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Re: Stephan, Xavier

Xavier Abadia ("Xavier Abadia" <xabadiar@...>) on April 5, 2012

Thanks, Ian.

— In glosalist@yahoogroups.com, Ian Niles <ian_niles@…> w= rote:

I disagree with your criticisms of the GID, Xavier. I think w= e owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Marcel Springer and the other folks = who spent long hours culling through all of the Glosa resources to compile = this dictionary. It’s not perfect, but I believe that it’s on the same lev= el as a foreign language dictionary created by professional (and paid) lexi= cographers. Every time I translate one of Aesop’s fables, I rely on the GI= D and I am ever grateful for its clear, comprehensive guidance in all thing= s Glosa. By the way, you can find several issues of “Plu Glosa Nota” here: = http://www.glosa.org/pgn/index.html. -Ian
To: glosalist@yahoogroups= .com From: xabadiar@… Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2012 11:22:38 +0000 Subject:= [glosalist] Re: Stephan, Xavier

=

  Absolu= tely, Ian. My criticism is especially against the GID dictionary, for not s= howing a clear standard of the language. The lack of a standard is a seriou= s handicap to an auxiliary language. Instead, the GID seems to gather blind= ly the vocabulary of all the subsequent dictionaries of Clark and Ashby. I = wonder what "significant body of content" was taken as the basis of the GID= . Maybe "Plu Glosa Nota"? By the way, I wish I could find "Plu Glosa Nota" = online.

Greetings.

— In glosalist@yahoogroups.com, Ian Ni= les <ian_niles@> wrote:

A couple of comments. I thin= k we can all agree that, all thing being equal, it is preferable for a deri= vation scheme for words of an IAL to be based on ancient Greek/Latin roots = (a la LsF), rather than on a set of English words. For one thing, if we su= ppose that all speakers of a given IAL are fluent in English, then there is= of course no point to an IAL. For another thing, the words of many modern= languages are often systematically derived from ancient Greek/Latin, so if= you know how words in your language are derived from ancient Greek/Latin a= nd there is a derivation rule from the classical roots to the IAL, you can = generate a good body of vocabulary for the IAL automatically, regardless of= which modern European language you start from. Incidentally, this is one = feature I really like about Occidental/Interlingue. That being said, any = convincing proposal to revise a language, whether a natural language or an = IAL, does not come in the form of an edict. It comes in the form of a sign= ficant body of content that is expressed using the revised version of the l= anguage. This can be seen as the experimental justification for the propos= al, and the community (or a community) can judge whether or not it’s an imp= rovent over the original version. -Ian

To: glosalist@yahoogr= oups.com

From: gmillernd@

Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2012 10:05:28 -05= 00

Subject: [glosalist] Stephan, Xavier

=

=

=

= STEPHAN: Do you mean, you can’t remember Latin endings, the endings I =

proposed or (some) Glosa endings?

= REAKTI: I used to be fairly fluent in Russian and German. No more!

=

Languages are like most other things in life: They’re a lot easie= r

when you’re young. I still remember Glosa - mostly. I’m no= t even sure

my own name ends in Y anymore. :-)

=

STEPHAN: And, what is the easiest? Root ending derivation= rules like

the ones I propose wouldn’t make Glosa (or Glota= ) any more difficult,

because you don’t need to learn them (= they are not productive as in

Esperanto). You just need to k= now that “hand” is “manu” and not “mani”

(as in “manipulate”= ), and that “nati” is “birth” and that “natio” is

“nation” a= nd not the other way round. That is the same “easiest” as

be= fore, isn’t it? Glosa words like “manu”, “nati” and “natio” are the

=

same in Glota (my dialect). But they do follow root ending derivati= on

rules, which shows that Glosa could have had them, too, a= nd in some

cases even gives the impression of having them.

REAKTI: The one you remember is the easiest. = It’s like this: Glosa

derives its vocabulary from modern Lat= in and Greek

scientific/technical words. MANU is the preferr= ed Glosa word. If I

can’t remember MANU, but I remember the = English word MANIPULATE and

derive the word as MANI instead,= I have not made a mistake. I like not

making mistakes. :-)

XAVIER: it’s natural that this discussion is= happening on and on.

People may get astonished at the dicti= onary (as I did) when they find

many translations for a cert= ain word, some just differing on the final

vowel! This way t= he morphology of the language may look chaotic. Of

course th= is may be due to the early Glosa textbooks. Anyway, the

prob= lem remains.

REAKTI: When one realizes that = Glosa words are derived from varying

words from varying lang= uages, one would expect the ends of the Glosa

words to vary = too.

XAVIER: In my viewpoint are three optio= ns:

  1. Since the final vowel is not importan= t, and it is only there to

ease pronunciation, so let’s give= a certain final vowel to all words.

-E is the characteristi= c vowel of the main Latin declension (the 3rd)

and it is the= characteristic ending of verbs, at their infinitive -re.

I = am really testing this -E option with a reformed Latino Sine

= Flexione.

REAKTI: I would argue that there = is no characteristic vowel in the

original Latin. Latin spea= kers themselves added the E to make

pronunciation easy. This= E is often unstressed in the original Latin,

is missing in = such forms as ESSE and FERRE and FAC and DIC. I agree

that a= dding the E in man-made language plans is a good idea.

=


Different international lan= guage plans have used different means of

obtaining their bas= e vocabulary. LSF did this directly from Latin,

Esperanto fr= om a mix of modern Romance and Germanic words, Glosa from

mo= dern scientific/technical terms, Lojban from languages all over the

=

world. There is nothing wrong with any of these plans, they are sim= ply

different.

Good luck with= Glota! Maybe it will finally be the right one. You’ll

find = there is no shortage of critics out there. :-) But the real trick

=

is to get people to USE the language. Most people who criticize these=

languages rarely read or write more than a few sentences.

When I started studying the international lan= guage problem, I wanted

to test the languages by using them.= (I still use LSF a little; see

groups.yahoo.com/group/latin= osineflexione.) Glosa was the one I

learned the fastest. I a= lso feel it most freely expresses ideas.

Eve= n more important is support. No international language will be

= successful without a group of people actively promoting it. Esperanto =

has the most support, therefore it is the one most people hear= about.

Saluta,

_ _

=

/.

/\ Garx

#

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Re: Stephan, Xavier - Committee on language planning, FIAS. Coordination: Vergara & Hardy, PhDs.