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Re: [glosalist] glosa + english ?

Robin Fairbridge Gaskell (Robin Fairbridge Gaskell <drought-breaker@...>) on December 7, 2005

At 04:19 PM 12/3/05, you wrote:

What will we have, if we use a gram. of Glosa with english words? Let’s make a try

Nikolao

Saluta Plu Glosa-pe, It could be done, and might be beneficial. But an “English” with Syntax-based Grammar would be a very specialised usage of the lexicon.

If we wanted a fool-proof English-type language that could be  used between automatons, but which was also understandable to  flesh-and-blood humans, also, then there would be a value in it.

Such a language which was strictly syntax-driven would have to be  devoid of 'non-literal language' such as metaphor and idiom - as Ron  Clark specified originally for Glosa!  We could get around this  straight-jacket by using metaphor as "slang" possibly either using  italics or bold or even ^some symbol^ as a flag  to signal the  non-literal usage. This type of English would be in the category of  meta-language: a very tightly-defined subset of English, and it would  probably use the full (or verbose) form of the language, not using elision.

Needless to say, I imagine that Nikolao makes his suggestion for computer (and programming) usage, and not for speech.

I think that a streamlined, standardised and very straight form  of English could be used in an emergency multicultural  scientific-type environment, and then it could be spoken, but this  sounds a bit like using a subset of Latin to describe a new species  of plant... a little forced.

An example of #English                 (# = Syntax-based,  unelided, literal)

  v-English  "I am shopping."                 (v- = vernacular)

   #English  "I am doing the shopping."

The VERB is not ‘to be shopping’ it is ‘to be doing’ OR ‘to do’.

Here “shopping” is the NOUN, object of a transitive VERB.

Alternatively, the phrase “to be shopping” could be used to describe themself by a person who has been the bought item in a slave market.

Native speakers of English would, I imagine, find it almost intolerable to limit themselves to such a subset of English as #English.

But as a Bridge Language, or an interface between people and machines, or between machines, it could be a goer … and would probably work better than a subset of any other national language.

However, I still feel that Glosa, itself, would do these jobs better than #English.

Saluta,

Robin

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Re: [glosalist] glosa + english ? - Committee on language planning, FIAS. Coordination: Vergara & Hardy, PhDs.