Author: losophyp

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Language

Conjunctions in Diinlang Part One

Version 1.2

I have noticed that I have not posted anything on the blog about conjunctions in Diinlang. The section below is taken from a draft I wrote when the project first started. As with most Diinlang, nothing is carved in stone and may be subject to change and modification.
Originally Diinlang was to observe a CVn format for words. I felt that Diinlang conjunctions should not have to follow CVn format but should be phonetically distinct. They should be short -two letters for the most often used, three for the less common.
I did consider that it might be possible to expand on this basic set to allow some more logical constructions such as Loglan does.
Fourteen short words serve most of the conjugate needs in Diinlang. These can be used in combination and for some uses may need to be combined with simple words like “only” or “even”.
The first conjunctions to learn are “en”, “or”, “enor” and “nor”
en means “and” and presents non-contrasting item(s) or idea(s): “Zez gamble en zez smoke.” Following Chinese practice this conjunction may be optional in a sentence if the meaning remains clear. “Kom” (with) is an acceptable alternative. While an English speaker would be inclined to say “Dean en Jon” in Deanlang some nationalities are more inclined to use the construction “Dean kom Jon”.
In the original draft “et” was the word for “and”. Despite its use in French and some other languages a “-t” ending did not seem right for this particular conjunction. Many languages use just “e” but this is not so elegant when “and” is combined into other words, so I have selected “en”, which is used in a number of languages and is phonetically intuitive to English speakers. This may mean the word “enje” for “any” will need changing.  
or means the same as in English and presents an alternative item or idea: “Every day they gamble or they smoke.”
enor means “and/or” and presents options that may be either inclusive or exclusive. This was originally “etor”. Potentially we could have the word “komor” for “with/or”.
“You may have cake enor ice cream!”
nor presents a non-contrasting negative idea (“They do not gamble, nor do they smoke.”)
Del has a role as a non-specific conjunction. If you are unsure of which conjunction to use, use “del”. Scots uses “o”  for  “of/from” and this may be adopted in Diinlang instead, forming a nice counterpoint for the possessive marker “vo”.
dhen, but, yet, ergo, kos
dhen is “then” and is a conjunction that is also a preposition. It is used like and/en when the items being described occur in a sequence. In English we say “They got married and had children” but it is more accurate to say “They got married then had children”.  “dhen” is likely to be changed.
but/yet are both used to presents a contrast or exception. While their use is similar it is not fully interchangeable in English and the distinctions will become apparent when using subordinating conjunctions.
    “They gamble, but they don't smoke.”
    “They gamble, yet they don't smoke.”
Whether it is worth keeping “yet” in Diinlang remains to be decided.
Ergo is “so” or “thus” in English and presents a consequence
“He gambled well last night ergo he smoked a cigar to celebrate.”
It may be more logical to keep the shorter and more versatile English word “so”.
Kos is used for the conjunctions “because” or “for” (freeing "for" for other applications) The use of kos compliments “ergo” since it presents a cause rather than a consequence.
    “We went inside because it rained.” = “Miz pre go intra kos it dunpotsu”.
    “It rained so we went inside” = “It dunpotsu ergo miz pre go intra.

Update

“Kos” is unfortunately a homophone of “koz” (few). The word “per” may serve for many of the applications that we use “because” for in English. For some applications constructions such as “per ke”, “per li”, “per sa” may be needed instead. Possibly the most apt construction will be “per ifa”.
kwah” is used like “than” in English and separates things being compared. Unlike “than” in English it can be used in a statement that things are equal or similar if the rest of the sentence is suitably constructed. “Dean bi taha kwah Jon”, “Ray bi iso kwah Jon” (Dean is much bigger than Jon, Ray is equal/same as Jon).
It may be better to use “as” in this application. Scots uses  “nor” for “than”, which I find logical and is my current preference.
If, as : If is mainly used with correlative and subordinate conjunctions and indicates a conditional statement.
“as” presents an explanation ("He is gambling with his health, as he has been smoking far too long.")  As can mean “the same way” or “at the same time”. It is may be used instead of “than”/”kwah” when the things discussed are even or equivalent or nearly so in some way. Possibly “as” can be used for “too/also”.
“per” is used much the same as in English and can be used as “with respect to/wrt”. It may also mean “for each”, “to each”, “in each”, “in accordance with” or “via the”. Per also serves as a preposition.
 The fourteen basic conjunctions are therefore en, or, enor, nor, dhen, but, yet, ergo, kos, kwah, if, as, per, del.
 

Correlative Conjunctions

Correlative conjunctions are formed using combinations of the above words.
either…or                           (or)…or  The first “or” is optional.
not only…but (also)           but….but (?)
neither…nor                       nor…nor
both…and                          probably redundant! Diinlang has singular and plural, no dual.
whether…or                           if…or
if…or                                       if…or   
if…and                                    if…et
if…then                                  if…dhen
just as…so                               ergo…ergo //if…ergo
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Language

Diinlang Numbers

Version 1.1
Like most of Diinlang the numbering system is a work in progress and subject to change.
Numbers in Diinlang derive from ISV prefixes with some modifications for increased clarity.
1 uni               8 okt               36 triten heks
2 duo              9 niyn             42 tetten duo
3 tri                10 ten             54 pentteni tet
4 tet                11 ten uni       69 hekten niyn
5 pent             12 ten duo     78 septten okt
6 heks             13 ten tri        83 oktten tri
7 sept              20 duoten     99 niynten niyn
The use of deka for 10 would make 20 duodeka and cause confusion with terms such as duodecimal and hexadecimal. The English “ten” has the merit of being one syllable. Likewise “niyn” is clearer than the Latin and Greek derived “ennea” and “nona”.
Larger numbers are hekta (100), kila (1000), mega (1,000,000), tera (1,000,000,000,000 or 1012 ) and yotta (1024). Other numbers are formed from combinations of these: deka kilia is 10,000, kilia mega is 1,000,000,000.
Ordinal numbers (the equivalent of “first”, “third”, “eighty second” etc could be formed by adding “-nd” to the final number word. Therefore “unind”, “trind” “oktten duond”. It may be clearer to use the system where ordinals are formed by placing the number after the thing described. Hence “tri kanisiz” is “three dogs” while “kanisi tri” is “third dog”. This is consistent with the proposed system of placing adjectives after the noun. Cardinal numbers are treated as determiners, ordinal numbers as adjectives
A suffix/ word for “group” could be used to form words such as “dual”, “pair”, “trio” etc.
“Duzn” is an alternate word for 12 and used when working in dozenals. “Elva” (from Swedish) is an alternate for 11. When working with dozenals 144 or 122 is “grohs” and 123 or 1728 is a tsagiir.

Update

Using “ten” may cause confusion with the “ten-” radio code system. “Diis”, adapted from Haitian Creole may be a more suitable word for 10 and  has the advantage that it is closer to the words used in many European languages.
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Language

Interjections

Version 1.
I have not devoted much time to interjections since most interjections are going to arise naturally so it is pointless to try to define them. There are going to be natural sounds like “huh” and “umm”. The Diinlang word “ke” can serve as a verbal marker for questions, the most likely use being to replace the sound “eh?” at the end of a statement.
I would suggest adopting “hey” as the standard greeting. It already fits the pronunciation standards of Diinlang, is already in wide use and is widely understood by the speakers of various languages. It serves to say “hello”, “I am here” and also “I acknowledge you”.
“Tshou” may be used as either a greeting or parting phrase. This is a phonetic rendition of the Italian “ciao” which has come to be used by many other nationalities. Both tshou and hey are time-independent greetings, useful in the modern world where people routinely communicate from different time zones.
“Sori” (sorry) seems like a good word to retain/ adopt for Diinlang. “No” is already in use in Diinlang and widely understood.
“Ya” or “yah” is used for “yes”. This allows us to retain the convention of “Y or N” with computers.
Originally I had the term “pro favori” for “please” but this is too many syllables. The word “miask” (from “I ask”) is used for “please” when making a request. It has been selected for verbal compactness and to remind the speaker that they are making a request, not a demand.
The word “kanen” means “gratitude” and can be used for “please” and for “thank you?” I do not recall how I selected this word but it will do for now.
“Sku”  is used for “apology” or an alternate for “sorry”.
“Skuz” therefore means “many apologies”.
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Language

Comparatives and Superlatives Part Three

Sometimes, I have been known to take my own advice…
I have been thinking further on the topic of comparatives and superlatives. In my last post in this vein I proposed “plu-”, “plust-”, “min-”, “minst-” for the “more, most” and “less, least/ fewer, fewest” sequences. Using words that are common to several other constructed languages can be a mixed blessing. I notice that Interglossa makes considerable use of “plu” but uses it as an article to indicate plurality. A bigger problem is that I have words for the comparatives and superlatives but no related word for the positives: “much/ many” and “few/ little”.
In my post on the “vang, veng, ving, vong” progression I mentioned that when I came up with the concept of relating words by an alphabetical vowel progression I had expected to make more use of it than I had.
Thinking on this I now propose the sequences “mas, mes, mos” and “las, les, los”. The first is easy to remember since some of the words resemble English words such as “mass” and “most”. “Mas” is reminiscent of “mais”, the Portuguese word for more/ most. “Les” phonetically resembles its English meaning, “less”. All of the words have the common theme of ending in “-s”.
Some languages use an “absolute superlative”. To do this in Diinlang use mos– with the augmentive suffix –ta or los– with the diminutive suffix, –ko.
The use of “mes” here means that we can no longer use it for the small/ medium/ large progression. In another recent post I remarked on the tendency to create new words were familiar English ones would do. “Gros” is somewhat ambiguous since it can also indicate a number (144), a quantity or something unpleasant. The English word “big” is, however, widely understood and has surprisingly few alternate meanings, even in other languages. Using “big-“ as a prefix has echoes of various pidgins and creoles but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Those are languages that evolved for clearer communication so have some features worth examining. “Mes” in this progression gets replaced with “mid”, another simple word whose meaning will be clear and logical to many who encounter it.
Small/Medium/Large are now represented in Diinlang by “mik, mid, big”. These may be combined to indicate intermediate graduations using the words “mikmid” and “midbig”.
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Language

Musings on Adjectives

Version 1.1
Adjectives proved to be another thorny field, partially due to trying to standardize the byzantine English suffix system!
Ideally, a word in a constructed language (conlang) should be capable of acting as a noun, verb, adjective or adverb without modification. This occurs with some English words. “Green” is an adjective but if I put a determiner before it it can be used as a noun for something that is green, such as a snooker ball. If I write “the green book” then “green” is once more being an adjective, even though it directly follows a determiner. When I say “it was green painted” I am using “green” as an adverb. Perscriptionists may argue that the “correct” form is “greenly” but the meaning is clear and free of ambiguity, which should be the test of any language.
Some conlangs mark adjectives and/or adverbs with a distinctive ending but these often fail to distinguish between distinct sub-types of modifier. Such conventions often slow the learner down while they have to consider the category of a word rather than its meaning.
In practice a root word used as a modifier may have several forms. Consider “green”, “greenish”, “greenoid”, “greening”, “greenicize”,“greenescent” . Some of these are not in the dictionary but to a native English speaker each has a different but clear meaning.
In English word order is typically used to distinguish adjectives. Generally the adjective is placed before the noun it modifies and after the noun’s determiner, if stated. A noun may have multiple adjectives and the meaning can often become confused. “Two more ugly girls” could mean “two addition girls that are ugly” or could be poor English for “two girls that are more ugly/uglier”.
According to Wikipedia, Chinese adjectives should be combined in a specific order, this being quality/size, shape, colour. This may be a good concept to modify for Diinlang.
A suggested, more expansive order for use with English is given here and here.
In many languages adjectives are placed after the noun rather than before it. Thus the phrase rather resembles how a British army quartermaster lists items “boots, size 8, black”. A good argument can be made that placing the noun before the adjectives is considerably more logical and clearer.  I begin to look for a book before I consider that it is green. Better to alert someone first that the subject is “cars” before stating the make.
Ideally in Diinlang a noun could be placed either before or after a noun and the meaning still be clear. Whether that is practical remains to be seen. If an “adjective after” convention is used for Diinlang this would probably only apply to certain classes of adjective. It seems logical to place numbers and related quantity words before the noun. This would be a simple way to distinguish between cardinal and ordinal numbers. For example “one room” is distinct from “room one”. The words for “good” (“bon”) and “bad”(“mal”) may also be more logical before the noun, as is practiced in some “noun first” languages such as Portuguese.
Words such as mik/ mid/ big are clearly quality/size adjectives. I had been using as augmentive and diminutive suffixes but this will not work if such adjectives are placed after the noun or can appear before or after the noun. This needs to be addressed.
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Language

Balancing a Conlang

“Fast, Cheap, Good : pick any two”.
I am often reminded of this when considering constructed languages. Unfortunately the wishlist is not that simple!
One thing that might be desired is for the new language to be easy to use and quick to learn. This suggests that the language should have a logical and consistent construction. Verbs should all be regular and there should be very few “exceptions to the rule”.
Easy to use implies that the reader/speaker is not required to have a particularly in-depth knowledge of grammatical theory.
Esperanto and several other constructed languages have distinct endings for adjectives, adverbs and/or other word types. It is quite possible to be fluent in a natural language without being particularly conscious of such distinctions. I managed several decades of speaking English without even knowing the distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs.
Familiarity might seem an attractive feature in making a conlang user friendly.
Many conlangs have drawn on existing natural languages for their vocabulary.
Typically the romance languages are used. Examples include Novial and Lingua Franca Nova.
An English based example is Inlis.
Some of these conlangs have the advantage that it is often relatively easy to work out the gist of the meaning.
Easy, that is, if you have some grounding in the languages on which the conlang is based.
Knowledge of the romance languages is not as widespread as one might assume from the number of speakers.
I once overhead a long, drawn out conversation between a French speaker with limited English and an English-speaking Chinese girl.
The stumbling block was the question “Quel age as-tu?”
Another stumbling block is that the same or similar words have different meanings in some natural languages.
English has so many homophones and irregular verbs that attempting to make it into something more consistent and logical rapidly transforms it to something that is not that recognizable.
Using existing words and words that are logical or easily learnt meshes somewhat uneasily.
The word for plumber in many European languages is based on a word for lead, but it is not necessarily based on the word “plumbum”.
Plumbers seldom use lead for modern plumbing so the name is not obvious for those that do not know its historical origins.
“Water pipe worker” seems more obvious but that could also describe a urologist!
We could replace the word for “worker” with “doctor” or “healer”, but a urologist may be an academic rather than a medical man.
“Water pipe studier” could mean someone who designs drainage systems!
Brevity is another desirable characteristic.
Obviously it would be desirable if the most commonly used words are the shortest and/or easiest to say.
This may clash with using existing or familiar words.
It may also clash with more logical construction of words.
Even if we assign only a syllable to “water pipe worker” we have a word of three syllables, four if “worker” is formed as an agent noun of “work”.
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Language

Ving, Vang, Vong

Before I decided to place my thoughts on Diinlang on this blog, I was using the word sequence “ving”, “vang”, “vong” for the words “here”, “there” and “yonder”. The acoustics of ving, vang, vong made them easy to remember that they were related.
I expected to use the same system for other sequences of related words.
The start of the blog coincided with an interest in Dutton Speedwords, so I considered a shorter series of words and proposed “sa”, “si” and “so”.
Despite the brevity, I have not been particularly satisfied with this change. “Si” and “sa” also had the meaning of “this” or “that” and by implication “so” could mean “that which is very distant”.
If the use of ving, vang and vong is reinstituted, it may be more logical to place them in alphabetical order so the sequence becomes “vang”, “ving”, “vong”.
The concept of “near” could also be added to the sequence, giving us “vang”, “veng”, “ving” and “vong” for “here”, “near”, “there/ far” and “yonder/ very far”.
If used as demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those) the definitive article or another determiner is used to indicated noun/ pronoun status. Compare to "det här" in Swedish. Hence “de vang, de ving, de vangz/ dez vang, de vingz/ dez ving”. These may mutate to “dang” and “ding” so keep these words free for this potential use.
This also makes it more practical to resume use of “se” as a reflexive pronoun, as it is used in Portuguese and some Scandinavian languages. Pronunciation would most likely be “she” in Diinlang.
Whether to use “ving” also as a relative pronoun needs to be considered. Interglossa uses “su” from “subject” as a relative pronoun, which I quite like. It is possible Diinlang could use both “ving” and “su” but have them fully interchangeable.
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Language

Agent Nouns in Diinlang

In English agent nouns are created by adding “-er” to a verb. English being English this is sometimes done with “-ir” or “-or”. “-er” is also used for comparatives. Some agent nouns, such as “artist” use “-ist”, although “-ist” is more commonly used for someone who holds a belief or follows a philosophy rather than someone who performs an action.
For Diinlang it is obviously desirable that there is only one way to create an agent noun, and that this be of a form that is distinct from other word types.
An option I considered was to use the suffix “-or”. This could be gendered as “-oro” for males and “-ora” for females. Inanimate objects that perform an action would be designated by “-it”. Thus if we used the work “kuk” for the action of cooking a cooker or stove would be a “kukit”and the person using it a “kukor”, “kukoro” or “kukora”. (This is just for illustrative purposes. The final world for “cook” may be quite different)
It occurs to me that things can be made simpler for the learner. The word “du” is used for the verb “to do”. We also have the pronouns “zo”, “za” and “ze” to indicate male, female and neuter/unknown. This might give us “kukdu/ kukduze”, “kukduzo” and “kukduza”. Unfortunately if the verb we are modifying is “du” this gives us “dudu” or “duduze”. The syllable “du” is probably redundant which suggest that agent nouns be created by the simple expedient of using “-ze”, “-z0” and “-za” as suffixes.
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Language

Phonetic Consonants in English

Following the post on phonetic representation of vowels in English it is only logical that I make some comments on consonants.
The good news is that the majority of consonants in English only have one phoneme. The bad news is that consonants are sometimes silent.
Three consonants are unnecessary and are not used in phonetic spelling. These are C, Q and X.
C in English either represents an “S” sound or a “K”.
Q represents a “kw” sound that is more usefully represented by these letters. The “u” that customarily follows a Q is usually silent.
X in English is generally pronounced as a “Z”. When it is preceded by an “e” the sound is often “eks”. “Taxi” can be rendered phonetically as either “taksi” or “takzi”, depending on dialect.
G is a consonant that has two phonemes, being either a “g” sound or a “j”. It is also a silent letter in some words. Phonetically G is used for a hard “g” and “j” is used for “j” sounds.
J is a relatively young letter, dating back to the middle ages. In other words it was necessary to create a letter to represent a phoneme that was in common use. It is therefore a little surprising that “j” was a letter that Benjamin Franklin did not include in his phonetic alphabet. Instead he represented the sound with his letters representing “dsh”.
Another letter Franklin eliminated was “W”. While some nationalities have trouble with pronouncing “w” it is a distinct phoneme in English. Like “j” it is a relatively new letter that came into common use in the early middle ages. Franklin represented “hw”/ “wh” and “w” with letter combinations such as “hu” and “uu”.
Y is a distinct phoneme when at the start of a word or syllable. In English pronunciation “yog” is phonetically distinct from “jog”, for example.
When H is placed after another consonant it generally has a softening effect. Some of the exceptions to this constitute some of the most widely used consonant digraphs.
SH is used in words such as “shush”.
CH is often rendered as TSH in many phonetic systems. An argument can be made that in the initial position “ch” may have a softer sound, closer to “jh”. This gives us the words “jhurtsh” and “jhiyna” for “church” and “china”.
TH in English has two phonemes. It has an “f” sound in words such as “three” or “thigh”. This is rendered as “th” in many phonetic systems although “fh” may be closer in actual sound. TH words with a “d” or “v” like sound may be phonetically spelt with a “dh”. Many of the “dh” words are determiners or pronouns and include dhe, dhey, dhem, dhis, dhat, dhez, dhouz, dhayr and widh
PH is inherited from Greek and is phonetically represented by “f”.
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Superlatives and Comparatives

English has two ways to form comparatives and superlatives. The first is by preceding the item being described by the adverb “more” or “most”. This is the system used in many European languages and also in Mandarin. Some languages, such as Portuguese use one word, “mais” meaning “more” and “ o mais” meaning “the most”. The word “most” in English is somewhat ambivalent. “most red” means nothing discussed is more red. “Most people” means the majority, not the entirety.
The second commonly used system uses the suffixes -er and -est. “-er” is also used to create agent nouns in English. It is also used for words that are neither comparatives nor agent nouns. Its actual pronunciation in RP English is “-ə”.
Both systems are widely used in English, the choice being determined by the syllable number of the word being modified. The system used in Diinlang needs to be simpler to learn but remain versatile.
The first draft of Diinlang used the suffixes “-ha” and “-ho” for the comparative and superlative. Observing that the “h” sound could sometimes be problematic for my Portuguese-speaking friends I then changed this to “-tah” and “-toh”. Latest idea is to instead convert these to prefixes. This is easier to learn for speakers of the many languages that form comparatives and superlatives with a word before the word of interest. It also maintains a convenient single word form for when the comparative or superlative word is uses as an adjective.
Many quantities in English are described by a number of words. Temperature, for example is described by “hot”, “cold”, “warm”, “cool”, “tepid” etc. For Diinlang we want a logical system that is easier to learn. It should be easy and logical to deduce the word for a smaller or larger quantity of a property. The system I propose for Diinlang uses the prefixes “et/mes/tai”. “tai” comes from Chinese and is used in terms such as “tai chi” which means “great ultimate”. It also means “the highest part of a roof”. “et” is a diminutive used in some English words such as “bomblet”. “et” therefore means a small amount of something, “tai” a large amount.
To illustrate how this works, let us assume that the word for temperature is “hii”. This is adapted from the Dutton speedword for heat, “he”. Cold is “he-x”, meaning “opposite of heat” and temperature is actually “gre-he” where “gre” means “grade, degree or stage.
“taihii” would mean hot or high temperature.
“ethii” would mean cold.
“meshii” would mean medium heat. This can be taken as a temperature comfortable for human beings.
“etmeshii” and “mestaihii” represent cool and warm temperatures.
With the comparative prefix added “tataihii” means hotter and thus “totaihii” is “hottest”.
With this basic system you only need to know the core word for weight, number, mass, height etc to form the derived words for large or small quantities, comparatives or superlatives.
A superlative or comparative usually needs to be compared with something. In English this is often introduced by the word “than”. “Your porridge is hotter than mine!” One option in Diinlang is to use “di” as the comparative conjunction. In many languages the equivalent to di (of/from) is used in this way.
In English comparisons are also made using the word “as”, particularly when the two things are regarded as similar. “You are nearly as tall as me!” Note the “as…as…” format, although the first “as” is sometimes omitted. “as” is a nice, compact word but with a definition that is hard to pin down. Possibly in Diinlang “as” can be used as a more general purpose conjunction and used instead of “than” even when there is a considerable difference between the items.
“Ti bi tataihii as mi” = “You are hotter than me”