...@prism.gatech.edu

psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) ecrivait :

>ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:
>>Why -itate and not -ita or -iti or -ite? What natlang uses -itate
>

>You very nicely demonstrate the variants to -itate in the control languages
>for Interlinuga. The reason -itate is chosen is because this is the
>form of the prototype (standardized) from which the variants in the
>control languages deviate in their characteristic ways.

And why not -itat ? It could be also considered as the form of the prototype
(without the ending, which varies) as well as -itate (or -itas, -itatem,
-itatis, etc...).

Fabrice ANDRIEUX


D Gary Grady

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Dec 17, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/17/96
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psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) wrote:

> [...] Keep


>in mind that the followers of Interlingua believe that Interlingua
>exists as an objective phenomenon, and they are only registering what
>this phenomenon is and standardizing it. It is a natural language,
>not a constructed one.

This is one of the oddest claims I've ever seen for Interlingua. Some
reasonable argument can be made that Interlingua is constructed on a
"objective" basis (once the clearly subjective choice of source
languages is granted, anyway), but to label it therefore "not a
constructed language" strikes me as more than a little absurd.

This is not intended to be a cricism of Interlingua, which indeed
offers a number of advantages as a passive language, in that many
Western Europeans with some knowledge of a Romance language can get at
least the thrust of a notice or article in Interlingua without any
prior instruction specifically in Interlingua. (On the other hand,
Interlingua is quite a bit harder to learn to write and speak, and is
at the moment of only very limited actual use, with only a tiny amount
of publishing activity, no international broadcasting, etc.)


D Gary Grady
Durham NC USA
73513...@compuserve.com / dg...@mindspring.com

STAN MULAIK

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Dec 17, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/17/96
to

Fabrice Andrieux <fand...@stna7.stna.dgac.fr> writes:

>psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) ecrivait :

>>ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:
>>>Why -itate and not -ita or -iti or -ite? What natlang uses -itate
>>

>> The reason -itate is chosen is because this is the
>>form of the prototype (standardized) from which the variants in the
>>control languages deviate in their characteristic ways.

>And why not -itat ? It could be also considered as the form of the prototype
>(without the ending, which varies) as well as -itate (or -itas, -itatem,
>-itatis, etc...).

> Fabrice ANDRIEUX

As a matter of fact, there is a variant of orthography for Interlingua
that drops the final -e in words ending in -te and -me, preceded by a
vowel, except in the case of words in which the stress is on a third
preceding vowel. So there is "minoritat", "humanitat", "suprem", but
"composite". But you would use this ending along with past participles
ending in -it, -at, etc. The Interlingua-English Dictionary of IALA
preferred to keep the -e. After all, there is Portuguese -idade.

Still -itat would be acceptable in Interlingua, but not conventional.
The issue is whether to stick with the prototypes as much as possible
or go for slight modifications in the orthography and pronunciation
of the words for whatever reasons.

I appreciate Miguel's comment here establishing -itate(m) as the
prototype in the protoromance ending.

STAN MULAIK

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Dec 17, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/17/96
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dg...@mindspring.com (D Gary Grady) writes:

>psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) wrote:


>This is one of the oddest claims I've ever seen for Interlingua. Some
>reasonable argument can be made that Interlingua is constructed on a
>"objective" basis (once the clearly subjective choice of source
>languages is granted, anyway), but to label it therefore "not a
>constructed language" strikes me as more than a little absurd.

The argument is that Interlingua represents a standardization of
what already exists as a common phenomenon among the western European
languages. It's presence is clearest in the romance languages, but
it shows up as well in the Germanic languages as well, which have
through history borrowed heavily from Latin and the romance languages
for concepts and terminology. Interlingua IS European. It is the
only natural choice for a common language of Europe apart from English,
whose influence only supports Interlingua's claim.

>This is not intended to be a cricism of Interlingua, which indeed
>offers a number of advantages as a passive language, in that many
>Western Europeans with some knowledge of a Romance language can get at
>least the thrust of a notice or article in Interlingua without any
>prior instruction specifically in Interlingua. (On the other hand,
>Interlingua is quite a bit harder to learn to write and speak, and is
>at the moment of only very limited actual use, with only a tiny amount
>of publishing activity, no international broadcasting, etc.)

I disagree with the characterisation of the difficulty of learning
to speak or write Interlingua. Interlingua is very easy for a European
knowledgeable about Latin or the Romance languages or English to read.
It is very easy for those knowing English or a romance language to
learn to speak and write it, because you can proceed almost on the
basis of a word-for-word translation from these languages to Interlingua.
And the correspondence between the words in these source languages
and those in Interlingua is very high. You don't have to learn
unfamiliar forms or new ways of thinking about concepts you already
know. In my own case I was writing Interlingua, a paragraph at a
time after about a day's reading of the grammar. If I had F. P. Gopsill's
INTERLINGUA TODAY back then, I would have proceeded even more quickly.
Frank Pfaff saw some messages by me here on sci.lang and two weeks
later, after sending off for text materials, sent me a long letter
in good Interlingua.

The question of the extent of use depends upon marketing and finance.
Since a number of us have discovered that the internet is a way to
reach out to others with Interlingua, we have had an increased interest
in the language.

There is a home page with an extensive English-Interlingua Dictionary
as well as grammatical instruction available on the WEB. Just ask for
Interlingua.

Christopher ZERVIC

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Dec 17, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/17/96
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Kjell Rehnstroem wrote:
> Then one would get:
> volapu=A8k: a posteriori, schematic

> esperanto: aposteriori with a priori elements, schematic
> Eurolang: a posteriori with a priori elements? schematic
> ido: a posteriori, no a priori elements (as far as I know), schematic
> occidental: a posteriori, schematic, naturalistic, comprehensible
> IALA:s Interlingua: a posteriori, naturalistic, comprehensible with
> elements of schematicism.

In this scheme, Basic English would go even higher than Interlingua in =

all categories. =


Did Ido use the only word in Esperanto that was totally made up and can =

not be traced to any national language? Im talking about, of course =

_edzo_(=3Dhusband) and of course all of its forms such as edzino, edzigxi, =

praeksedzinigemulareganejo, etc. =


Whats the distribution of tiles on a Euro-lang scrabble board?
-- =

Christopher M. A. ZERVIC E S P E R A N T O
Buffalo Grove, Illinois, Usono lingvo de cxampionoj

Klaus Ole Kristiansen

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Dec 17, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/17/96
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et...@cl.cam.ac.uk (Edmund Grimley-Evans) writes:

>French equivalent being -it\'e, either. Can anyone tell us the
>usual, default way, if there is one, for forming a noun from
>an adjective in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese? (What do
>you do with a new adjective borrowed from an exotic language?)

Danish often uses -hed. -itet is also used, mostly for Latin
loan words.

Klaus O K

Don HARLOW

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Dec 18, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/18/96
to

psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) lastatempe skribis:

>dg...@mindspring.com (D Gary Grady) writes:

>>This is one of the oddest claims I've ever seen for Interlingua. Some
>>reasonable argument can be made that Interlingua is constructed on a
>>"objective" basis (once the clearly subjective choice of source
>>languages is granted, anyway), but to label it therefore "not a
>>constructed language" strikes me as more than a little absurd.

>The argument is that Interlingua represents a standardization of
>what already exists as a common phenomenon among the western European
>languages. It's presence is clearest in the romance languages, but
>it shows up as well in the Germanic languages as well, which have
>through history borrowed heavily from Latin and the romance languages
>for concepts and terminology. Interlingua IS European. It is the
>only natural choice for a common language of Europe apart from English,
>whose influence only supports Interlingua's claim.

The term "natural language" has several different meanings. If you are
referring to the "origin" meaning, then Interlingua is a
planned/constructed language, like Esperanto, Ido, Novial, Eurolang
and Lojban -- the material in it was collected and organized by
Alexander Gode, with some help from those working for him at IALA HQ
in New York. If you are referring to the "function" meaning -- the one
popular these days -- then Interlingua is a "natural" language, like
Esperanto, Ido, Novial, Eurolang, and possibly even Lojban.

By your definition of "natural", of course -- which is somewhat
idiosyncratic -- at least Esperanto, Ido, Novial and Eurolang would
also qualify as "natural". All of them make use, ranging from heavy to
exclusive, of material drawn from the languages traditionally called
"natural". (That there may be _a priori_ elements in some of them
doesn't detract from their naturalness -- the existence of "gas",
"kleenex", "radar" and "laser" in English doesn't make it any less
natural.) Natural languages, by the way, tend to draw their material
from a number of different sources, not from a specific subset -- in
this sense, Interlingua is _less_ natural than any of the above.

As to the "natural choice for a common language of Europe" -- there
ain't no such beastie. Such choices are _never_ natural, when they are
made at all.

Bruce R. Gilson

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Dec 18, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/18/96
to

In article <32B765...@usa.net>, Christopher ZERVIC <zer...@usa.net> wrote:


>Did Ido use the only word in Esperanto that was totally made up and can =

>not be traced to any national language? Im talking about, of course =

>_edzo_(=3Dhusband) and of course all of its forms such as edzino, edzigxi, =

No. The Ido word for "spouse" is _spozo_. For "husband" and "wife" it has
"spozulo"/"spozino". (Ido does not have the asymmetry of Esperanto, of there
being a "feminine" suffix, but that masculine and epicene forms are not
distinguished.)

D Gary Grady

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Dec 18, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/18/96
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psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) wrote:

>The argument is that Interlingua represents a standardization of
>what already exists as a common phenomenon among the western European
>languages.

Fine, or at least mostly fine. But we don't in general label standards
"natural" and we certainly don't deny that they are constructed.
Again, this isn't a criticism of Interlingua, just an observation on
what strikes me as rather overstated PR.

>[...] Interlingua IS European. It is the


>only natural choice for a common language of Europe apart from English,
>whose influence only supports Interlingua's claim.

As is this. If you're going for advertising slogans, it's a pity "the
real thing" is already in use.

>I disagree with the characterisation of the difficulty of learning
>to speak or write Interlingua. Interlingua is very easy for a European
>knowledgeable about Latin or the Romance languages or English to read.

As I already noted.

>It is very easy for those knowing English or a romance language to
>learn to speak and write it, because you can proceed almost on the
>basis of a word-for-word translation from these languages to Interlingua.

Well, no, and I speak as a former Interlingua enthusiast who was
eventually frustrated by the grammatical exceptions, a stress accent
much less consistent than French or German, an orthography less
phonetic than that of Spanish, and not even a single standard for
pronunciation.

Interlingua is probably a good deal easier to learn to use
productively than other Romance languages are, but I at least found it
substantially harder than Esperanto and I would estimate that it is
almost certainly a great deal harder than Phil Hunt's Eurolang, which
is based on principles similar to Interlingua's.

In fairness, it should be noted that Gode's purpose was to create a
language for largely passive use among Western Europeans, especially
those with knowledge of a Romance language. In this he succeeded
brilliantly.

Phil Hunt

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Dec 18, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/18/96
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In article <594gk9$k...@acmey.gatech.edu>
psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
>ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:
>>>>Probably. Better still, it wouldn't use -itate anyway. Consider

>>>>
>>>>English -ity
>>>>French -it'e
>>>>Spanish -idad
>>>>Portuguese -idade
>>>>Italian -it`a
>>>>German -it"at
>>>>
>>>>Interlingua -itate
>>>>Eurolang -iti
>>>>Esperanto -eco
>>>>Ido -eso
>>>>Novial -eso
>>>>Occidental -(i)t'a
>>>>
>>>>Given IL's source languages, -ita would be more recognisable. It would
>>>>also have be benefit of being shorter than -itate.
>>Why -itate and not -ita or -iti or -ite? What natlang uses -itate
>
>Phil: Keep in mind that Interlingua has its principles of determining
>the form of the word in the international vocabulary. These principles
>are generally applicable in an objective manner and produce an objective
>form for the word or affix in the vocabulary.

If you were being objective and using En, Fr, Es, and It as your source
languages you would see -ity, -it'e, -idad and -it`a.

The ending that is most similar to these is -it followed by either y, e,
or a. Given that IL tends to prefer Italian forms when there is
divervence, -ita is a clear choice.

>You very nicely demonstrate the variants to -itate in the control languages

>for Interlinuga. The reason -itate is chosen is because this is the


>form of the prototype (standardized) from which the variants in the

>control languages deviate in their characteristic ways. The prototype
>is either a theoretical or actual ancestral form common to them.

This "theoretical ancestor" does not exist. It is a contradiction
in terms. The "actual ancestor" of IL's source languages does exist
as a theoratical reconstruction. It is called Proto Indo-European. If
you leave out English the ancstor is Vulgar Latin.

> Keep
>in mind that the followers of Interlingua believe that Interlingua
>exists as an objective phenomenon,

It does now, because there are Interlingua dictionaries, etc. Similarly
Eurolang exists as a nobjective phenomemon. Before IL was invented, it
dodn't exist.

>But you have to consider how -itate conforms with other formations,
>like -itation, e.g. gravitate, gravitation.

This is irrelevant. -ate in English words like gravitate is a separate
morpheme, which makes a word into a verb. It is grav-it-ate not
grav-itate.

Phil Hunt

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Dec 18, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/18/96
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In article <32B765...@usa.net> zer...@usa.net "Christopher ZERVIC" writes:
>Did Ido use the only word in Esperanto that was totally made up and can
>not be traced to any national language? Im talking about, of course
>_edzo_(=3Dhusband) and of course all of its forms such as edzino, edzigxi,
>praeksedzinigemulareganejo, etc.

Is that the only made up word? What about _io_ and related words
such as _iu_, _ia_, iom_ etc?

(In Eurolang these would be _sumon_, _suma/sumon/suma person_,
_suma clas de_, _suma quantiti_).

>Whats the distribution of tiles on a Euro-lang scrabble board?

This would depend on where the scrabble players put them.

Phil Hunt

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Dec 18, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/18/96
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In article <597767$k...@acmex.gatech.edu>

psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
>dg...@mindspring.com (D Gary Grady) writes:
>>This is one of the oddest claims I've ever seen for Interlingua. Some
>>reasonable argument can be made that Interlingua is constructed on a
>>"objective" basis (once the clearly subjective choice of source
>>languages is granted, anyway), but to label it therefore "not a
>>constructed language" strikes me as more than a little absurd.
>
>The argument is that Interlingua represents a standardization of
>what already exists as a common phenomenon among the western European
>languages.

No, it is a common Romance language, *not* a common European language.

> It's presence is clearest in the romance languages, but
>it shows up as well in the Germanic languages as well, which have
>through history borrowed heavily from Latin and the romance languages
>for concepts and terminology. Interlingua IS European.

No. Consider the word for "hand". In IL this is _mano_. IMO a pan-European
language should use _hand_, because it is recognisable to more people
(this is true whether you count Europeans, or people anywhere in the
world, or people in the EU).

Similarly "man" is a better word than _viro_ or _homine_.

The language in the EU with the most native speakers is German. The
one most studied as a foreign lanugage is English. Therefore these
languages (and not just the Roomance words that happen to be in them)
should be important in choosing words for an IAL for the EU.

>I disagree with the characterisation of the difficulty of learning
>to speak or write Interlingua. Interlingua is very easy for a European
>knowledgeable about Latin or the Romance languages or English to read.

I don't know about 'very' easy. It is certainly easier than learning
a natlang, however.

Phil Hunt

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Dec 18, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/18/96
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In article <5941mn$h...@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>

et...@cl.cam.ac.uk "Edmund Grimley-Evans" writes:
>|> The suffixes that E-o, Ido and Novial use are IMO flawed as they lead
>|> to words that are less recognisable (eg libereco, libereso).
>
>Notice, however, that the English and German suffixes with the
>closest meaning, as opposed to the closest form, to what you
>seem to be talking about are not -ity and -it\"at as you listed
>above but -ness and -heit/-keit.

IMO -ity and -ness have pretty much the same meaning. In fact they
can be used interchangably on some words (eg 'parasitic').

>And I'm not sure about the

>French equivalent being -it\'e, either. Can anyone tell us the
>usual, default way, if there is one, for forming a noun from
>an adjective in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese? (What do
>you do with a new adjective borrowed from an exotic language?)

You need to add the proviso that it is a noun meaning the abstract
qaulity of the adjective. (eg from 'moral' you would want a noun
meaning 'morality' not 'a moral person').

I have a 6-language (English, french, German, Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese) dictionary that I find useful in giving an impression
of what words and morphemes these languages use. Most of the times
where English uses -ity the other languages use their version of that
affix (and usually when they don't they use another root word
altogether).

Phil Hunt

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Dec 18, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/18/96
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In article <32b6d71...@news.mindspring.com>

dg...@mindspring.com "D Gary Grady" writes:
>psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) wrote:
>> [...] Keep

>>in mind that the followers of Interlingua believe that Interlingua
>>exists as an objective phenomenon, and they are only registering what
>>this phenomenon is and standardizing it. It is a natural language,
>>not a constructed one.
>
>This is one of the oddest claims I've ever seen for Interlingua. Some
>reasonable argument can be made that Interlingua is constructed on a
>"objective" basis (once the clearly subjective choice of source
>languages is granted, anyway), but to label it therefore "not a
>constructed language" strikes me as more than a little absurd.

Indeed it is constructed. But it is not "objective".

If someone else constructed a naturalistic pan-romance language
it would undoubtedly look similar to Interlingua, but there would be
many differences in detail, because there is no objectively correct
solution to this problem.

If it was a problem that did have an objectively correct solution, (eg
"what is 2 plus 2"), everyone would come up with the same answer.

STAN MULAIK

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Dec 18, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/18/96
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d...@donh.vip.best.com (Don HARLOW) writes:

>psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) lastatempe skribis:


>>for concepts and terminology. Interlingua IS European. It is the


>>only natural choice for a common language of Europe apart from English,
>>whose influence only supports Interlingua's claim.

[delete]

>By your definition of "natural", of course -- which is somewhat
>idiosyncratic -- at least Esperanto, Ido, Novial and Eurolang would
>also qualify as "natural". All of them make use, ranging from heavy to
>exclusive, of material drawn from the languages traditionally called
>"natural". (That there may be _a priori_ elements in some of them
>doesn't detract from their naturalness -- the existence of "gas",
>"kleenex", "radar" and "laser" in English doesn't make it any less
>natural.) Natural languages, by the way, tend to draw their material
>from a number of different sources, not from a specific subset -- in
>this sense, Interlingua is _less_ natural than any of the above.

>As to the "natural choice for a common language of Europe" -- there
>ain't no such beastie. Such choices are _never_ natural, when they are
>made at all.

"natural choice" means that the choice would follow directly from the
meaning of "a common language of Europe", i.e. a language whose
elements are shared in common with the languages of Europe. We all
recognize the common variants of similar appearing words with comparable
meanings in the various European languages. This is an objective
phenomenon. And it has an objective basis, the prototypes, either
historical or theoretical (the latter, e.g. in the sense that Neolatin is a
source for new words in the European languages), give rise to these
common variants. At various times in history various languages have
also contributed to the common store of words in the European languages.
English is currently a major contributor. Thus these languages also
are the prototypic origins of these common forms, along side the more
ancient popular Latin and Greek that gave rise to the romance languages.
Because Interlingua is a standardization of these prototypic forms it is
more common to more of these languages than any one of them, each of which
reflects its idiosyncratic features that blurr the common forms. Interlingua
thus uses the common concepts, in their common form to a greater extent than
any other European language, which deviates in various ways from the common
form. But in the sense that it is faithful to what is common to these
languages, it embodies the full richness of what these languages share in
common. It represents the European forms of thought in the vehicle by
which that thought is expressed. As the language having the most in
common to the European languages it is the natural language to be the
common language of Europe (as well as the Western Hemisphere).

Christopher ZERVIC

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Dec 18, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/18/96
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Phil Hunt wrote:
> Is that the only made up word? What about _io_ and related words
> such as _iu_, _ia_, iom_ etc?

The elements of the correlative table were taken from elements of national
languages, but the ties to the natlangs were twisted in conforming to Esperanto
orthography and making the table regular with other parts of the table. This was
how it was explained to me, perhaps someone else can better explain it...but it's
not quite as 'a priori' as it looks at first glance.


> >Whats the distribution of tiles on a Euro-lang scrabble board?
>
> This would depend on where the scrabble players put them.

No no how many tiles of each letter are there?
--

Christopher ZERVIC

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Dec 18, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/18/96
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Phil Hunt wrote:
> But don't English French and Italian collectively carry more weight than
> Spanish and German? What weightings do you use for New Novial? (Eurolang
> uses the number of speakers of these languages inside the EU).

Could you explain in a little more detail this weighting system? I may have
missed it if you have already explained it (perhaps this would be a good
idea for your Eurolang page). Immediatley Im struck with the idea that if
that were the case, the German word/morpheme would always be used, since
the greatest number of native speakers of an EU language is German.

This would also mean recalculating and rebuilding Eurolang every time a new
member nation was added...and EL therefore whould consider putting in more
Scandanavian elements and have a reserve of slavic elements on standby...
plus a cyrillic rendering or the addition of one or more cyrillic letters
may be a mathematical necessity.

STAN MULAIK

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Dec 19, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/19/96
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dg...@mindspring.com (D Gary Grady) writes:

>psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) wrote:

>>The argument is that Interlingua represents a standardization of
>>what already exists as a common phenomenon among the western European
>>languages.

>Fine, or at least mostly fine. But we don't in general label standards


>"natural" and we certainly don't deny that they are constructed.
>Again, this isn't a criticism of Interlingua, just an observation on
>what strikes me as rather overstated PR.

It is a legitimate use of the word "natural" to mean it in the sense
that something follows essentially from something else, in this case I
was referring to Interlingua's following naturally from the idea of a
common language based on the common elements in a group of languages.
I agree that this is rhetoric, but I am trying to sharpen the view that
Interlingua conforms rather closely to the European languages, and thus
should allow one to communicate the same ideas in essentially the same
forms and in the same way in Interlingua as one does in these languages.
Some of the constructed languages create new concepts in new forms that
do not always conform to the familiar forms and concepts of the
European languages and may not convey the same meanings intended. I
encountered an Australian lawyer who said he initially was interested
in Esperanto as a way of translating some legal work he was dealing with,
but soon discovered that it did not have the same concepts or subtlty of
vocabulary to match the original legal terms in an accurate way, and
so he abandoned it. He found interlingua more capable of reproducing the
same legal concepts in essentially the same vocabulary, because that
vocabulary was heavily Latin in origin. One might say a similar thing
for translating European scientific works.


>>I disagree with the characterisation of the difficulty of learning
>>to speak or write Interlingua. Interlingua is very easy for a European
>>knowledgeable about Latin or the Romance languages or English to read.

>>It is very easy for those knowing English or a romance language to
>>learn to speak and write it, because you can proceed almost on the
>>basis of a word-for-word translation from these languages to Interlingua.

>Well, no, and I speak as a former Interlingua enthusiast who was
>eventually frustrated by the grammatical exceptions, a stress accent
>much less consistent than French or German, an orthography less
>phonetic than that of Spanish, and not even a single standard for
>pronunciation.

That is because you are trying to see Interlingua as something it is not.
Interlingua does simplify the grammar greatly compared to a more purely
protoromance language. But it is not intended to be some paragon of
linguistic regularity and schematicism, particularly if that would
lead it away from faithfully mirroring what is common in the European
languages. I'm not sure what "grammatical exceptions" you refer to
that were so frustrating to you. You must be easy to frustrate. I have
not found any of the irregularities or alternative forms in Interlingua
to be extensive or particularly difficult to handle, particularly because
they usually conform to something already familiar to me in my own language.
Perhaps you could amplify a bit on these "grammatical exceptions".

As for the stress accent, the Interlingua Grammar of Gode & Blair says,
"The importance of stress regularity should not be exaggerated. The
effort involved in acquiring an unfamiliar stress for an otherwise
familiar word seems often inordinate. This does not, of course, imply
that Interlingua words may be stressed completely at random, but
merely that a word like *kilometro* remains the same international word
whether native habits cause a speaker to stress it on the second or the
third syllable." As for me, I will wait to hear Interlingua pronounced
to learn what will be the acceptable stress, rather than trying to
devine what it means merely from books. This will work itself out
as Interlinguans from various countries get together and talk things over.

As for orthography, I find it quite regular, once you learn the rules.
The thing I deplore in Spanish orthography is that it has lost the markers
for Greek words that I am so familiar with from English. In that sense,
Spanish orthography is Spanish and not translinguistic. Of course, they
didn't intend it to be otherwise.

The pronunciation of Interlingua is "continental". It is far more
regular than the pronunication of the orthography of English. Vowels have
a single pronunciation, unlike in English. I am not sure what you mean by
"no single standard of pronunciation". Interlingua is tolerant of some
minor variations in pronunciation.


>In fairness, it should be noted that Gode's purpose was to create a
>language for largely passive use among Western Europeans, especially
>those with knowledge of a Romance language. In this he succeeded
>brilliantly.

We have documentation that when Dr. Gode attended an international
conference and began speaking in Interlingua, and members of the
audience began easily mimicking him and trying to "interlinguaize"
their own languages in speaking to others speaking different languages,
he suddenly realized that Interlingua had as much promise in the
spoken form as in the written. And he had that view ever afterwards.
So, your characterization of Interlingua as destined only for passive
reading is not accurate. After reading the introductory text on
Interlingua by F. P. Gopsill, "Interlingua Today", it became obvious
to me that Interlingua is a living language that could be spoken by
ordinary people living ordinary lives.

Don HARLOW

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Dec 19, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/19/96
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ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) lastatempe skribis:

>In article <32B765...@usa.net> zer...@usa.net "Christopher ZERVIC" writes:
>>Did Ido use the only word in Esperanto that was totally made up and can
>>not be traced to any national language? Im talking about, of course
>>_edzo_(=3Dhusband) and of course all of its forms such as edzino, edzigxi,
>>praeksedzinigemulareganejo, etc.

>Is that the only made up word? What about _io_ and related words


>such as _iu_, _ia_, iom_ etc?

I'm not sure about the I- words, but the KI- words definitely reflect
the Western European languages (QU- &c) and the TI- words resemble the
demonstratives in the Russian correlative "table".

"Edzo", by the way, and as I've posted here before, is _not_ totally
made up. Zamenhof attributed it to back-formation from the German
"Kronprincessin", but Waringhien and others blame this on his attempts
to avoid the general anti-Semitism of the times, and derive it from
_rebecin_ (Yiddish: Mme. Rabbi). In either case, Zamenhof would have
originally had -EDZIN- as a suffix meaning "wife of", backformed to
the suffix -EDZ- meaning "husband of", and from this we get, as with
any other suffix or prefix, the independent EDZ-, husband.

(Back-formation is not uncommon in Esperanto. My favorite is "nanco",
the handling of large sums of money, back-formed from the more common
"FI-nanco"...:<)

>(In Eurolang these would be _sumon_, _suma/sumon/suma person_,
>_suma clas de_, _suma quantiti_).

I presume that this is the same as the Esperanto C^I-, since "sum"
obviously means "total, all"?

>>Whats the distribution of tiles on a Euro-lang scrabble board?

>This would depend on where the scrabble players put them.

I suspect he means point distribution by letter.

STAN MULAIK

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Dec 19, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/19/96
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ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:

>In article <594gk9$k...@acmey.gatech.edu>
> psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
>>ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>Given IL's source languages, -ita would be more recognisable. It would
>>>>>also have be benefit of being shorter than -itate.
>>>Why -itate and not -ita or -iti or -ite? What natlang uses -itate
>>
>>Phil: Keep in mind that Interlingua has its principles of determining
>>the form of the word in the international vocabulary. These principles
>>are generally applicable in an objective manner and produce an objective
>>form for the word or affix in the vocabulary.

>If you were being objective and using En, Fr, Es, and It as your source
>languages you would see -ity, -it'e, -idad and -it`a.

>The ending that is most similar to these is -it followed by either y, e,
>or a. Given that IL tends to prefer Italian forms when there is
>divervence, -ita is a clear choice.

Well, you are looking at these forms in a purely impressionistic manner.
Why are they similar? They aren't all exactly the same. Why do you regard
them as the same suffix? The thing that ties them together is that they
are variants of a common prototype. The determination of that prototype is
generally an objective process--much more so than the impressionistic way
of deciding what to you looks to be the common form. Using the prototype
also gets at an underlying regularity that existed in the original
popular Latin, from which most of these suffixes arose. Much of that
regularity is obscured in the daughter languages. As Miguel has pointed
out -itate(m) was the prototype from which each of the above forms
was derived. The (m) was being dropped even in Julius Caeser's time,
I believe.

>> The prototype
>>is either a theoretical or actual ancestral form common to them.

>This "theoretical ancestor" does not exist. It is a contradiction
>in terms. The "actual ancestor" of IL's source languages does exist
>as a theoratical reconstruction. It is called Proto Indo-European. If
>you leave out English the ancstor is Vulgar Latin.

Proto-Indo-European goes back too far. Popular Latin (some use your
term "Vulgar Latin") is closer to being the source of much of the
prototypic material in Interlingua. But other sources are Neolatin
and Greek: "telescope" is not a term corresponding to any word spoken
in Julius Caeser's time, but is constructed out of the Greek in
Neolatin. Many scientific terms were created from Neolatin elements.
Other prototypes originated in the Romance languages themselves,
like Italian and French. Even modern words like "software" are
international now, and they would enter Interlingua as "software", etc..
So, these are the theoretical prototypes. Some prototypes exist
because the international affixes and roots make them theoretically
possible. "Translinguistic" would be an example. (Neolatin is not
a spoken language, by the way).

>> Keep
>>in mind that the followers of Interlingua believe that Interlingua
>>exists as an objective phenomenon,

>It does now, because there are Interlingua dictionaries, etc. Similarly


>Eurolang exists as a nobjective phenomemon. Before IL was invented, it
>dodn't exist.

It existed in the common vocabularies of the European languages. Interlingua
is only a registering of this common vocabulary and a standardisation
of it on the basis of the prototypes.

>This is irrelevant. -ate in English words like gravitate is a separate
>morpheme, which makes a word into a verb. It is grav-it-ate not
>grav-itate.

You misunderstand. IL "gravitate" = English "gravity". "gravitate"
comes from "grave" (heavy, grave, solemn) as the noun made from an
adjective. The verb "gravitar" comes from "gravitate" . Theoretically
there is a perfect participle, "gravitate" formed from the verb
"gravitar". "Le astronave gravitate se moveva verso le planeto".

STAN MULAIK

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ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:

>In article <597767$k...@acmex.gatech.edu>
> psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:

>>dg...@mindspring.com (D Gary Grady) writes:
>>
>>The argument is that Interlingua represents a standardization of
>>what already exists as a common phenomenon among the western European
>>languages.

>No, it is a common Romance language, *not* a common European language.

Phil. Consult any Danish, Dutch, or German dictionary. You will see lots
of words of Latin and Romance origin. There will also be numerous other
words you don't first recognize as having a Latin origin, but they
represent simple substitutions of germanic affixes and roots for
corresponding Latin affixes and roots, like German "ausdru"cken" =
ex-press. These are known as "loan translations". The original
prototypes are Latin.

>> It's presence is clearest in the romance languages, but
>>it shows up as well in the Germanic languages as well, which have
>>through history borrowed heavily from Latin and the romance languages

>>for concepts and terminology. Interlingua IS European.

>No. Consider the word for "hand". In IL this is _mano_. IMO a pan-European


>language should use _hand_, because it is recognisable to more people
>(this is true whether you count Europeans, or people anywhere in the

>world, or people in the EU).

There is the family of words, translinguistic (I hesitate to engender an
additional debate by using the word "international") across the European
languages built upon "mano": mano, manata, manilla; manual; manico;
manica; manear; manumitter; manicuro; quadrumane; manufac- etc. ; manuscripte;
mantener; etc..

I'm not sure of the basis for your claim about the recognizability of "hand".
Is it a word in these nongermanic languages? But "mano" is assured a
place in the international vocabulary because it is the root from
which so many other words are derived, based on the sense of "hand", as
"manuscript", "manual labor", "manicure", "manufacture" (make by hand,
originally), "manage" (handle?) etc..

In any case, your point does not contradict the fact that as a
standardisation of the common elements in the European languages,
Interlingua is European.

>The language in the EU with the most native speakers is German. The
>one most studied as a foreign lanugage is English. Therefore these
>languages (and not just the Roomance words that happen to be in them)
>should be important in choosing words for an IAL for the EU.

You want a language that is relatively coherent in its derivational
structure. If you mix "hand" with "manuscript" you have to introduce
new concepts or make new, unfamiliar words that are less recognizable to
the millions you claim. Would you include "manicure" in Eurolang?
"manual labor?" in those forms?

STAN MULAIK

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Dec 19, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/19/96
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ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:

>In article <32b6d71...@news.mindspring.com>


> dg...@mindspring.com "D Gary Grady" writes:
>>psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) wrote:

>If someone else constructed a naturalistic pan-romance language
>it would undoubtedly look similar to Interlingua, but there would be
>many differences in detail, because there is no objectively correct
>solution to this problem.

There is some latitude, but do not exaggerate. In about 95% of the cases
there are clean prototypes everyone can agree upon. Even in exceptional cases
there are solutions obtained by formulating expressions in the already
established international vocabulary. There are aspects of the
international language problem that cannot be solved by objective
means, but interlingua is based on looking for an objective reality
and if it exists, it will be found and used.

D Gary Grady

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Dec 19, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/19/96
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psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) wrote:

>I encountered an Australian lawyer who said he initially was interested
>in Esperanto as a way of translating some legal work he was dealing with,
>but soon discovered that it did not have the same concepts or subtlty of
>vocabulary to match the original legal terms in an accurate way, and
>so he abandoned it. He found interlingua more capable of reproducing the
>same legal concepts in essentially the same vocabulary, because that
>vocabulary was heavily Latin in origin. One might say a similar thing
>for translating European scientific works.

I wonder how much Esperanto or Interlingua this Australian lawyer
actually knew. If he compared dictionary entries, which is what this
sounds like, it isn't surprising he'd reach such a conclusion, because
Interlingua certainly looks a good deal more like Latin and French.
Whether his conclusions about "subtltly of vocabulary" are to be
trusted is another matter. I hardly think a superficial examination is
fair either language.

Ivo Lapenna was a distinguished legal authority and specialist in
international law who argued cases before the World Court and other
bodies, normally in French. Occasionally, however, he would have to
use English in some case, and because of his lack of confidence in
that language he would write out his arguments in advance in Esperanto
and have them translated into English by his friend William Auld.
Evidently Lapenna found no practical problem in using Esperanto for
legal purposes.

Incidentally, aside from taxonomic names (which do conform to Latin
grammar at least), only a relatively small number of modern scientific
terms are derived in any immediate way from Latin or the Romance
languages. This is clearly the case in English, the current de facto
language of science. Medical terms are at least as likely to come from
Greek, I think, and in physics, chemistry, engineering, and astronomy
the tendency is to use ordinary English-language words for scientific
concepts: "force," "mass," "pair bond," "glove box," "big bang,"
"grant proposal"...

>[...] But it is not intended to be some paragon of


>linguistic regularity and schematicism, particularly if that would
>lead it away from faithfully mirroring what is common in the European
>languages.

Precisely. I only noted that its efforts in "faithfully mirroring what
is common in the European languages" make it harder to learn to speak
and write. Of course, as I said before, Gode succeeded brilliantly in
creating a language that can be read by millions of people without
instruction. If I thought that was of overwhelming importance, I would
still be a big enthusiast of Interlingua. (In fact, I remain to a fair
degree a fan of Interlingua, at least in the applications for which
Gode originally intended it.)

>You must be easy to frustrate.

If so, I would seem to be in good company...

>As for me, I will wait to hear Interlingua pronounced
>to learn what will be the acceptable stress, rather than trying to
>devine what it means merely from books. This will work itself out
>as Interlinguans from various countries get together and talk things over.

My recollection is that stress accent in Interlingua is already
well-defined (if, as I noted, irregular). At least it is marked in
dictionaries.

Incidentally, you seem to be indicating here that Interlingua is used
hardly at all as a spoken language. Is that true?

>The pronunciation of Interlingua is "continental". It is far more
>regular than the pronunication of the orthography of English.

This reminds me very obliquely of a thought provoked by a sign I saw
years ago on a vacant tract of land in Wilmington North Carolina:
"Future Home of the Church of God of East Wilmington." I recall
thinking: Who is this god, and why hasn't he got more ambition?

I am happy to concede that Interlingua's orthography is superior to
that of English.

Klaus Ole Kristiansen

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Dec 19, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/19/96
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psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) writes:

>It is a legitimate use of the word "natural" to mean it in the sense
>that something follows essentially from something else, in this case I
>was referring to Interlingua's following naturally from the idea of a
>common language based on the common elements in a group of languages.
>I agree that this is rhetoric, but I am trying to sharpen the view that
>Interlingua conforms rather closely to the European languages, and thus
>should allow one to communicate the same ideas in essentially the same
>forms and in the same way in Interlingua as one does in these languages.

The differences in those languages makes this impossible. BTW what is
the interlingua word for vandreklasse? (Just an example of a simple
concept that does not AFAIK exist in English).

>We have documentation that when Dr. Gode attended an international
>conference and began speaking in Interlingua, and members of the
>audience began easily mimicking him and trying to "interlinguaize"
>their own languages in speaking to others speaking different languages,
>he suddenly realized that Interlingua had as much promise in the
>spoken form as in the written. And he had that view ever afterwards.
>So, your characterization of Interlingua as destined only for passive
>reading is not accurate. After reading the introductory text on
>Interlingua by F. P. Gopsill, "Interlingua Today", it became obvious
>to me that Interlingua is a living language that could be spoken by
>ordinary people living ordinary lives.

Which take us back to the problem of people speaking their own mix of
the base languages, meaning that you must have a good grasp of all of
them to understand what is said.

Klaus O K

Klaus Ole Kristiansen

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Dec 19, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/19/96
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psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) writes:

>ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:

>>No. Consider the word for "hand". In IL this is _mano_. IMO a pan-European
>>language should use _hand_, because it is recognisable to more people
>>(this is true whether you count Europeans, or people anywhere in the
>>world, or people in the EU).

>There is the family of words, translinguistic (I hesitate to engender an
>additional debate by using the word "international") across the European
>languages built upon "mano": mano, manata, manilla; manual; manico;
>manica; manear; manumitter; manicuro; quadrumane; manufac- etc. ; manuscripte;
>mantener; etc..

>I'm not sure of the basis for your claim about the recognizability of "hand".
>Is it a word in these nongermanic languages? But "mano" is assured a
>place in the international vocabulary because it is the root from
>which so many other words are derived, based on the sense of "hand", as
>"manuscript", "manual labor", "manicure", "manufacture" (make by hand,
>originally), "manage" (handle?) etc..

But to a speaker of a Germanic language, mano is not recognizable as hand.

>>The language in the EU with the most native speakers is German. The
>>one most studied as a foreign lanugage is English. Therefore these
>>languages (and not just the Roomance words that happen to be in them)
>>should be important in choosing words for an IAL for the EU.

>You want a language that is relatively coherent in its derivational
>structure. If you mix "hand" with "manuscript" you have to introduce
>new concepts or make new, unfamiliar words that are less recognizable to
>the millions you claim. Would you include "manicure" in Eurolang?
>"manual labor?" in those forms?

Why would you want "manuscript" to look like "hand"? Many manuskripts
are typed. "Handwriting" is not the same as "manuscript".

In my own language, "håndskrift" means both "handwriting" and "written
work actually written by hand", while "manuskript" means what you submit
to a publisher. Not the same thing at all. The latter has no strong
connection with the hand.

Klaus O K

Kjell Rehnstroem

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Dec 20, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/20/96
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d...@donh.vip.best.com (Don HARLOW) wrote:

>Sometimes I wonder just what "natural" is meant to mean.

Well, it's no news that naturality lies in the eye of the beholder. I
cannot, for example say that mal- in Esperanto is more un-natural to
me than what you can see in many national languages. There is one
European language where there are words that sound like "a little sexy
girl", "gay-island" or "penis-sun" (in a more vulgar version!) to a
Swedish ear. I leave it to the interested experts to find out what
language that could be.

National languages can be more bizarre to the uninitiated than any
constructed one.

If you have a language that appears as a dialect of a language that
you know it will sound natural to you.

Perhaps one could make attitude tests, if one felt like it, or ask
different reference groups, but I think it is very easy to be cheated
by one's own preferences.

What people mean by natural languages, is very subjective to say the
least, but that it is a language that looks like other languages that
are familiar to them. In this respect there must be some sence to use
the term "natural language".

To me the element of maximal comprehensibility - according to certain
criteria - is essential. The more people that can understand the
language the better it is. In that case the interested people can look
at a language and decide for themselves.

Bon natal e prosperose nove anno!

Julian Pardoe

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Dec 20, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/20/96
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Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
>
> psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) wrote:
>
> >With respect to the etymology of -ity in English and its relationship to
> >the ending -itate in Interlingua, the following is given in Webster's
> >Third International Dictionary of the English Language found in INFOPEDIA:
> >-ity n suffix , pl -ities [ME -ite, fr. OF or L; OF -ite', fr. L -itat-,
> >-itas, fr. -i- (stem vowel of adjs.) + -tat-, -tas -ity; akin to Gk -t-t-,
> >-t-s -ity] : quality : state : degree <alkalinity > <theatricality
>
> >Someone who knows Latin grammar can explain the use of the genetive
> >form -itatis, and if they further know the way this made its way as
> >the most frequent form in the Romance languages, I would be interested
> >to see the story.
>
> The Latin nominative, with a few exceptions, most notably Italian and
> Romanian plurals, did not make it into Romance. What lives on in the
> vast majority of Romance nouns and adjectives is the accusative. In
> this case -itatem. Final -m had already been lost in Classical times,
> at least in spoken Latin. -itate is therefore the "Proto-Romance" form.
> I haven't starred it, because it still is Romanian.

I thought it was the ablative singular and the nominative or accusative
plural. Italian and Romanian went for the nominative plural and the
others for the accusative.

mensa: mensa, mensae/mensas
annus: anno, anni/annos

This explains the two ways of forming the plural in Romance.

The difference between the ablative and the accusative minus "m" would
only show up in neuter nouns. (Any evidence either way?) "-itate"
is the prototype form in either case.

-- jP --

STAN MULAIK

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Dec 20, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/20/96
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Julian Pardoe <par...@lonnds.ml.com> writes:


>I thought it was the ablative singular and the nominative or accusative
>plural. Italian and Romanian went for the nominative plural and the
>others for the accusative.

I'd be interested to see those with some expert knowledge on the
etymology of the Romance languages comment on these developments. Does
this have anything to do with the "oblique" cases of Latin that I've
seen referred to in several places?

STAN MULAIK

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Dec 20, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/20/96
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dg...@mindspring.com (D Gary Grady) writes:


>I wonder how much Esperanto or Interlingua this Australian lawyer
>actually knew. If he compared dictionary entries, which is what this
>sounds like, it isn't surprising he'd reach such a conclusion, because
>Interlingua certainly looks a good deal more like Latin and French.

I cannot speak further for this Australian. And quite possibly he did
not study esperanto as extensively as you have, having given up early
on for the reasons cited.

>Whether his conclusions about "subtltly of vocabulary" are to be
>trusted is another matter. I hardly think a superficial examination is
>fair either language.

I am sure that complex concepts can be expressed in almost any language,
given sufficient circumlocutions.
[deletion]



>Incidentally, aside from taxonomic names (which do conform to Latin
>grammar at least), only a relatively small number of modern scientific
>terms are derived in any immediate way from Latin or the Romance
>languages. This is clearly the case in English, the current de facto
>language of science. Medical terms are at least as likely to come from
>Greek, I think, and in physics, chemistry, engineering, and astronomy
>the tendency is to use ordinary English-language words for scientific
>concepts: "force," "mass," "pair bond," "glove box," "big bang,"
>"grant proposal"...

If these become the translinguistic forms through borrowing, then
Interlingua will absorb them in their English form. It is clear that
English "software" is now a word in most of the control languages of
Interlingua, and so "software" is an interlingua word too. And I'm sure
you know from your study of Interlingua that Greek is also regarded as
one of the most important non-Romance contributors to the international
vocabulary, as are also the Germanic languages and dialects. The IED
(Interlingua-English Dictionary published by IALA under the direction
of Alexander Gode) used germanic cognates to establish the international
range of of some word. English "father" corresponds to Italian "padre"
and helps to establish the internationality (translinguality?) of that
word, semantically. But the IED says that as far as the prototype principle
is concerned, the form by which such a word would be standardized would
be the Romance prototype. The proto-Indo-European prototypes are much
too narrow a base on which to base an international vocabulary (and it
seems to me too remote and dissimilar from current forms to be easily
recognized). Interlingua also seeks the most recent prototype (subject
to the influence of forms in other words in recognized word families).

But Interlingua accepts many words of extra-romance origin that have
entered into European languages. In many cases these words have been
fully assimilated into these languages and are no longer thought of as
"exotic" or "foreign" words. The common form in these languages would
influence the prototype chosen. The IED says, "For instance, the
equivalents of English _carafe_ in the other control languages are
Italian _caraffa_, French _carafe_, and Spanish/Portuguese _garrafa_.
The last named, which comes closest to the original Arabic _gharra^f_,
would determine the prototype of all the modern variants as *garrafa,
if the initial g- as a trait limited to one control source could not
be overruled by the initial c- found everywhere else. The resulting
international form is _carrafa_."

On the other hand, words that have been borrowed from other European
languages and which still retain their "foreign" character (enough
so that the French Academie seeks to stamp them out with purely French
words :-)), do so also in Interlingua in their original form: hence
"software", "hinterland", "budget", "interview", "bureau", "chassis",
CD-ROM, "cargo", "matador", etc. are all Interlingua words.

[deletion]

>>You must be easy to frustrate.

>If so, I would seem to be in good company...

But you have not yet made me understand what it is that is so frustrating
to you about what you mention. Could you amplify?

>My recollection is that stress accent in Interlingua is already
>well-defined (if, as I noted, irregular). At least it is marked in
>dictionaries.

>Incidentally, you seem to be indicating here that Interlingua is used
>hardly at all as a spoken language. Is that true?

My personal experience, being an American, is that I have few opportunities
to use any spoken foreign language with anyone. European Interlinguans
report that they use it often on vacations to Italy or Spain, or at the
International conferences of Interlinguans. Perhaps if I were to travel
to Europe I would find opportunities and a need to speak it. BTW, there
is going to be an International Conference of Interlinguans in Strasburg,
I believe, next summer. Interlingua will be the language of the conference.
Perhaps Kjell is lurking and could amplify on the European experience with
Interlingua as a spoken language. Oh, Thomas Breinstrup, a Danish
journalist, says that he uses Interlingua on the phone almost everyday.
(He edits and publishes the Interlingua journal "Panorama" as a labor of
love, in addition to his professional work on a Copenhagen newspaper).

Bruce R. Gilson

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Dec 21, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/21/96
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In article <59fcur$h...@acmex.gatech.edu>,

STAN MULAIK <psc...@prism.gatech.edu> wrote:
>Julian Pardoe <par...@lonnds.ml.com> writes:
>
>
>>I thought it was the ablative singular and the nominative or accusative
>>plural. Italian and Romanian went for the nominative plural and the
>>others for the accusative.
>
>I'd be interested to see those with some expert knowledge on the
>etymology of the Romance languages comment on these developments. Does
>this have anything to do with the "oblique" cases of Latin that I've
>seen referred to in several places?


Historically, the accusative (losing its final -m as all final m's did
get lost) merged with the ablative. (Short u and long o went to the
same form in spoken Latin, too.) Thus an oblique case developed out
of the common accusative/ablative. The genitive and dative were
replaced by combinations with "de" + oblique (originally ablative)
and "ad" + oblique (originally accusative).

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal

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Dec 21, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/21/96
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psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) wrote:

>Julian Pardoe <par...@lonnds.ml.com> writes:

>>I thought it was the ablative singular and the nominative or accusative
>>plural. Italian and Romanian went for the nominative plural and the
>>others for the accusative.

You're right about the plural. In the singular it should be noted that
Old French (and I believe Old Provencal) still used the nominative in -s
besides the oblique form. Whether this oblique form was an accusative
or an ablative is almost, but not quite undecidable:

(mensa, hortus and rex in Late Latin:)

I II III
Nom mesa <me:nsa Ortos <hortus reS <re:x
Acc mesa <me:nsam Orto <hortum redZE <re:gem
Abl mesa <me:nsa: Orto <horto: redZE <re:ge

Nom mesE <me:nsae Orti <horti: redZes <re:ge:s
Acc mesas <me:nsa:s Ortos <horto:s redZes <re:ge:s
Abl mesis <me:nsi:s Ortis <horti:s redZeBos <re:gibus

The other declinations and the neuters had already gone.

In the singular, because of the development of short u > closed o,
and the loss of final -m, the Accusative and Ablative have merged.
Except in Romanian, where short u remains as u. Unfortunately,
final -u drops in Romanian, but luckily, it doesn't get dropped
before the (postpositional) article. And sure enough, the ending is
-ul: <un om> "a man", <omul> "the man" (actually, this is a bad example,
as <om> is re-built on the old nominative homo:, not the acc. hominem).

Italian and Romanian would probably have gone for the accusative in the
plural as well, had it not been for the fact that they lost final -s,
which made the acc.pl. indistinguishable from the acc.sg. The III
declination nouns will not allow the simplification of deriving the
Italian and Romanian singulars from the nominative as well.

>I'd be interested to see those with some expert knowledge on the
>etymology of the Romance languages comment on these developments. Does
>this have anything to do with the "oblique" cases of Latin that I've
>seen referred to in several places?

An oblique case is simply a non-nominative case. In the case of Latin,
either the genitive, the dative, the accusative or the ablative. The
term is most often used in cases like Old French, where only two cases
remain: the nominative and the "oblique" (well, Old French did also
still use the genitive plural (-or) sometimes).


==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
m...@pi.net |_____________|||

========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig


Phil Hunt

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Dec 21, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/21/96
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In article <32B8CD...@usa.net> zer...@usa.net "Christopher ZERVIC" writes:
>> >Whats the distribution of tiles on a Euro-lang scrabble board?
>>
>> This would depend on where the scrabble players put them.
>
>No no how many tiles of each letter are there?

I'd guess that the letter frequencies are about the same as English,
but with less 'y's. So it would be suitable to use an English scrabble
set.

With the new structure I'm using for the EL dictionaries, it would be
easy to add a feature that counts the frequency of each letter in
EL words, if anyone is interested.

Phil Hunt

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Dec 21, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/21/96
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In article <32B8CF...@usa.net> zer...@usa.net "Christopher ZERVIC" writes:
>Phil Hunt wrote:
>> But don't English French and Italian collectively carry more weight than
>> Spanish and German? What weightings do you use for New Novial? (Eurolang
>> uses the number of speakers of these languages inside the EU).
>
>Could you explain in a little more detail this weighting system?

EL tries to choose the word that is most recognisable for EU citizens.
It uses a weighting process based on the 5 most biggest languages in
the EU. These are, with millions of native speakers:

German 88 (Germany + Austria)
French 62 (France + 1/2 Belgium)
English 61 (UK + Ireland)
Italian 58
Spanish 39

The figure for Spanish is the entire population of Spain. These are
not all native speakers of Spanish, however it can be assumed that
they mostly have enough competence to recognised Spanish-like words.

There are also 34 million speakers of other Germanic languages (mostly
Dutch). And 10 million other Romance languages (Portuguese). In total:

Germanic languages: 183 million
Romance languages: 169 million

A word is chosen that will be recognisable to speakers of as many of
these languages as possible. So a word found in English, French and
Italian would outvote a word found in German and Spanish.

A modification to this algorithm is that German + English together
outvote French + Italian + Spanish. This reflects that if a word
is in Eng + Ger it is also probably in Dutch as well, and Germanic
languages overall have more speakers than Romance ones. Also English
is the language most taught as a foreign language, so lots of educated
Europeans will know at least the common words in it.

Sometimes, the word chosen by this algorithm is not used. It might
require a large change in spelling to fit it with EL's orthography.
Or it might conflict with existing EL words, or form a 'false friend'
with a word in one of EL's other source languages.

Another possiblity would be to form a compound word out of existing
EL roots.

>Immediatley Im struck with the idea that if
>that were the case, the German word/morpheme would always be used, since
>the greatest number of native speakers of an EU language is German.

German outranks every other language *on its own*, but a combination of
two or more others outrank German. So a word used in Spanish and Italian
would outrank one used in German only.

Eurolang is probably less readable to Germans than it is to people with
a Romance language, because many EL words are found in Eng+Fr+Sp+It
which together outrank German (or even Eng+Ger).

>This would also mean recalculating and rebuilding Eurolang every time a new
>member nation was added...and EL therefore whould consider putting in more
>Scandanavian elements and have a reserve of slavic elements on standby...

Even if all the languages currently in the EU were included (weighted
by number of speakers), and all the new nations that are lined up to
join in the next expansion were included, I think that it would result
in minimal changes to EL's vocabulary. This is because even if all the
Slavic languages used the same word, they would still be outnumbered
by the speakers of Germanic and Romance languages. So at most, the
addition of the eastern European languages would result in them
arbitrating in whether a Germanic or Romance word was used.

This would change if Russian was included. However Russia is not in the
next group of nations to be considered for membership.

>plus a cyrillic rendering

The normal alphabet for Eurolang will continue to be the Roman one.
This alphabet is used more than all the other writing systems in the
world put together and clearly is the nearest thing there is to a
standard.

However, when other languages with other alphabets wish to borrow EL
words, standard systems of transcription can be devised.

> or the addition of one or more cyrillic letters
>may be a mathematical necessity.

Why?

In any case, I have decided that there will be no non-ascii letters
in Eurolang.

Don HARLOW

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Dec 21, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/21/96
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m9...@abc.se (Kjell Rehnstroem) lastatempe skribis:

>Bon natal e prosperose nove anno!

Kaj al vi, kaj al c^iuj planlingvanoj kaj lingvo-amantoj, gajan
Kristnaskon kaj felic^an kaj sukcesoplenan Novan Jaron!

John Fisher

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Dec 22, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/22/96
to

In article <59ffsq$q...@acmex.gatech.edu>, STAN MULAIK
<psc...@prism.gatech.edu> writes

> The proto-Indo-European prototypes are much
>too narrow a base on which to base an international vocabulary (and it
>seems to me too remote and dissimilar from current forms to be easily
>recognized).

I once came across a splendid C19 book called "Indo-European Primer", or
something like that, which was arranged in lessons with exercises, in
which you had to translate sentences like "The spear is outside the hut"
or "The bear is dead". It certainly gave you a feeling that, for
example, "Paradise Lost" or "Bhagavad Gita" lay some way in the
future...

--John
--
John Fisher jo...@drummond.demon.co.uk jo...@epcc.ed.ac.uk
Drummond is an independent site; its opinions are my own

Chris Burd

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Dec 22, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/22/96
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In article <brgE2H...@netcom.com>,
b...@netcom.com (Bruce R. Gilson) wrote:

>In article <850668...@vision25.demon.co.uk>,
>Phil Hunt <ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk> wrote:

[snip]

>>Why -itate and not -ita or -iti or -ite? What natlang uses -itate

>>(Romanian?).

>Why -itate rather than -ita? Because I need an -e ending. Remember, I am
>regularizing the rule that ALL nouns end in -e (with the exceptions of -um
>for certain abstract nouns, but there's a special rule for that which I'm not
>going into here) unless they are gender-specific. -ita would imply femaleness
>and I don't think that's appropriate. -ite (used in French) might be acceptable
>but -itate is closer to the Sp. -idad and German -itaet, and Spanish + German
>collectively carry more weight than French, I think.

Surely -itate is a lot of overhead for a fairly simple transformation
(adj. --> abstract noun). Have you considered -ie (<Latin/Greek -ia) or is
it already spoken for? Perhaps there's room for a differentiation, e.g.,

grandie largeness
granditate size, degree of largeness

Or maybe that distinction is unstable or uninteresting.

Alternatively, you could append Jesperson's abstract ending -um to the
adjectival marker -i:

grandium

-ium is one of Latin ancestors of French/German -ie and En -y, as you
undoubtedly know.

Chris Burd

P.S. Does Neonovial mark the difference between epicene (gender-
indifferent, animate) and neuter?

Bruce R. Gilson

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Dec 23, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/23/96
to

In article <AEE2BF5A...@i2-51.islandnet.com>,

I think the -itate ending is more recognizable than your alternatives: given
E -ity, F -ite', Sp -idad, P -idade, G -itaet, It ita`, the idea of resembling
the most of these really seems to give -itate as the best choice.

>P.S. Does Neonovial mark the difference between epicene (gender-
>indifferent, animate) and neuter?

In nouns, no, as I fail to see an example of a situation where it is
necessary (except perhaps if you considee this the main distinction
between angle = Englishman/woman and anglum = English language; I
consider there to be an abstract vs. concrete distinction as well as
an epicene/neuter distinction). In the pronouns, there is still some
question. This gets into one of the few areas where we have not reached
a consensus, and I cannot answer yet for that reason.

Phil Hunt

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Dec 23, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/23/96
to

In article <59aujo$a...@acmey.gatech.edu>

psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
>ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:
>>In article <597767$k...@acmex.gatech.edu>
>> psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
>>>dg...@mindspring.com (D Gary Grady) writes:
>>>The argument is that Interlingua represents a standardization of
>>>what already exists as a common phenomenon among the western European
>>>languages.
>
>>No, it is a common Romance language, *not* a common European language.
>
>Phil. Consult any Danish, Dutch, or German dictionary. You will see lots
>of words of Latin and Romance origin. There will also be numerous other
>words you don't first recognize as having a Latin origin, but they
>represent simple substitutions of germanic affixes and roots for
>corresponding Latin affixes and roots, like German "ausdru"cken" =
>ex-press. These are known as "loan translations". The original
>prototypes are Latin.

Irrelevant, because it doesn't help Germans much if at all with reading
Interlingua.

Eurolang takes a different strategy: where the most recognisable word
for EU people is germanic, use it. Take the word "word" for example:

English word
German Wort
Dutch woord
Italian parola
French mot
Spanish palabra

IL parola
EL word

IL uses 'parola' which is recognised by 60 million Italians. EL's 'word'
is recognised by 170 million speakers of English, German and Dutch.

A lot of the time the most recognisable word is Romance. But often it
isn't, and on these occasions, a language designed to be a *European*
IAL sohuldn't use a Romance word. (A language designed to be a *Romance*
IAL should use a Roamnce word, of course).

>I'm not sure of the basis for your claim about the recognizability of "hand".
>Is it a word in these nongermanic languages? But "mano" is assured a
>place in the international vocabulary because it is the root from
>which so many other words are derived, based on the sense of "hand", as
>"manuscript", "manual labor", "manicure", "manufacture" (make by hand,
>originally), "manage" (handle?) etc..

But what does "manuscript" mean in IL? Does it mean "hand-written"?
If so, someone speaking English will ve used to a different meaning.

>In any case, your point does not contradict the fact that as a
>standardisation of the common elements in the European languages,
>Interlingua is European.

IL is *not* a standardisation of the *most* common elements in European
lanugages. How does one say "find" in IL? It doesn't use the Germanic root
"find", it uses the *less common* Romance root "trov-".

>You want a language that is relatively coherent in its derivational
>structure. If you mix "hand" with "manuscript" you have to introduce
>new concepts or make new, unfamiliar words that are less recognizable to
>the millions you claim.

I daresay that a British person would recognise the IL word "manuscript",
but would he know its meaning? In English "manuscript" most certainly
does not mean "written by hand". In Eurolang, the terms used are clear:

hand-scribed (n) text written by hand
hand-scribeda (a) hand-written
text (n) text, document, piece of writing

> Would you include "manicure" in Eurolang?

Yes, becasue it is in DEFIS. But not as a word in the core vocabulary.

>"manual labor?" in those forms?

_handa laboration_.

--
Phil Hunt


STAN MULAIK

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Dec 23, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/23/96
to

ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:

>In article <59aujo$a...@acmey.gatech.edu>
> psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
>>ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:
>>>In article <597767$k...@acmex.gatech.edu>
>>> psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
>>>>dg...@mindspring.com (D Gary Grady) writes:
>>>>The argument is that Interlingua represents a standardization of
>>>>what already exists as a common phenomenon among the western European
>>>>languages.
>>

>Irrelevant, because it doesn't help Germans much if at all with reading
>Interlingua.

More than you may think.

>Eurolang takes a different strategy: where the most recognisable word
>for EU people is germanic, use it. Take the word "word" for example:

>English word
>German Wort
>Dutch woord
>Italian parola
>French mot
>Spanish palabra

>IL parola
>EL word

>IL uses 'parola' which is recognised by 60 million Italians. EL's 'word'
>is recognised by 170 million speakers of English, German and Dutch.

I associate the English word "parlance" to "parola" e "parlar" in
Interlingua. I readily recognize it. Have you done any careful
recognition studies to back up your claims? Or is this simply your
own impression? You also may be limited to the number of entries
in that 5-language dictionary.

There is the word "parol" in English that means "word of mouth" (adjective).
And then there is the word "parole", which is to give one's word that
one will stay out of trouble in return for staying out of jail.

parole \pw-'r,l\ n [F, speech, parole, fr. MF, fr. LL parabola speech:
PARABLE] (ca. 1616)

>A lot of the time the most recognisable word is Romance. But often it
>isn't, and on these occasions, a language designed to be a *European*
>IAL sohuldn't use a Romance word. (A language designed to be a *Romance*
>IAL should use a Roamnce word, of course).

Interlingua was not designed to be specifically "romance". The standardization
on the basis of an inclusion of English in the source languages of
Interlingua, brings in many Latin and Greek forms which are the prototypes
from which the Romance languages have developed. A word like "dominicella"
(damsel) is popular Latin in contrast to the purely romance "donzella"
which has descended from this. "Dominicella" is influenced by the
existence of "domin-, domino, domina, dominar, etc. in a derivational
series.

Again I bring up the case of "blocada" (blockade), which is based on
English, German and Russian.

>>I'm not sure of the basis for your claim about the recognizability of "hand".
>>Is it a word in these nongermanic languages? But "mano" is assured a
>>place in the international vocabulary because it is the root from
>>which so many other words are derived, based on the sense of "hand", as
>>"manuscript", "manual labor", "manicure", "manufacture" (make by hand,
>>originally), "manage" (handle?) etc..

>But what does "manuscript" mean in IL? Does it mean "hand-written"?
>If so, someone speaking English will ve used to a different meaning.

MANUSCRIPT,any document containing characters transcribed by hand with a brush,
pen, pencil, or stylus, as distinguished from one that is printed mechanically
from a slate. Today the term manuscript is applied also to typewritten
material. For the history, production, and preservation of various
manuscripts, see Book; Illuminated Manuscripts; Paleography; Palimpsest.
(From Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia)

And Webster's Third International says:

1. manuscript \'man-yw-skript\ adj [L manu scriptus] (1597) : written
by hand or typed <... letters>

2. manuscript n (1600)
1 : a written or typewritten composition or document as distinguished
from a printed copy; also : a document submitted for publication
2 : writing as opposed to print

The IED simply gives English "manuscript" for IL "manuscripto".

>>In any case, your point does not contradict the fact that as a
>>standardisation of the common elements in the European languages,
>>Interlingua is European.

>IL is *not* a standardisation of the *most* common elements in European
>lanugages. How does one say "find" in IL? It doesn't use the Germanic root
>"find", it uses the *less common* Romance root "trov-".

Here we are quibbling over different definitions for "common elements".
Here I am speaking of "common to languages"; you are speaking of
"commonly understood by European speakers". But the latter seems to
be operationalized by simply noting the population of speakers, rather
than by any study of whether individuals of educated backgrounds would
recognize the words. But as for "find" vs. "trovar", English has

trove \'tr,v\ n [short for treasure trove] (1888)
1 : DISCOVERY, FIND
2 : a valuable collection : TREASURE; also : HAUL, COLLECTION

Again this is the effect of using English, French, Italian, Spanish/Portuguese,
with German and Russian as alternates, as the source languages. "find"
only occurs in German and English. trovar is found in the three romance
languages. The rule of three prevails.

>>You want a language that is relatively coherent in its derivational
>>structure. If you mix "hand" with "manuscript" you have to introduce
>>new concepts or make new, unfamiliar words that are less recognizable to
>>the millions you claim.

>I daresay that a British person would recognise the IL word "manuscript",
>but would he know its meaning? In English "manuscript" most certainly
>does not mean "written by hand". In Eurolang, the terms used are clear:

I think I demonstrated above by citing Webster's that "manuscript" does
most certainly mean "written by hand", as well as a modern extended usage
to cover typed manuscripts. I have a colleague who cannot type and
prepares manuscripts for the typist by writing by hand. When in grade
school, we students studied manuscript, or "script" for short.

>hand-scribed (n) text written by hand \IL manuscripto
>hand-scribeda (a) hand-written \IL manuscripte
>text (n) text, document, piece of writing \IL texto

>> Would you include "manicure" in Eurolang?

>Yes, becasue it is in DEFIS. But not as a word in the core vocabulary.

DEFIS? Please explain. And what would "manicure" be in Eurolang?

STAN MULAIK

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Dec 23, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/23/96
to

ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:

>In article <59aujo$a...@acmey.gatech.edu>
> psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
>>ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:
>>>In article <597767$k...@acmex.gatech.edu>
>>> psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
>>>>dg...@mindspring.com (D Gary Grady) writes:

>But what does "manuscript" mean in IL? Does it mean "hand-written"?
>If so, someone speaking English will ve used to a different meaning.

[deletion]

>I daresay that a British person would recognise the IL word "manuscript",
>but would he know its meaning? In English "manuscript" most certainly
>does not mean "written by hand". In Eurolang, the terms used are clear:

>hand-scribed (n) text written by hand
>hand-scribeda (a) hand-written


>text (n) text, document, piece of writing

It's interesting that you create these Germanic forms for a word that
in German and Danish takes the Latin form of German: Manuskript,
Danish: "manuskript". Doesn't this violate your own principles of
taking the word recognizable to the most speakers, in this case
German, Danish, (maybe Swedish and Norwegian, too, and Dutch), English,
French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese? Any historian for the era prior
to the 20th century would regard a handwritten document as a "manuscript".
It also refers to the cursive, connected form of writing by hand.


>> Would you include "manicure" in Eurolang?

>Yes, becasue it is in DEFIS. But not as a word in the core vocabulary.

>>"manual labor?" in those forms?

>_handa laboration_.

>--
>Phil Hunt

--

Phil Hunt

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Dec 23, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/23/96
to

In article <59lfbd$g...@acmex.gatech.edu>

psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
>ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:
>>Irrelevant, because it doesn't help Germans much if at all with reading
>>Interlingua.
>
>More than you may think.

The ausdrucken : express similarity doesn't help Germans much.

>>Eurolang takes a different strategy: where the most recognisable word
>>for EU people is germanic, use it. Take the word "word" for example:
>
>>English word
>>German Wort
>>Dutch woord
>>Italian parola
>>French mot
>>Spanish palabra
>
>>IL parola
>>EL word
>
>>IL uses 'parola' which is recognised by 60 million Italians. EL's 'word'
>>is recognised by 170 million speakers of English, German and Dutch.
>
>I associate the English word "parlance" to "parola" e "parlar" in
>Interlingua. I readily recognize it. Have you done any careful
>recognition studies to back up your claims?

No. I have merely assumed that if you show someone a piece of card with
"word" on it and a piece of "parola" on it, then if they are English
speaking the chance that they will guess word correctly is about 100%.
The chance that they will guess "parola" correcly is about 5%; the most
common guess at the meaning of tnhis word is likely to be something
to do with prisoners being released before their sentence is over. The
second most likely guess would be "parasol".

> Or is this simply your
>own impression? You also may be limited to the number of entries
>in that 5-language dictionary.
>
>There is the word "parol" in English that means "word of mouth"
(adjective).

I'm not familair with it.

>And then there is the word "parole", which is to give one's word that
>one will stay out of trouble in return for staying out of jail.

Indeed. There are so many words like "parola", with very varied meanings
that guessing the correct meaning is likely to be hard.

>>But what does "manuscript" mean in IL? Does it mean "hand-written"?
>>If so, someone speaking English will ve used to a different meaning.
>

>And Webster's Third International says:
>
>1. manuscript \'man-yw-skript\ adj [L manu scriptus] (1597) : written
> by hand or typed <... letters>
>
>2. manuscript n (1600)
>1 : a written or typewritten composition or document as distinguished
> from a printed copy; also : a document submitted for publication
>2 : writing as opposed to print
>
>The IED simply gives English "manuscript" for IL "manuscripto".

I asume by this you mean that the tow owrds have the same semantic
space.

A manuscript can be hand written, or typed, or printed on a laser
printer, or created in a computer system any not physically printed
anywhere. In fact it can mean any document *regardless* of the technique
used to put it on paper (it might not even be on paper at all).

Most manuscripts sent off to publishers are not hand written. So IL
has a word, build up from roots meaning "hand" and "written", which
means "a document, regardless of whether it is handwritten or not".
Don't you tihnk tihsi might be a little confusing?

Also, _manuscripto_ is a redundant word, because its meaning is the
same as _documento_ and _texto_. So two of these words are redundant
and should be removed.

Languages are hard to learn, principally because there is a lot
of vocabulary that must be learned. So removing surplus vocabulary
makes the language easy to learn.

>>IL is *not* a standardisation of the *most* common elements in European
>>lanugages. How does one say "find" in IL? It doesn't use the Germanic root
>>"find", it uses the *less common* Romance root "trov-".
>
>Here we are quibbling over different definitions for "common elements".
>Here I am speaking of "common to languages"; you are speaking of
>"commonly understood by European speakers". But the latter seems to
>be operationalized by simply noting the population of speakers, rather
>than by any study of whether individuals of educated backgrounds would
>recognize the words. But as for "find" vs. "trovar", English has
>
>trove \'tr,v\ n [short for treasure trove] (1888)
>1 : DISCOVERY, FIND
>2 : a valuable collection : TREASURE; also : HAUL, COLLECTION

I assert that if you showed a card with "find" on it, and another card
with "trovar" on it, to a representative sample of EU citizens, and
told them that both words are from IALs designed to be easy to recognise,
more people would guess the meaning of "find".

>Again this is the effect of using English, French, Italian, Spanish/Portuguese,
>with German and Russian as alternates, as the source languages. "find"
>only occurs in German and English. trovar is found in the three romance
>languages. The rule of three prevails.

So you admit that IL is biased towards Romance languages? If it wasn't
it would treat all its source languages the same, apply weightings to
them according to the number of speakers (or other criteria) and apply
the most recognisable word. Romance words would not have special status.

>>I daresay that a British person would recognise the IL word "manuscript",
>>but would he know its meaning? In English "manuscript" most certainly
>>does not mean "written by hand". In Eurolang, the terms used are clear:
>
>I think I demonstrated above by citing Webster's that "manuscript" does
>most certainly mean "written by hand", as well as a modern extended usage
>to cover typed manuscripts.

It means "written by hand" *as* *well* *as* "written by any other means
whatsoever, or not actually written down but stored on computer and not
on paper". So it just means a document *regardless* of how it was put
on the paper, and indeed regardless of whether it is on paper of a
computer-readable storeage medium. And most manuscripts are *not* hand-
written, so typically it means a non-handwritten document.

> I have a colleague who cannot type and
>prepares manuscripts for the typist by writing by hand. When in grade
>school, we students studied manuscript, or "script" for short.

In Britain there are no "grade schools" and people don't study "manuscript"
they do "handwriting".

>>hand-scribed (n) text written by hand \IL manuscripto
>>hand-scribeda (a) hand-written \IL manuscripte
>>text (n) text, document, piece of writing \IL texto
>
>>> Would you include "manicure" in Eurolang?
>
>>Yes, becasue it is in DEFIS. But not as a word in the core vocabulary.
>
>DEFIS? Please explain.

Deutsch English French Italian Spanish. It's a quick way of saying
what languages a word is in or has cognates in.

> And what would "manicure" be in Eurolang?

_manicure_.

--
Phil Hunt


Don HARLOW

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Dec 24, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/24/96
to

kl...@diku.dk (Klaus Ole Kristiansen) lastatempe skribis:

>psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) writes:

>>ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:

>>>No. Consider the word for "hand". In IL this is _mano_. IMO a pan-European
>>>language should use _hand_, because it is recognisable to more people
>>>(this is true whether you count Europeans, or people anywhere in the
>>>world, or people in the EU).

>>There is the family of words, translinguistic (I hesitate to engender an
>>additional debate by using the word "international") across the European
>>languages built upon "mano": mano, manata, manilla; manual; manico;
>>manica; manear; manumitter; manicuro; quadrumane; manufac- etc. ; manuscripte;
>>mantener; etc..

>>I'm not sure of the basis for your claim about the recognizability of "hand".


>>Is it a word in these nongermanic languages? But "mano" is assured a
>>place in the international vocabulary because it is the root from
>>which so many other words are derived, based on the sense of "hand", as
>>"manuscript", "manual labor", "manicure", "manufacture" (make by hand,
>>originally), "manage" (handle?) etc..

>But to a speaker of a Germanic language, mano is not recognizable as hand.

>>>The language in the EU with the most native speakers is German. The
>>>one most studied as a foreign lanugage is English. Therefore these
>>>languages (and not just the Roomance words that happen to be in them)
>>>should be important in choosing words for an IAL for the EU.

>>You want a language that is relatively coherent in its derivational


>>structure. If you mix "hand" with "manuscript" you have to introduce
>>new concepts or make new, unfamiliar words that are less recognizable to

>>the millions you claim. Would you include "manicure" in Eurolang?


>>"manual labor?" in those forms?

>Why would you want "manuscript" to look like "hand"? Many manuskripts


>are typed. "Handwriting" is not the same as "manuscript".

>In my own language, "håndskrift" means both "handwriting" and "written
>work actually written by hand", while "manuskript" means what you submit
>to a publisher. Not the same thing at all. The latter has no strong
>connection with the hand.

Most of the English words derived from "manus" have no strong
connection in people's minds with "hand". When you think of "manicure"
you think of fingernails, not the entire hand. When you think of
"manual labor" the portion of anatomy that you immediately think of is
the back, not the hand (manual labor can be back-breaking). A
"manuscript", as you say, comes from the computer printer, not the
hand. And a north European would indeed be more likely to understand
the home-grown English "handbook" than the Romance-derived English
"manual".

Coherency in derivational structure is one thing (but what do you mean
by coherency? Isomorphic word-formation, as in Esperanto? Or
etymologically correct but polymorphic derivation, as in Occidental or
Interlingua?). But coherency does not require any particular source
for individual roots; you can drop _mano_ or _hand_ or _shlook_ into a
coherent derivational machine and get out words that are equally
comprehensible in terms of the derivational system.

Fabrice Andrieux

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Dec 24, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/24/96
to kl...@diku.dk, ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk

kl...@diku.dk (Klaus Ole Kristiansen) ecrivait :

>Why would you want "manuscript" to look like "hand"? Many manuskripts
>are typed. "Handwriting" is not the same as "manuscript".

In fact, in romance languages, "manuscript" means precisely "written by hand"
(I think the latin etymology is clear) !

>In my own language, "håndskrift" means both "handwriting" and "written
>work actually written by hand", while "manuskript" means what you submit
>to a publisher. Not the same thing at all. The latter has no strong
>connection with the hand.

English "manuscript" (and, I suppose, also danish "manuskript") is derived
from the French word "manuscript" ("document written by hand") because,
in the past, what you submitted to a publisher to be typed was originally
written by hand. So, English and Danish have retained only a part of the
original meaning of the word and this meaning has evolved when typing became
popular.

Fabrice ANDRIEUX


Paul O Bartlett

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Dec 24, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/24/96
to

On Mon, 23 Dec 1996, Phil Hunt wrote (excerpt):

>
> Languages are hard to learn, principally because there is a lot
> of vocabulary that must be learned. So removing surplus vocabulary
> makes the language easy to learn.

But how do you decide what vocabulary to learn and what vocabulary
is surplus in an auxlang? How do you decide some appropriate (whatever
that may mean) mapping for semantic space? One man's superfluity is
another man's necessary distinction.

> If it wasn't
> it would treat all its source languages the same, apply weightings to
> them according to the number of speakers (or other criteria) and apply
> the most recognisable word.

A problem I can see with the whole idea of weighting for choosing
roots from source languages is that speaker populations can change
relative to each other just within a few generations. If the weights
change three generations down the line because of speaker population
shifts, are we going to rewrite the vocabulary? If not, then why are
today's weights sacrosanct?

Paul <pob...@access.digex.net>
----------------------------------------------------------
Paul O. Bartlett, P.O. Box 857, Vienna, VA 22183-0857, USA
Finger, keyserver, or WWW for PGP 2.6.2 public key
Home Page: http://www.access.digex.net/~pobart


John Fisher

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Dec 24, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/24/96
to

In article <851382...@vision25.demon.co.uk>, Phil Hunt
<ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk> writes

>[on "manuscript"]


>It means "written by hand" *as* *well* *as* "written by any other means
>whatsoever, or not actually written down but stored on computer and not
>on paper". So it just means a document *regardless* of how it was put
>on the paper, and indeed regardless of whether it is on paper of a
>computer-readable storeage medium. And most manuscripts are *not* hand-
>written, so typically it means a non-handwritten document.

I think that in English `manuscript' includes the idea `personally
produced by the author'.

Christian Weisgerber

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Dec 24, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/24/96
to

psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK) writes:

> >IL uses 'parola' which is recognised by 60 million Italians. EL's 'word'
> >is recognised by 170 million speakers of English, German and Dutch.
>
> I associate the English word "parlance" to "parola" e "parlar" in
> Interlingua. I readily recognize it.

German: "Parole": 1. (mil) password
2. (fig) watchword, (pol. also) slogan

--
Christian 'naddy' Weisgerber na...@mips.pfalz.de
See another pointless homepage at <URL:http://home.pages.de/~naddy/>.

STAN MULAIK

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Dec 24, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/24/96
to

Fabrice Andrieux <fand...@stna7.stna.dgac.fr> writes:


>English "manuscript" (and, I suppose, also danish "manuskript") is derived
>from the French word "manuscript" ("document written by hand") because,
>in the past, what you submitted to a publisher to be typed was originally
>written by hand. So, English and Danish have retained only a part of the
>original meaning of the word and this meaning has evolved when typing became
>popular.

I think Fabrice has it right. "Manuscript" entered the vocabulary at a
time when the author wrote something by hand. When printing came along,
the author submitted a handwritten manuscript to the publisher for
printing. When typewriters were invented, authors typed their
"manuscript" (still doing it by hand). And those writing them on
a word processor, still do them by hand. We will get away from hands
when electroencephalography advances to the point that all we do is
put a special helmet on our heads and think, and the words appear in
our word processors. Or the technology now exists that you simply
speak into a microphone and your words appear in your word processor.
Would we call it a "dictograph"? (Latin & Greek combined). Dictoscript?
Or would we still call it a "manuscript"?

By the way, German has Manuskript for English "manuscript". I don't see
a particularly strong case made for "hand-skribo" (whatever) in this
instance for Eurolang.

Would Eurolang now make a distinction between documents written by hand
and those written mechanically? When historians deal with "manuscripts"
of the 16th Century and "mechanoscripts" of the 20th century, will we
need two terms? And then we would have three terms when "dictoscripts"
developed in the 21st Century.

Derivational series of historical vintage often seem obscure in how
the various meanings all follow from the simple meanings of the roots
and affixes, because meanings change through new circumstances, new
inventions, new technologies, new forms of life. But one gets a sense
for the meaning of the word nevertheless. Take the word "interdict"
in the sense of
3 : to destroy, damage, or cut off (as an enemy line of supply)
by firepower to stop or hamper an enemy.
But the primary meaning is "to lay under or prohibit by an interdict", or
"to forbid in a usually formal or authoritative manner". The original
source is
ME, alter. of entredit, fr. OF, fr. L interdictum prohibition,
fr. neut. of interdictus, pp. of interdicere to interpose, forbid,
fr. inter- + dicere to say
This suggests someone in authority interposing themselves to say something
to stop others' acting in certain ways. But it is analogy and metaphor
that leads to new extensions for words, new meanings. The idea that
a language can have univocal meanings for all its words is doomed in
the long run, because languages evolve as forms of life evolve, and
new meanings are acquired along with the old for the same words.
Meanings are not that sharply or clearly established. And as we
encounter new circumstances we try to communicate about them with the
old forms of language, often speaking metaphorically. Sometimes this
process goes forward imperceptibly so that the participants in these
language games do not immediately recognize that they are using
different meanings or multiple meanings for their words. But this is
no problem, we learn to comprehend what is said in a given context
by noting the context. Multiple meanings for words is no problem, when
you know the contexts for their application.

Phil Hunt

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Dec 25, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/25/96
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In article <59bieo$h...@vidar.diku.dk>

kl...@diku.dk "Klaus Ole Kristiansen" writes:
>Why would you want "manuscript" to look like "hand"? Many manuskripts
>are typed.

Or printed on a laser printer. Perhaps the word for these should
be "laserprinterscript"?

> "Handwriting" is not the same as "manuscript".
>

>In my own language, "håndskrift" means both "handwriting" and "written
>work actually written by hand",

This is the equivalent, in both meaning and composition, of the EL
term _hand-scribed_.

> while "manuskript" means what you submit
>to a publisher. Not the same thing at all. The latter has no strong
>connection with the hand.

My point exactly.

--
Phil Hunt


Phil Hunt

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Dec 25, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/25/96
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In article <59mti0$a...@acmez.gatech.edu>

psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
>ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:
>>but would he know its meaning? In English "manuscript" most certainly
>>does not mean "written by hand". In Eurolang, the terms used are clear:
>
>>hand-scribed (n) text written by hand
>>hand-scribeda (a) hand-written

>>text (n) text, document, piece of writing
>
>It's interesting that you create these Germanic forms for a word that
>in German and Danish takes the Latin form of German: Manuskript,
>Danish: "manuskript". Doesn't this violate your own principles of
>taking the word recognizable to the most speakers, in this case
>German, Danish, (maybe Swedish and Norwegian, too, and Dutch), English,
>French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese?

Not at all. The word for the meaning "text, document" is _text_. This
is present in all of DEFIS and probably the other languages you mentioned.

There is no word in most of these languages, AFAIK, for the meaning
"text written by hand". The nearest word in English is "hand-written"
but this is an adjective not a noun.

Eurolang chooses a compound word here, formed from its own root words
(here _hand_ and _scrib_) by its regular derivation rules.

--
Phil Hunt


Phil Hunt

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Dec 25, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/25/96
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In article <Pine.SUN.3.94.961224...@access4.digex.net>

pob...@access.digex.net "Paul O Bartlett" writes:
>On Mon, 23 Dec 1996, Phil Hunt wrote (excerpt):
>> Languages are hard to learn, principally because there is a lot
>> of vocabulary that must be learned. So removing surplus vocabulary
>> makes the language easy to learn.
>
> But how do you decide what vocabulary to learn and what vocabulary
>is surplus in an auxlang?

All the vocabulary that gets into Eurolang will not be surplus to
Eurolang.

>How do you decide some appropriate (whatever
>that may mean) mapping for semantic space? One man's superfluity is
>another man's necessary distinction.

The way round this is to have a core vocabulary and and supplementary
voacbularies. The dictionaries should state whether a word is in the
core vocabulary.

>> If it wasn't
>> it would treat all its source languages the same, apply weightings to
>> them according to the number of speakers (or other criteria) and apply
>> the most recognisable word.
>

> A problem I can see with the whole idea of weighting for choosing
>roots from source languages is that speaker populations can change
>relative to each other just within a few generations. If the weights
>change three generations down the line because of speaker population
>shifts, are we going to rewrite the vocabulary?

Once the language becomes established, the vocabulary cannot be
rewritten.

>If not, then why are today's weights sacrosanct?

They are an objective way of deciding which word to use.

--
Phil Hunt


STAN MULAIK

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Dec 25, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/25/96
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ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:

>In article <59mti0$a...@acmez.gatech.edu>
> psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
>>ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:
>>>but would he know its meaning? In English "manuscript" most certainly
>>>does not mean "written by hand". In Eurolang, the terms used are clear:
>>
>>>hand-scribed (n) text written by hand
>>>hand-scribeda (a) hand-written
>>>text (n) text, document, piece of writing
>>

Even typed manuscripts are prepared by hand, although one no longer uses
a pen or pencil to place written words on a page.

"MANUSCRIPT,any document containing characters transcribed by hand with a
brush, pen, pencil, or stylus, as distinguished from one that is printed
mechanically from a slate. Today the term manuscript is applied also to

typewritten material." Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia.

ebste's Third International:

1. manĄuĄscript \'man-yw-çskript\ adj [L manu scriptus]
(1597) : written by hand or typed <É letters>

2. manuscript n (1600)
1 : a written or typewritten composition or document as distinguished
from a printed copy; also : a document submitted for publication
2 : writing as opposed to print

A manuscript is usually composed by its author, by hand, either by writing
with a pen or pencil or brush, or by typing. Do you type by something other
than by hand? And even if you do, aren't you an exception? It is still that
way even if you use a word processor and print out the manuscript by a
laser printer. It's not the laser printer that makes it a manuscript, but
the fact that it is something that originates with the author, and then it
is submitted to a publisher, or to some process of duplication in multiple
copies for distribution. Even there, something reproduced informally and
circulated may still be called a "manuscript".

But the fact is in German they use the word "Manuskript" in the same way.
The same goes for Danish. Both are germanic languages.

text n [ME,fr. MF texte, fr. ML textus, fr. L, texture, context, fr. texere
to weave - more at TECHNICAL]
1
a
(1) : the original words and form of a written or printed work
(2) : an edited or emended copy of an original work
b : a work containing such text
2
a : the main body of printed or written matter on a page
b : the principal part of a book exclusive of front and back matter
c : the printed score of a musical composition
3
a
(1) : a verse or passage of Scripture chosen esp. for the subject of a
sermon or for authoritative support (as for a doctrine)
(2) : a passage from an authoritative source providing an introduction
or basis (as for a speech)
b : a source of information or authority
4 : THEME, TOPIC
5
a : the words of something (as a poem) set to music
b : matter chiefly in the form of words that is treated as data for
processing by computerized equipment <a text -editing typewriter>
6 : a type suitable for printing running text
7 : TEXTBOOK
8
a : something written or spoken considered as an object to be examined,
explicated, or deconstructed
b : something likened to a text <the surfaces of daily life are ...s
to be explicated Michiko Kakutani> <he ceased to be a teacher as he
became a ... D. J. Boorstin>

In English "text" has much broader and many more meanings than you seem to
include in Eurolang. I suspect the same for other languages that contain
"text".


>>It's interesting that you create these Germanic forms for a word that
>>in German and Danish takes the Latin form of German: Manuskript,
>>Danish: "manuskript". Doesn't this violate your own principles of
>>taking the word recognizable to the most speakers, in this case
>>German, Danish, (maybe Swedish and Norwegian, too, and Dutch), English,
>>French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese?

>Not at all. The word for the meaning "text, document" is _text_. This
>is present in all of DEFIS and probably the other languages you mentioned.

"text" does not convey the idea that the document was prepared informally,
usually by the author, by hand (script, hand-printed or typed), which the
word "manuscript" does convey. "text" focuses more on the content rather
than the mode by which the text is produced. So, you can't use "text"
in place of "manuscript".

So, why don't you use "manuscript" instead of "hand-scribed"? What
languages use this? How many speakers? Match that to the number of
speakers who use the word "manuscript" (or its variants).

What I think is happening is that instead of getting the most common
words in their original meanings, we are getting Phil Hunt idiosyncratic
interpretations of the meanings.

>There is no word in most of these languages, AFAIK, for the meaning
>"text written by hand". The nearest word in English is "hand-written"
>but this is an adjective not a noun.

Phil, I don't know which dictionaries you are using, but they seem not to
conform to the English dictionaries I use.

>Eurolang chooses a compound word here, formed from its own root words
>(here _hand_ and _scrib_) by its regular derivation rules.

But what is produced is not the word that is most commonly spoken by
the most speakers. "manuskript" "manuscript" is used by more than 80%
of the speakers, I would guess, in Europe for the "document prepared by
an author by hand"--and that includes typing and word processors.

Phil Hunt

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Dec 27, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/27/96
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In article <59qcau$b...@acmex.gatech.edu>

psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
>By the way, German has Manuskript for English "manuscript". I don't see
>a particularly strong case made for "hand-skribo" (whatever) in this
>instance for Eurolang.

_hand-scribed_, to be precise.

>Would Eurolang now make a distinction between documents written by hand
>and those written mechanically?

Of course this distinction can be made, if one wants to. The relevant
adjectives are:

hand-scribeda (a) hand-written
aparat-scribeda (a) machine-written

> When historians deal with "manuscripts"
>of the 16th Century and "mechanoscripts" of the 20th century, will we
>need two terms? And then we would have three terms when "dictoscripts"
>developed in the 21st Century.

Most of the time, people will be using a word that just means "document,
text" and does not specify how it was written.

--
Phil Hunt


Kjell Rehnstroem

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Dec 28, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/28/96
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dg...@mindspring.com (D Gary Grady) wrote:

Texto eradite:
>Well, no, and I speak as a former Interlingua enthusiast who was
>eventually frustrated by the grammatical exceptions, a stress accent
>much less consistent than French or German, an orthography less
>phonetic than that of Spanish, and not even a single standard for
>pronunciation.

>D Gary Grady
>Durham NC USA
>73513...@compuserve.com / dg...@mindspring.com

Io divina que tu apprendeva esperanto prior a interlingua. Io vadeva
le mesme via e esseva al initio multo irritate pro le multe
irregularitates del grammatica de interlingua. In le majoritate de
casos, tamen, io trovava que il era un certe rationalitate in le
seliger del un o altere forma grammatic.

Quanto al accentuation illo non es multo problematic. On pote vider le
notas del accentuation in le dictionario interlingua como un
recommendation e non como un prescription obligatori.

Personas qui visita un conferentia de interlingua rapidemente se
adapta al maniera de pronunciar e accentuar. Quasi omnes ha apprendite
su interlingua ex un libro, ma isto non rende difficile le parlar
libermente.


Kjell Rehnstroem

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Dec 28, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/28/96
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dg...@mindspring.com (D Gary Grady) wrote:

>>[...] But it is not intended to be some paragon of
>>linguistic regularity and schematicism, particularly if that would
>>lead it away from faithfully mirroring what is common in the European
>>languages.

>Precisely. I only noted that its efforts in "faithfully mirroring what
>is common in the European languages" make it harder to learn to speak
>and write.
As I said in another posting: if you have learnt Esperanto first, then
Interlingua appears to be much more difficult. I cannot give the
degree. It depends from who is learning.

My personal impression though is that I had no problem learning to
speak Interlingua. And as an extra reward I got a better understanding
of the Romance element in English as well as in my own Swedish.


>Of course, as I said before, Gode succeeded brilliantly in
>creating a language that can be read by millions of people without
>instruction. If I thought that was of overwhelming importance, I would
>still be a big enthusiast of Interlingua. (In fact, I remain to a fair
>degree a fan of Interlingua, at least in the applications for which
>Gode originally intended it.)

Yes, and an Espeantist said in a Radio Programme that Interlingua was
made for lawyers and medical doctors.

Instead of getting into a discussion of what Gode said on one occation
or the other I think it is better to draw from my own, personal
experiences. They are:

Language-teachers, people of higher education - that they have had in
a Western language - understand interlingua. At the Swedish
Interlingua Society we had an Interlingua course at - what my
dictionary calls a folk high-school - where people on the second day
spoke Interlingua quite well.

(Incidentally I think the Interlingua rendering of this kind of school
is much more "natural" than the English one: please compare:
folk high-school = collegio del populo, collegio popular.)

(For the Esperantists: folkhögskola = popolaltlernejo)

>Incidentally, you seem to be indicating here that Interlingua is used
>hardly at all as a spoken language. Is that true?

>>The pronunciation of Interlingua is "continental". It is far more
>>regular than the pronunication of the orthography of English.

At the Interlingua Conferences where I have been it has been spoken
very much. From my own experience I have also used it in conversation
with other people, even those who are not Interlinguans. Even in one
case with a person who hated the mere thought of an international
auxiliary language.

>I am happy to concede that Interlingua's orthography is superior to
>that of English.

Si, certo. :-)


Kjell Rehnstroem

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Dec 28, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/28/96
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kl...@diku.dk (Klaus Ole Kristiansen) wrote:

>The differences in those languages makes this impossible. BTW what is
>the interlingua word for vandreklasse? (Just an example of a simple
>concept that does not AFAIK exist in English).

>Which take us back to the problem of people speaking their own mix of
>the base languages, meaning that you must have a good grasp of all of
>them to understand what is said.

>Klaus O K

As for the idea of a naturalistic language I think this thread has
very eloquently shown that there is no standard definition that all of
the participants would accept. In a comparison between Esperanto and
Volapuek the former appears as natural to an Esperantist. To the
speaker of Interlingua as compared to Esperanto, the former is
naturalistic.

People will speak their own mix of any language, depending from how
much time and effort they have invested in learning it and at what
stage in learning it they are.

This is a thing I have often heard from Esperantists: you have to know
all the sorce-languages of Interlingua in order to speak it. It is a
misunderstanding. Learning Interlingua you follow the same procedure
as when learning any language: you get yourself a text-book or a
grammar and a dictionary, then you learn. This is quite as natural as
you don't have to invent the wheel, going through the whole theory of
Zamenhof's work in order to learn Esperanto.

As for the _vandreklasse_ I could not find it in my modern
German-Swedish dictionary, so it must be something very German. I'd
guess it is a Wandererklasse, but even though I have a faint idea
about what this may be, I don't know. But this is nothing special for
Interlingua. The problem exists in every language. There are always
words that you cannot translate, and if the source-languages of
Interlingua don't have the word you have got to make a circumscription
or "create" a new word as you would do in any language, and if a
greater number of speakers need the word, they will coin one.

Let's say that a Swede and a Finn are speaking any language to
each-other except for Swedish and Finnish. Now, they want to talk
about a pet-dog. The Swede can translate his _saellskapshund_ into
Esperanto as _kompaniana hundo_ (in analogy to _kompaniana damo_
according to my Swedish-Esperanto dictionary - or _societhundo_. In
interlingua the person may use _can accompaniante_. If speaking
English he may use _accompany dog_ or _society dog_ and the Finn who
understands Esperanto, Interlingua or English will understand
_seurakoira_ which is exactly the same. (As a matter of fact I have
heard an autentic conversation between a Finn and a Sweede using
English in the above way). So, as always, you use what you know.

Or a kick-sled which probably does not exist in all the
source-languages of Interlingua. I suspect that it is a direct
translation of Finnish _potkukelkka_. In interlingua I would use
_slitta-sedia_ because the thing is made like a chair with runners,
and you propel it by kicking, like a scooter.

If you have a word that you cannot find in a dictionary you try to
make a circumscription. If you use Interlingua you look at the
source-languages and try to standardize what you get as well as you
can, for Esperanto you try to find a word that can fit into the
system.

If you have succeded then all is fine. If not, you will hear that this
or this form does exist, and that the word comes from this or that
language etc. The same thing will happen in both Esperanto and
Interlingua. The difference between the two languages will be that if
the new word in interlingua is good it will show very clear links to
the source languages. A good new word in Esperanto will be easily
understood as it is an integrated part of the system.


Kjell Rehnstroem

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Dec 28, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/28/96
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ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) wrote:

>Similarly "man" is a better word than _viro_ or _homine_.
Ma quasi OMNE le linguas europee ha _viril_, _virilitate = virility,
virilitet etc.


Kjell Rehnstroem

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Dec 28, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/28/96
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ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) wrote:

>The ausdrucken : express similarity doesn't help Germans much.

Ma un germano educate ha apprendite _expressivitate_ in le parola
existe in le linguas scandinave.

Texto eradite:


>No. I have merely assumed that if you show someone a piece of card with
>"word" on it and a piece of "parola" on it, then if they are English
>speaking the chance that they will guess word correctly is about 100%.
>The chance that they will guess "parola" correcly is about 5%; the most
>common guess at the meaning of tnhis word is likely to be something
>to do with prisoners being released before their sentence is over. The
>second most likely guess would be "parasol".

Le parolas ha signification in un contexto.

Un vocabulo que entra un altere lingua pote soventemente acciper un
signification multo specialisate. Mi exemplo favorite es le anglese
pocket-book = paperback, que in svedese deveniva _pocket_. Le frase
anglese:
This book will come in a pocket edition.
Pote esser traducite in svedese como:
Den haer boken kommer i pocket.

>A manuscript can be hand written, or typed, or printed on a laser
>printer, or created in a computer system any not physically printed
>anywhere. In fact it can mean any document *regardless* of the technique
>used to put it on paper (it might not even be on paper at all).

>Most manuscripts sent off to publishers are not hand written. So IL
>has a word, build up from roots meaning "hand" and "written", which
>means "a document, regardless of whether it is handwritten or not".
>Don't you tihnk tihsi might be a little confusing?

>Also, _manuscripto_ is a redundant word, because its meaning is the
>same as _documento_ and _texto_. So two of these words are redundant
>and should be removed.

No no no! Un manuscripto non sempre es un documento:
Exemplo: Iste manuscripto es mi certificato scholar. (Possibilemente
io face un falsification de mi certificato!)

Le majoritate de linguas tracta le parola manuscripto como le exemplo
_pocket_ in supra. Le littera que mi matre scribeva a mano non es un
manuscripto (si illa non me inviava su ultime libro) ma simplemente un
littera (scripte a mano, possibilemente manuscripte.)

In polonese on pote parlar de _maszynopis_ pro un _manuscripto_ que on
ha producite per un machina a scriber.

>Languages are hard to learn, principally because there is a lot
>of vocabulary that must be learned. So removing surplus vocabulary
>makes the language easy to learn.

Il non es mi experientia que le apprender de vocabulario es difficile.
Le difficultate es comprender le signification del parolas. Imagina
que io vole simplificar le vocabulario. Io pote dicer que ferro sempre
se appella ferro, non importa in qual stato de aggregation. Quanto al
aqua nos usa nive, glacie, aqua, vapor etc. Nos pote nunc imaginar que
nos ha un lingua in le qual nos usa *fixakvu, sandakvu, fluidakvu,
aerakvu etc. Et assi nos pote facer pro omne materios, ma in omne le
linguas europee il ha vocabulos pro _nive_ (snow, Schnee, snö, lumi,
s'nieg etc.) il ha glacie (ice, is, Eis, ja¨a¨, lo´d etc.). In le
futuro immediate omne homines in Europa debera in un maniera o altere
apprender le parolas que io dava in interlingua, proque illos existe
in quasi omne linguas que un Europeo educate debe apprender.

Le lingua international nunquam vive in un vacuum. Le polonese que
apprende que lo´d es solidaqua in nostre lingua imaginari non es
adjuvate per isto, viste que ille debe apprender Eis, glacial, ice o
glace. Vermente, si on debe haber un grege de homines stupide on pote
inseniar a illos un tal lingua e le aquirer del education in le grande
linguas pote esser multo difficile.

Ecce le idea de un romance in le qual un dictator coerce tote le
population de Europa a apprender le lingua international Eurolokv. In
iste romance le homines con grande difficultates e riscos apprende le
vetere linguas pro reconquerer le vetere culturas. Esque io debe dicer
que le heroe principal es un inseniator de biologia qui parla un
lingua europee con multe vocabulos international. Ille insenia al
populo parolas como _glacie_ e _nive_, que es parolas totalmente
illicite :-)

>I assert that if you showed a card with "find" on it, and another card
>with "trovar" on it, to a representative sample of EU citizens, and
>told them that both words are from IALs designed to be easy to recognise,
>more people would guess the meaning of "find".

Le vocabulas es nihil, le contexto es toto.

>So you admit that IL is biased towards Romance languages? If it wasn't
>it would treat all its source languages the same, apply weightings to
>them according to the number of speakers (or other criteria) and apply
>the most recognisable word. Romance words would not have special status.

Le plus grande distribution in le linguas de base de interlingua ha le
parolas romance. Non sempre in le formas simple que tu vole scriber
sur un papiro, ma in le compositos. Le parolas simple como homme,
uomo, hombre, Mann, Muzhchizna existente in le linguas de base de
interlingua non es commun, ma le derivation _viril_, _virilitate_ lo
es.

Mesmo le svedese, que es un lingua europee que non es un lingua fonte
de interlingua e que es forsan plus germanic que anglese, contine
vocabulos como _manuskript, expressiv, interglasial, glass (gelato,
icecream), ferrolegering, virilitet, feminin, okulär.)


>> And what would "manicure" be in Eurolang?

>_manicure_.

Como on pronuncia isto? _manikyur_ o _manikure_?


Brian M. Scott

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Dec 29, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/29/96
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On Fri, 27 Dec 96 20:18:02 GMT, ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt)
wrote:

>In article <59qcau$b...@acmex.gatech.edu>
> psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:

[snip]

>> When historians deal with "manuscripts"
>>of the 16th Century and "mechanoscripts" of the 20th century, will we
>>need two terms? And then we would have three terms when "dictoscripts"
>>developed in the 21st Century.

>Most of the time, people will be using a word that just means "document,
>text" and does not specify how it was written.

I hope not; every manuscript (in any likely sense) is a document, but
the converse fails badly. And 'text' more often refers to the
content, not to the document (when it isn't short for 'textbook', at
least).

Brian M. Scott

Brian M. Scott

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Dec 29, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/29/96
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On Sat, 28 Dec 1996 20:40:35 GMT, m9...@abc.se (Kjell Rehnstroem)
wrote:

[most snipped]

>dg...@mindspring.com (D Gary Grady) wrote:

>(Incidentally I think the Interlingua rendering of this kind of school
>is much more "natural" than the English one: please compare:
>folk high-school = collegio del populo, collegio popular.)

>(For the Esperantists: folkhögskola = popolaltlernejo)

The English term is actually 'public high school', though I
suspect that the Swedish term actually describes something
a bit different; the educational systems aren't really
comparable. In English 'collegio popular' would suggest
'community college', a sort of 'demi-university' offering
two-year (rather than four-year) programs not leading
to bachelor's degrees.

>>I am happy to concede that Interlingua's orthography is superior to
>>that of English.

>Si, certo. :-)

Well, it *does* depend on whether your interest is in the present
or the past!

Brian M. Scott

STAN MULAIK

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Dec 29, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/29/96
to

ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:

>In article <59lfbd$g...@acmex.gatech.edu>
> psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
>>ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) writes:

>The ausdrucken : express similarity doesn't help Germans much.

It would help them learn the etymology of their own language as well as
the affinities between their own language and the latin-romance languages.

>>>Eurolang takes a different strategy: where the most recognisable word
>>>for EU people is germanic, use it. Take the word "word" for example:
>>
>>>English word
>>>German Wort
>>>Dutch woord
>>>Italian parola
>>>French mot
>>>Spanish palabra
>>
>>>IL parola
>>>EL word
>>
>>>IL uses 'parola' which is recognised by 60 million Italians. EL's 'word'
>>>is recognised by 170 million speakers of English, German and Dutch.
>>

Your analysis is changed when you use better dictionaries, Phil. Get a good
French dictionary and look up the world "parole": both "mot" and "parole"
are used for English "word", in varying contexts. A spoken word is "parole"
in French. It also means your "word" (of honor), and a speech you'd like
to make.

[deletion]

>No. I have merely assumed that if you show someone a piece of card with
>"word" on it and a piece of "parola" on it, then if they are English
>speaking the chance that they will guess word correctly is about 100%.
>The chance that they will guess "parola" correcly is about 5%; the most
>common guess at the meaning of tnhis word is likely to be something
>to do with prisoners being released before their sentence is over. The
>second most likely guess would be "parasol".

You have actually conducted studies of this type to support these figures,
or is this just your personal impression?

Suppose you show them the word "manuscript", will they get it correct?
Will German, Danish, Swedish speakers get it correctly? How about Italians,
French, Spanish?

[deletion]

>>>But what does "manuscript" mean in IL? Does it mean "hand-written"?
>>>If so, someone speaking English will ve used to a different meaning.
>>
>>And Webster's Third International says:
>>
>>1. manuscript \'man-yw-skript\ adj [L manu scriptus] (1597) : written
>> by hand or typed <... letters>
>>
>>2. manuscript n (1600)
>>1 : a written or typewritten composition or document as distinguished
>> from a printed copy; also : a document submitted for publication
>>2 : writing as opposed to print
>>
>>The IED simply gives English "manuscript" for IL "manuscripto".

>I asume by this you mean that the two words have the same semantic
>space.

Roughly, they do.


>A manuscript can be hand written, or typed, or printed on a laser
>printer, or created in a computer system any not physically printed
>anywhere. In fact it can mean any document *regardless* of the technique
>used to put it on paper (it might not even be on paper at all).

You are focusing on "text" in general rather then seeing the more limited
kind of "text" which is a "manuscript". Not all texts are manuscripts.
Here is the definition of "manuscript" given by _The Random House
College Dictionary_:
1. A book, document, letter, etc. written by hand.
2. An author's copy of his work that is used as the basis for type-setting.
3. Writing as distinguished from print.
4. adj. written by hand or typed.

My Larousse says:

1. manuscrit, e adj. (du lat. manu scriptus "ecrit a la main"). Qui est
ecrit a la main: _Envoyez un lettre manuscrite._ _ Une page manuscrite de
Victor Hugo_ (syn. autographe).
2. manuscrit n.m. (de 1. manuscrit). 2. manuscrit n.m. (de 1. manuscrit).
1. Ouvrage ecrit a la main: _Un manuscrit sur parchemin_. 2. IMPR
[in printing] Original, ou copie d'un texte destine a la composition,
qu'il soit ecrit a la main ou dactylographie: _Envoyer son manuscrit a un
editeur_. REM. L'usage de _tapuscrit_ se repand pour designer le
manuscrit dactylographie.

The French definition seems quite close to the English.

The point is that you require all elements of all words to be active in
word formation and to give directly the meaning of a word. But this is not
the way composite words always work in the European languages (or most
natural languages). A speaker of a language learns to use the composite
word in toto in a particular context and may not have the etymological
analysis given to him when he learns this usage. But studying the
etymological analysis of the word can give him/her further understanding
of the word. Speakers of English, German, Danish or Swedish know how to
properly use their variant of the English word "manuscript" in the appropriate
contexts, and do so in ways that would be quite parallel across these
languages. By giving the Latin origins of this word, one learns that at
one time there was a need for a word to refer to hand written
documents (in contrast with, say, printed documents) and Neolatin was
used to form the word "manuscript". [I do not find "manuscriptus" in my
dictionary of Classical Latin]. My Webster's lists 1597 and 1600 as the
years when this word entered English, so I think it arose in the context
of printing and in contrast with printing. [Anyone know for sure?] Later
when forms of handwriting imitated the form of printed words, that was
called "print" while cursive forms of connected letters were called
"manuscript". The term "manuscript" then was extended retroactively
to refer to any documents written by hand, even before printing.

"Manuscript" is a "family word" (to use Wittgenstein's well-known phrase).
There is no purely essential meaning (although hand-written document)
would come closest to that. I do not think that a writing on clay
tablets is ordinarily referred to as a "manuscript", although they were
hand-written. But anything that looks like paper or parchement would be
a "manuscript" if it were of more than simply a letter written just to
another person, which we would refer to as a "letter". But today something
prepared on a word-processor and circulated by e-mail or FTP may still
be a "manuscript", even though it does not yet appear in paper form,
in the sense that it is typed (by hand) by the author and has not yet
been published in a formal way by some publisher. (All of these nuances
in the meaning of "manuscript" are rarely covered by dictionary entries).
Thus a "manuscript" is still a document prepared by hand in some way.

But the meaning of "manuscript" is not given simply by "manu" + "scriptus".
The meaning is in the usage of "manuscript" in various acceptable contexts.
It is naivite with respect to the nature of language to believe that
the meaning of words is given self-evidently within them. Meanings
for words evolve as they are extended to new contexts. Printing may have
given rise to the term "manuscript" (there was, remember, "scriptura" to
refer to writings that antedates "manuscript".) And electronic means of
composing text (still by hand) provides new uses for this term. But the
meaning is not IN "manu" + "scriptus", but in the usage for the composite
in some context. The "manu" + "scriptus" only suggests a meaning by
corresponding to a common thread of usage running through most
applications of this term, but it does not convey the full rich, and
varied meanings of this word as these are played out in various contexts.
As Kjell has also said, the meaning is in the usage in the context, not
in the words (which I think many language inventors incorrectly believe).



>Most manuscripts sent off to publishers are not hand written.

All articles I submitted as manuscripts to journal editors for publication
were prepared by hand, using either a typewriter or a word processor. So,
you are using a rather limited notion of "hand written" if this refers to
writing with a pencil, pen or brush. Suppose you wrote on clay tablets
by pressing a wooden wedge into clay, would that be "hand written"? What
if you press keys on a keyboard, which then produce letters, either
immediately on a video screen or later on paper when sent to a "printer"
(which is not a person but a device).

So IL
>has a word, build up from roots meaning "hand" and "written", which
>means "a document, regardless of whether it is handwritten or not".
>Don't you tihnk tihsi might be a little confusing?

Not to the millions of Europeans, speaking both Germanic and Romance
languages, who use variants of "manuscript" in their own languages.
They already know how to use this word correctly without confusion
and can be taught what are the common, shared usages for this term. They
will be confused by your own incomplete analyses of the meanings of this
word and the procrustean bed of word forms onto which you force their
vocabularies and concepts.

>Also, _manuscripto_ is a redundant word, because its meaning is the
>same as _documento_ and _texto_. So two of these words are redundant
>and should be removed.

I think I have demonstrated that the term "manuscript" is not redundant
with respect to "documento" and "texto". A "manuscript" is a special
kind of "documento" or "texto": one prepared by the author for general
distribution. The preparation by the author is usually by hand.

>Languages are hard to learn, principally because there is a lot
>of vocabulary that must be learned. So removing surplus vocabulary
>makes the language easy to learn.

But throwing out words that make meaningful distinctions forces one to
use more circumlocutious expressions that lack economy of expression.
You may also throw out important concepts as well.



>>with German and Russian as alternates, as the source languages. "find"
>>only occurs in German and English. trovar is found in the three romance
>>languages. The rule of three prevails.

>So you admit that IL is biased towards Romance languages? If it wasn't
>it would treat all its source languages the same, apply weightings to
>them according to the number of speakers (or other criteria) and apply
>the most recognisable word. Romance words would not have special status.

Yes, it is biased toward Latin/Romance languages, because this is the
largest source of international (translinguistic) words.


>>>I daresay that a British person would recognise the IL word "manuscript",
>>>but would he know its meaning? In English "manuscript" most certainly
>>>does not mean "written by hand". In Eurolang, the terms used are clear:
>>

I have already indicated that the meaning of words is not given IN the
words, but in their use in certain contexts.

>It means "written by hand" *as* *well* *as* "written by any other means
>whatsoever, or not actually written down but stored on computer and not
>on paper". So it just means a document *regardless* of how it was put
>on the paper, and indeed regardless of whether it is on paper of a
>computer-readable storeage medium. And most manuscripts are *not* hand-
>written, so typically it means a non-handwritten document.

What you are missing is the sense that in printing it is important to
distinguish between texts or documents produced en masse by a printing
press, and text or documents that are submitted, prepared by the author
(by hand) either with a pen, pencil, brush, or a typewriter, or word
processor. It is also important to refer to documents that antedated
printing that appeared on paper or parchement, and which were prepared
by hand. And the only common thread among these is "hand written"
(not in your narrow sense, but in the broader sense of writing).

STAN MULAIK

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Dec 30, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/30/96
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sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M. Scott) writes:

>On Sat, 28 Dec 1996 20:40:35 GMT, m9...@abc.se (Kjell Rehnstroem)
>wrote:

>[most snipped]

Re: folk high-school = collegio popular

>The English term is actually 'public high school', though I
>suspect that the Swedish term actually describes something
>a bit different; the educational systems aren't really
>comparable. In English 'collegio popular' would suggest
>'community college', a sort of 'demi-university' offering
>two-year (rather than four-year) programs not leading
>to bachelor's degrees.

Could this refer to some form of adult education as opposed to
what we in America call the "high school", i.e. secondary
education for pupils between 15-18 years of age. This would
be attended by adults of all ages, some even with college degrees?
These are often conducted at community colleges, sometimes two-year
and sometimes four-year, often in the evening rather than during
the regular scheduling of courses for full-time students.

>>>I am happy to concede that Interlingua's orthography is superior to
>>>that of English.

>Well, it *does* depend on whether your interest is in the present
>or the past!

What are you referring to? Let me guess: Interlingua's use of Latin
and Greek spellings, like "orthographia", "philosophia", "etymologia".
There have been spelling variants offered from the outset that would
write these words as 'ortografia", 'filosofia', 'etimologia', etc..
But they lose some of the affinity with English words which follow
the Latin and Greek more closely. It has nothing to do with interest
in the past, but with using prototypes as the forms having the greatest
objective communality to the variants in the modern languages. I
wouldn't say that the current spelling of English words "orthography",
"philosophy", "etymology" represents a preoccupation with the past.
English just happens to have words that are closer to the prototypes
in Neolatin.

>Brian M. Scott

John Fisher

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Dec 31, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/31/96
to

In article <5a6vcc$k...@acmez.gatech.edu>, STAN MULAIK
<psc...@prism.gatech.edu> writes

> [I do not find "manuscriptus" in my
>dictionary of Classical Latin]. My Webster's lists 1597 and 1600 as the
>years when this word entered English, so I think it arose in the context
>of printing and in contrast with printing. [Anyone know for sure?]

The Oxford English Dictionary traces it to medieval Latin: "Med L had
only the neuter _manuscriptum_ used ab. for a document written in a
person's own hand (cf CHIROGRAPH). In the sense of `written' as opposed
to `printed' the adj. has been common in Mod L from the 15th C but has
usually been written (more correctly) as two words, _manu scriptus_."

In other words, the original Latin meaning was "written by oneself, not
a secretary/scribe/clerk". The sense "handwritten, not printed" came
later.

The OED's first Eng citation is also 1597: the title of a book:
_Certaine Worthye Manvscript Poems of Greate Antiquitie...now first
published by J.S._

John Fisher

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Dec 31, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/31/96
to

In article <5a40sp$3...@oden.abc.se>, Kjell Rehnstroem <m9...@abc.se>
writes

>[...]


>Let's say that a Swede and a Finn are speaking any language to
>each-other except for Swedish and Finnish. Now, they want to talk
>about a pet-dog. The Swede can translate his _saellskapshund_ into
>Esperanto as _kompaniana hundo_ (in analogy to _kompaniana damo_
>according to my Swedish-Esperanto dictionary - or _societhundo_. In
>interlingua the person may use _can accompaniante_. If speaking
>English he may use _accompany dog_ or _society dog_ and the Finn who
>understands Esperanto, Interlingua or English will understand
>_seurakoira_ which is exactly the same. (As a matter of fact I have
>heard an autentic conversation between a Finn and a Sweede using
>English in the above way).

I just bet you have! Why won't people learn Esperanto or Interlingua or
Eurolang or *anything* and leave our poor, battered, bludgeoned language
alone?? For you it's a code for deciphering international airline
timetables. For us, it's our *language*! Yes, believe it or not,
English means as much to an English-speaker as Swedish does to a
Swedish-speaker. "Society dog", for the love of Mike! Hands off
English!!

I'm reminded of an acquaintance who worked for the EU in Brussels. She
got into trouble because she wrote: "the next fishing policy planning
meeting". She was told she should write: "the subsequent reunion for
the plannification of piscicultural policy". Presumably her boss
thought that "subsequent" means "next", which it doesn't, and that
"reunion" means "meeting", which it doesn't, and that "plannification"
and "piscicultural" are English words, which they aren't. He also
thought that the more pompous he sounded, the better English it was.
Wrong. Absolutely wrong.

It's like taking a finely-ground razor and using it to chop wood. Help!
Learn an IAL! Save English!

Brian M. Scott

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Dec 31, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/31/96
to

On 30 Dec 1996 22:41:16 -0500, psc...@prism.gatech.edu (STAN MULAIK)
wrote:

>sc...@math.csuohio.edu (Brian M. Scott) writes:

[most snipped]

>>Well, it *does* depend on whether your interest is in the present
>>or the past!

>What are you referring to? Let me guess: Interlingua's use of Latin
>and Greek spellings, like "orthographia", "philosophia", "etymologia".

No. I took the comment about the superiority of Interlingua
orthography to that of English to be a reference to its somewhat
more regular character. I like my English fossils, thank you
very much! (:-)

Brian M. Scott

Phil Hunt

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Dec 31, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/31/96
to

This is a valid point. Also, any word like "man" or "mano" has a false
friend: does it mean man or hand?

So on reflection, probably _vir_ is better than _man_.

--
Phil Hunt


Phil Hunt

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Dec 31, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/31/96
to

In article <5a49gt$8...@oden.abc.se> m9...@abc.se "Kjell Rehnstroem" writes:
>ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) wrote:
>>Also, _manuscripto_ is a redundant word, because its meaning is the
>>same as _documento_ and _texto_. So two of these words are redundant
>>and should be removed.
>
>No no no! Un manuscripto non sempre es un documento:
>Exemplo: Iste manuscripto es mi certificato scholar. (Possibilemente
>io face un falsification de mi certificato!)

I would be happy describing a school certificate as a "document".

>>Languages are hard to learn, principally because there is a lot
>>of vocabulary that must be learned. So removing surplus vocabulary
>>makes the language easy to learn.
>
>Il non es mi experientia que le apprender de vocabulario es difficile.

Learning vocabulary is certainly time-consuming.

>Le difficultate es comprender le signification del parolas. Imagina
>que io vole simplificar le vocabulario. Io pote dicer que ferro sempre
>se appella ferro, non importa in qual stato de aggregation. Quanto al
>aqua nos usa nive, glacie, aqua, vapor etc. Nos pote nunc imaginar que
>nos ha un lingua in le qual nos usa *fixakvu, sandakvu, fluidakvu,
>aerakvu etc.

Better would be: solid-aquo, liquid-aquo (or just 'aquo' for short since
it is the default state), and gas-aquo. This is what Eurolang uses.

>Et assi nos pote facer pro omne materios, ma in omne le
>linguas europee il ha vocabulos pro _nive_ (snow, Schnee, snö, lumi,
>s'nieg etc.) il ha glacie (ice, is, Eis, ja¨a¨, lo´d etc.). In le
>futuro immediate omne homines in Europa debera in un maniera o altere
>apprender le parolas que io dava in interlingua, proque illos existe
>in quasi omne linguas que un Europeo educate debe apprender.

The whole point of having a European iAL is so that people *don't* have
to each other's national languages. A constructed IAL is easier to
learn (assuming a sensible one is chosen), thus saving the time and
money of millions of Europeans.

>Le lingua international nunquam vive in un vacuum. Le polonese que
>apprende que lo´d

I assume this is the Polish word for ice.

>es solidaqua in nostre lingua imaginari non es
>adjuvate per isto, viste que ille debe apprender Eis, glacial, ice o
>glace.

No. If Europe has a common second language, then the Pole will only have
to learn it, which will be a lot easier to do than learning English,
German, French etc.

>Vermente, si on debe haber un grege

What does 'grege' mean?

>de homines stupide on pote
>inseniar a illos un tal lingua e le aquirer del education in le grande
>linguas pote esser multo difficile.

Most people are quite capable of learning one or more of the other
national languages of Europe. However, it is hard for them because it
hakes a lot of time and effort to do so. So it is better that they all
learn a constructed IAL instead, which will become the common second
language of the EU (and the rest of Europe to some extent). This will
have the advantages:

1. it saves them lots of time and effort

2. because the IAL is easier to learn, more people will learn it than
would succeed in learning a national language.

3. people would all be learning the *same* language. This is important,
because eg a Finn who has learnt Swedish and German will have difficulty
talking with a Portuguese who has learnt Spanish and French.

>>> And what would "manicure" be in Eurolang?
>
>>_manicure_.
>
>Como on pronuncia isto? _manikyur_ o _manikure_?

/ma ni 'ku re/

--
Phil Hunt


Don HARLOW

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Dec 31, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/31/96
to

On Tue, 31 Dec 1996 03:04:41 +0000, John Fisher
<jo...@drummond.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>In article <5a40sp$3...@oden.abc.se>, Kjell Rehnstroem <m9...@abc.se>
>writes
>
>>[...]
>>Let's say that a Swede and a Finn are speaking any language to
>>each-other except for Swedish and Finnish. Now, they want to talk
>>about a pet-dog. The Swede can translate his _saellskapshund_ into
>>Esperanto as _kompaniana hundo_ (in analogy to _kompaniana damo_
>>according to my Swedish-Esperanto dictionary - or _societhundo_. In

Diable! kiu verkis vian svedan-Esperantan vortaron? La vorto
"kompaniano" simple signifas "ano de kompaniio". Nu, mi laboris en
unu-du kompanioj, cxe kiuj "kompaniana hundo" eble tauxgus por kelkaj
kompaniestroj...

Provu "dorlothundon" aux iun similan terminon.

>I'm reminded of an acquaintance who worked for the EU in Brussels. She
>got into trouble because she wrote: "the next fishing policy planning
>meeting". She was told she should write: "the subsequent reunion for
>the plannification of piscicultural policy". Presumably her boss
>thought that "subsequent" means "next", which it doesn't, and that
>"reunion" means "meeting", which it doesn't, and that "plannification"
>and "piscicultural" are English words, which they aren't. He also

Actually, "pisciculture" is a good English word. Those guys who grow
trout to plant in Sierra lakes are engaging in pisciculture. Doesn't
necessarily have anything to do with "fishing", however.

In this case, of course, perhaps the guy really meant a word where the
'c' should be a second 's', and just misspelled it... ;<)

"Plannification," of course ... does anybody out there know the good
old English term sometimes spelled "pfui" and sometimes "phooey"?

>thought that the more pompous he sounded, the better English it was.
>Wrong. Absolutely wrong.
>

Oh, I don't know. We've got native English speakers in Washington who
think exactly the same way...

Don HARLOW

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Dec 31, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/31/96
to

On Tue, 31 Dec 96 05:17:38 GMT, ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt)
wrote:

>In article <5a49kq$8...@oden.abc.se> m9...@abc.se "Kjell Rehnstroem" writes:
>>ph...@vision25.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt) wrote:

>>>Similarly "man" is a better word than _viro_ or _homine_.
>>
>>Ma quasi OMNE le linguas europee ha _viril_, _virilitate = virility,
>>virilitet etc.
>
>This is a valid point. Also, any word like "man" or "mano" has a false
>friend: does it mean man or hand?
>
>So on reflection, probably _vir_ is better than _man_.
>

The Latin root "vir" also appears in English. Those familiar with
their etymology will immediately associate "virile" with "man"
("manly" is a near-synonym). Less obvious is the prefix "were-", from
a period when the Germanic languages used a cognate of "vir" to mean
"man", originally only used in "werewolf" but, in modern fantasy,
applicable to just about any animate being (werefox, werebear,
weremarmoset...).

D Gary Grady

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Dec 31, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/31/96
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m9...@abc.se (Kjell Rehnstroem) wrote:

>dg...@mindspring.com (D Gary Grady) wrote:
>

>Texto eradite:
>>Well, no, and I speak as a former Interlingua enthusiast who was
>>eventually frustrated by the grammatical exceptions, a stress accent
>>much less consistent than French or German, an orthography less
>>phonetic than that of Spanish, and not even a single standard for
>>pronunciation.
>
>>D Gary Grady
>>Durham NC USA
>>73513...@compuserve.com / dg...@mindspring.com
>
>Io divina que tu apprendeva esperanto prior a interlingua.

I don't know what "apprendeva" (acquired? encountered?) means, but for
the record I heard of Esperanto before Interlingua, but at the time I
started trying to learn Interlingua I knew essentially no Esperanto
beyond a vague notion of its grammar.

>Io vadeva
>le mesme via e esseva al initio multo irritate pro le multe
>irregularitates del grammatica de interlingua. In le majoritate de
>casos, tamen, io trovava que il era un certe rationalitate in le
>seliger del un o altere forma grammatic.

If you're saying there's a rational reason behind Interlingua's
irregularities, I don't doubt that. I only contend that it makes the
language harder to learn. The irregular spelling and pronunciation may
contribute to making the language easier to understand on a passive
basis by speakers of Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and other Romance
languages with a tonic accent, and perhaps even easier for them to
learn to speak and write, but it makes it harder for those of us who
come from a different language background.

Again, I should emphasize that I think Interlingua is a brialliant
accomplishment, just not something I would have the patience to learn
personally, given that it is even less useful (by several orders of
magnitude) than Esperanto, while being harder to learn to write and
speak.

Tom Wier

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Dec 31, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/31/96
to

Phil Hunt wrote:
>
> In article <5aa20s$8...@acmez.gatech.edu>

> psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
> >What are you referring to? Let me guess: Interlingua's use of Latin
> >and Greek spellings, like "orthographia", "philosophia", "etymologia".
> >There have been spelling variants offered from the outset that would
> >write these words as 'ortografia", 'filosofia', 'etimologia', etc..
> >But they lose some of the affinity with English words which follow
> >the Latin and Greek more closely.
>
> The "ph" in English words comes from a Latin rendition using two
> letters of a single Greek letter. So representing it as "f" is actually
> closer to the original Greek. (But further away from the Latin).

If you want to be etymologically closer to the original Greek, then
using a simple "p" for "ph" would be better, the fact being that the letter
phi was only an aspirated version of pi; the sound of "f" did not come in
til modern Greek.

> Eurolang uses _th_ where English has "th" and _f_ for "ph", for
> example in words such as _method_, _telefon_. So it can be thought
> of as a halfway house in this respect. It differs from IL in that
> _th_ is pronouned /T/ and not /t/.

Out of curiosity, why do you have a phoneme (th) in Eurolang which only
Greek and English have in the EU nations? Isn't your language supposed to
bend to the linguistic habits of the majority or something?

Pax tecum et vale,

Tom
--
§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
Tom Wier
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

Tomaso....@worldnet.att.net
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/index.html>
See also: <http://www2.connectnet.com/users/mslick/webtofc.htm>
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7106...@compuserve.com

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Dec 31, 1996, 3:00:00 AM12/31/96
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I'm not sure your example ("piscicultural plannification" etc.) demonstrates
quite what you intended, John. Monoglot English-speakers can sin
just as grievously against the ideal of clear, precise, understandable,
non-obfuscatory English prose as any (presumably Francophone, judging
from the "faux amis") Brussels bureaucrat... and I have encountered
numerous Esperanto-speakers who imported a bureaucratic style into the
language, or ignored the inherent word-formation properties of E-o to
introduce impressive-sounding Greco-Latin terms (in his famous article
on the "Okcidenta Dialekto" Claude Piron skewered someone who insisted
on the equivalent of "myocardial infarction" instead of "kormalsano").
IMO, someone who sounds pompous in his/her birth language will
(regrettably) probably sound equally pompous in an IAL... unless they've
been educated to improve their style in the process of learning the IAL.

Put another way, since I share your love of English, I think we need
to guard the language of Shakespeare and Milton _at least_ as much
against the George Bushes and Alexander Haigs (and anonymous Time/
Newsweek writers et al) as against e.g. Greeks trying to make hotel
reservations in Copenhagen. Unfortunately, I sincerely doubt that we
can do much about either one...

George Partlow.......Delegito de UEA en la alaska regurbo, Juneau (Usono)
retposxto cxe: <7106...@compuserve.com>...Pensu terglobe, agu surloke!
Ekzistas nur 2 klasoj de homoj: tiuj kiuj opinias, ke ekzistas nur 2 klasoj
de homoj, kaj tiuj kiuj malsamopinias... (Clifford Partlow, 1966)

Phil Hunt

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Jan 1, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/1/97
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In article <5aa20s$8...@acmez.gatech.edu>
psc...@prism.gatech.edu "STAN MULAIK" writes:
>What are you referring to? Let me guess: Interlingua's use of Latin
>and Greek spellings, like "orthographia", "philosophia", "etymologia".
>There have been spelling variants offered from the outset that would
>write these words as 'ortografia", 'filosofia', 'etimologia', etc..
>But they lose some of the affinity with English words which follow
>the Latin and Greek more closely.

The "ph" in English words comes from a Latin rendition using two
letters of a single Greek letter. So representing it as "f" is actually
closer to the original Greek. (But further away from the Latin).

Eurolang uses _th_ where English has "th" and _f_ for "ph", for


example in words such as _method_, _telefon_. So it can be thought
of as a halfway house in this respect. It differs from IL in that
_th_ is pronouned /T/ and not /t/.

--
Phil Hunt


Phil Hunt

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Jan 1, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/1/97
to

In article <y66snJAJ...@drummond.demon.co.uk>

jo...@drummond.demon.co.uk "John Fisher" writes:
>I'm reminded of an acquaintance who worked for the EU in Brussels. She
>got into trouble because she wrote: "the next fishing policy planning
>meeting". She was told she should write: "the subsequent reunion for
>the plannification of piscicultural policy". Presumably her boss
>thought that "subsequent" means "next", which it doesn't, and that
>"reunion" means "meeting", which it doesn't, and that "plannification"
>and "piscicultural" are English words, which they aren't. He also
>thought that the more pompous he sounded, the better English it was.

Was he Spanish by any chance? I've heard that written Spanish is often
very pompous and stilted like this.

--
Phil Hunt


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