Re: [glosalist] about artificial languages...

At 09:54 PM 3/3/04 +0000, you wrote:

I’ve read your messages for mounths. I’ve also read messages from othere mailing list whose topic was Esperanto,Glosa, IDO, Interlingua etc… In my opinion (correcet me if I’m wrong)every group thiks to be the best and, at the same time, expect that their language will replace all the national languages.

*** Nearly that bad,but people are sorted out by psychology: Memory - a word for everything, can cope with multiple inflections on the end of one word Conceptual - not so worried about spelling, like to use language to express ideas Literal - enjoy clearly defined vocabularies and well-laid out Grammars: generally can’t progress to using a language until all “T’s” crossed and “I’s” dotted. Intuitive - don’t worry about grammar much more likely to follow syntax Systematic - want standardisation and much regularity Balanced view - ??? I do not know of many people in the middle Communicators - see language simply as a medium of communication the more sreamlined the better Spiritual - see meaning in sounds and generally respect ancient, well-mouldered languages Machine-men - consider that a computer-amenable language should be spoken

What about creating a new language which sinthesize at least 3 or 4 artificial languages? Every languages has its own vocabulary and, for example, if you write in Interlingua you are not alllowed to use words of Esperanto, Ido and so on. Is that so wrong and impossible?

*** In the long run Rafferty’s Rules might apply, but many people want a simple vocabulary where there is usually only one word for each thing, action … or concept. So, I cannot see the world’s rationalisers accepting such a free-for-all. IF we all had unlimited memories, then the use of a whole range of words would enrichour experience greatly, and the person whose choice of words was best (poetically) then they would be the ones whose writing and spoken words were read and listened to most. But, in the real world, limitations of time and mental capacity restrict us to an average of, say, 2000 to 4000 words for general conversation. So, most of us are stuck with communicating in a fairly narrow vocabulary and only within our cultural “community” [=group with whom we can commune].

Why can’t we create a language where everybody is free to choose the words she/he wants to use among the artificial languages which already exist?

*** I call this the Ron Clark Paradox. Ron actually thought we were a lot more creative than we really are, and assumed that people would readily grade up to using language as freely as you describe. But we are not all that creative, after all, and would rather be given a language to use, speaking and writing much like painting by numbers.

Why can’t we create a language where speakers of other languages are wellcome even if they continue to use their words?

*** A sense of superiority based on an underlying sense of inferiority.

Obviously we should make a compatibility plan of the grammar of this new language.

*** The meaning of this sentence is not clear. Another aspect of the Ron Clark Paradox was that Ron thought people could learn a language by observation, and so he did not want to restrict imagination by imposing a ready-made grammar. It didn’t quite work. Although Laslo wanted to form a middle grammar with some freedom of word order - introduced by the use of terminal vowels that indicated a word’s function, I am still not sure if such melding of grammatical qualities is possible, or if the grammatical characteristics are mutually exclusive.

Whois interested in this project, pleas contact me at this email adress: zcat71@…

*** It is very courageous of you to try, and I do not know how you plan to test the validity of a language you produce. I Have insufficient time left, this lifetime, to even consider mixing my brain patterns to help in the development work. However, I do offer to act as a trouble-shooter in telling what I think are the weaknesses of language constructs that you and a group of courageous adventurers might produce.

Saluta,

Robin Gaskell