Author: Phil

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Language

New Thoughts on Progressive and Perfect Aspects

Version 1.1

I have had some further thoughts on how progressive/ continuous (PROG/ CONT) and perfect (PERF) aspects are marked in Diinlang. I have been looking into adjectives and realize many of the active and passive adjectives will be formed from progressive or perfect aspects of verbs. Currently the prefixes “is-” and “ha-” are used, when necessary used in combination. If the passive prefix “ge-” is used the aspect prefixes are placed before. The euphony of “ha-” in particular may be problematic.
In English the progressive/ continuous aspect of a verb is formed with an “-ing” suffix. Rather unusually for English, this seems a consistent rule. I cannot think of any English verb that does not use this form. A three letter suffix for this seems a little long, unless “ŋ” is available as a character, but obviously this is not in practice a problem. Diinlang will have many words that end in “-ing” that will not be PROG/ CONT as has English. Again, this does not seem to be a problem in practice. Most root words in Diinlang will be relatively short so the length of a word should make it obvious it has been suffixed. Since Diinlang does not drop terminal vowels “-ing” will become “-hing” or possibly “-ying”. It may therefore be more managable to use “-in/-hin” for PROG/ CONT, verbal nouns and present participles.
In English the PERF aspect of a regular verb takes an “-ed” ending, as does the simple past. Their use is distinguished by one or more auxiliary verbs. For Diinlang it would be desirable for the two forms to be distinct without resorting to auxiliaries.
In a previous post I proposed that a simpler way of marking past tense verbs might be useful. My initial draft proposes “-d/ -id”, the phonetic equivalent of the English system. In an update I propose simple past be marked by “-t” as had already been proposed for the duoverbs. Logically this frees up “-d/ -id” for the marking of perfect aspect forms, although “-nd/ -ind” may be more workable. The use of “-ing” and “-d/ -id (-nd/ -ind)” in Diinlang results in active and passive adjectives very similar to those of English. This is useful since many users of Diinlang will have English as a first or second language. These adjectives can, of course, produce nouns.
Perfect Progressive/ Continuous aspects may be constructed using the suffix “-ind/ -hind”. Past tense of such a construction is probably best marked with “wen”.
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Language

Transitional English

In a previous post I suggest that it is logical that English have a greater contribution to IALs than many current systems use. One possible approach is to “fix” English to address many of the less useful features, such as the numerous irregular verbs, eccentric spelling, numerous homophones, multiple affixes with the same meaning, single affixes with multiple uses and so on.
An idea of what this may resemble may be gained from “Transitional English” (TE). TE is intended as a learning tool. A stepping-stone for non-English speakers on the way to more traditional standard English.
TE represents its “long” vowels by single letters with umlauts rather than macrons (bars). Their system is a little different to that which I proposed for Diinlang on a previous post.
ä appears to be uses as an “o” sound being uses in häu (“how”) but also ¥än (“John”).
ë seems more like an “ah” sound, bëk (“back”).
ï is a long e sound such as in sï (“see”) and bï (“bee”). Diinlang previously used ii for the long e, a convention it got from SaypYu. “ee” and “ii” are phonetically very close and the former is easier to distinguish graphically.
ö is “oh” as in toast (“töst”).
ü is a long u as in june or blue.
TE has a symbol for “schwa”, but oddly uses “û” with a circumflex rather than IPA’s “ə” or SaypYu’s “ɘ”.
Short vowels (and some consonants) are marked with an acute accent if stressed.
TE also uses “¥” for the sound “dzhi”, said to be the voiced equivalent of the unvoiced “ch”. This is a phoneme absent from most other phonetic systems for English.
Diphthongs in Transitional English are described as short vowels with the “semiconsonants” y and w. This includes in “ay” pronounced like “eye”, “uy” 'as in' “bouy” (American pronounciation, highly variable as it often is for this word!) and “aw” 'as in' “how”. I do not think these are the best choices, phonetically, but they may have been chosen to introduce some of the more eccentric phonemes of standard English.
Transitional English makes all verbs regular. Possession is indicated either with an apostrophe/apostrophe S or by adding “av-” to the dependent noun/pronoun. This is similar to the use of “vo” in Diinlang and suggests “vo” can be used to mark a dependent noun/pronoun when both before and after a head noun.
Interestingly, TE uses a relatively short list of major affixes:
an- (un-) 'produces a contrary meaning to the word to which it is attached:
  • bilïvabl (believable, ' '), anbilïvabl (unbelievable, ' ')
  • huk (to hook, ' '), anhúk (to unhook, ' ')
[Many of the uses of un-/an- are probably better rendered as dis- or not-/nat-/no-/non-]
dis- (dis-) 'is similar to an- (un-), indicating separation or undoing:
  • asémbl (to assemble) ' ', disasémbl (disassemble)
  • agrï (agree) ' ', disagrï (disagree) ' '.'
eks- (ex-) 'indicates a former condition:
  • eksprézidûnt (ex-president)
  • eksházbûnd (ex-husband)
get (get) 'is a very versatile verb, which among other things means 'reach, acquire, obtain, receive,' and which can be combined with almost all prepositions, adjectives, adverbs and nouns in the language in order to indicate an action that approaches the meaning of the preposition, adjective, adverb or noun: get ap (get up) ' ', get dawn (get down) ' ', get fët (get fat) ' ', get awéy (get away) ' ', get gift (get gift)
grup- (group-) 'signifies a group or collection of things:
  • gruptíchrs (faculty), 
  • grupshïps (flock of sheep)
  • grupbrds (flock of birds)
  • gruppïpls (multitude)
  • gruptrïs (woods, forest)
  • grupbïs (swarm of bees) ' ', etc.'
[A similar construction would be useful for Diinlang]
nat- (not-) 'negates the idea that follows, and it can also function similar to an- or dis-, producing a opposite idea of the original meaning of the word to which it becomes attached:
  • klowz (close) ' ', natklówz (open)
  • rich (rich) ' ', natrích (poor)
  • byútifl (beautiful) ' ', natbyútifl (ugly) 
  • pr'ti (pretty) ' ', natpr'ti (homely) ' '.'
[In Diinlang this is more likely to be served by no- or non-]
mis- (mis-) 'to do something incorrectly:
  • print (print) ' ', misprínt (misprint)
  • reprizént (represent) ' ', misreprizént (misrepresent)
ri- (re-) 'to repeat an action:
  • kam (come) ' ', rikám (come back, return)
  • print (print) ' ', riprínt (reprint)
[Diinlang may use the more traditional “re-”. I like “rekum” to mean “return”. ]
-abl, -ûbl (-able) Possibility:
  • sï (see), ' '; sïûbl (seeable)
  • bilïv (believe), ' '; bilïvûbl (believable)
-er, -r (-er) 'When joined to an adjective, it serves to form the comparative of the adjective, and is equal in sense to 'more":
  • gud (good), ' '; gúdr (better)
  • grïn (green), ' '; grïnr (greener)
  • töl (tall), ' '; tölr (taller)
-est, -ûst (-est) 'Converts the adjective into a superlative form, equivalent to the meaning of 'most…": Although it is written -est the ending may be heard with the neutral vowel -ûst:
  • gúdest (goodest, best)
  • tölest (tallest)
-fl (-ful) 'Adjectival suffix which denotes fullness':
  • byútifl
  • saksésfl
  • kërfl
[Scots uses “fu” instead, which may be more compatible with Diinlang.]
-i (-ey, -y) 'Diminutive which denotes affection':
  • ¥ow (Joe), ' '; ¥ówi (Joey)
  • dëd (dad), ' '; dëdi (daddy)
  • dog (dog), ' '; dógi (doggey)
  • hors (horse), ' '; hórsi (horsey)
-ing (-ing) 'A participial ending which converts the verb into an adjective or into a noun; while, when preceded by the verb bï , it produces the PROGRESSIVE TENSE which describes an action in progress:'
  • stënd (stand), ' '; stënding (adj. standing)
  • wrayt (write), ' '; wráyting (writing)
  • hi bï wráyting (he be [is in the process of] writing)
-ist (-ist) 'Profession or occupation':
  • mashïn (machine), ' '; mashïnist (machinist)
  • art (art), ' '; ártist (artist)
  • piëno (piano), ' '; píanist (pianist)
-lö (-law) 'Indicates a relationship contracted by marriage':
  • san (son), ' '; san-in-lö (son-in-law)
  • brádhr (brother), 'hermano'; brádhr-in-lö (brother-in-law)
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Language

Lojban Attiudinals

Dipping once more into “Mindhacker” by Ron Hale Evens revealed an interesting section on Lojban “attitudinals”, effectively spoken or written emoticons. Probably a system as used in Lojban will not be in Diinlang. Simple words for concepts such as permission and obligation will obviously prove useful for constructing the modal verbs for Diinlang. The Lojban words resemble paired letters, although the dot and apostrophe represent a glottal stop and a “h” sound. By employing a few simple rules the attitidinals are easily converted into Diinlang words, many of them proving to be very onomatopoeic!
“yah” for “belief” clashes as a homophone of “ya” for “yes” and I do not like “yu” for “love”. “Togetherness” will more likely be the abstract noun derivation of “kom” (with) and hence “komeso”.
Note that not shown below are the neutral and negative variants of the attitudinals which may prove productive for Diinlang words once how to handle opposites and related issues is settled.
 
.ai “eye” Intent iy
.au “ow” Desire oh
 
.a’a “AH-ha” Attentive aha
.a’e “AH-heh” Alertness ahey
.a’i “AH-hee” Effort ahii
.a’o “AH-ho” Hope aho(h)
.a’u “AH-hoo” Interest ahu

.ei “ey” Obligation ey

.e’a “EH-ha” Granting/ Permission eha
.e’e “EH-heh” Competence ehey
.e’i “EH-hee” Constraint ehii
.e’o “EH-ho” Request eho(h)
.e’u “EH-hoo” Suggestion ehu

.ia “ya” Belief yah!!!??
.ie “yeh” Agreement yey
.ii “yee” Fear yii/ ii
.io “yo” Respect yo(h)
.iu “yoo” Love yu ???

.i’a “EE-ha” Acceptance iiha
.i’e “EE-heh” Approval iihey
.i’i “EE-hee” Togetherness iihii (komeso)
.i’o “EE-ho” Appreciation iiho(h)
.i’u “EE-hoo” Familiarity iihu

.oi “oy” Complaint oy

.o’a “OH-ha” Pride ohha
.o’i “OH-hee” Caution ohhii
.o’e “OH-heh” Closeness ohhey
.o’o “OH-ho” Patience ohho(h)
.o’u “OH-hoo” Relaxation ohhu

.ua “wa” Discovery wa
.ue “weh” Surprise wey
.ui “wee” Happiness wii
.uo “wo” Completion wo(h)
.uu “woo” Pity/ sympathy wu

.u’a “OO-ha” Gain uuha
.u’e “OO-heh” Wonder uuhey
.u’i “OO-hee” Amusement uuhii
.u’o “OO-ho” Courage uuho(h)
.u’u “OO-hoo” Repentance uuhu

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Language

Speedword Inspired Correlatives

My first ever post on this blog was inspired by Dutton Speedwords. Today’s post draws on a evolution of the system taken from this page. This, in turn, is from the book Mindhacker, which acknowledges that this table is inspired by a system used in Esperanto. Other IALs use a similar system, including Glosa. The Glosa table has a number of additional categories that are worth looking at.
Below is the system given on the technical geekery page, to which I have added some suggested Diinlang words. Some of these are words used in previous posts, some are just “placeholders”. Nothing about Diinlang is yet set in stone!
First parts:
  • q- what/which; ke
  • c- this; si/ vang
  • u- some; je
  • j- every; pan
  • n- no; no/ non
  • jj- any; enje/ eje
  • k- that;   su/ ving
Second parts:
  • -p place; pa/ loh
  • -m thing; mu
  • -d way; du/ li
  • -k kind; ka/ kin
  • -y reason; ju
  • -z time; zu/ tem
  • -r one (person); ze/ jhen/ ore
  • -t amount; morl/ metri
I have seen it suggested that “any” is an more indefinite version of “some”. Following this logic and the system proposed here, “any” becomes “eje” rather than “enje”.
There is more than one candidate for the word “way” in Diinlang. “-li” is used to make adverbs meaining “in the manner of” and has been used for constuctions such as “ke li” for “what way? (how?)” and “per li” for “ because”. “du” from “do” does seem logical, however.
Diinlang offers a number of valid alternatives for the English use of “one” including the pronoun “ze” or the word for person, “jhen”. “ore” is derived from the agent noun suffix so could possibly be applied to something that is not a person, as can the inanimate pronoun “it”. Some of these words can be gendered with “-o” or “-a” endings.
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Language

Past and Perfect

Currently in Diinlang the tense of a verb is marked by proceeding it with the words “gon” for future and “wen” for past. Perfect aspect is marked by preceding the verb with “dun”, which is placed after a tense marker if present. Continuous/ Progressive aspect is indicated by the prefix “is-” being added to the verb itself. A similar system is used by a number of other conlangs and in many creole languages.
In many conlangs such markers are called “particles” but it may be more accurate to consider them as adverbs.
My recent attempt at novella writing made me look deeper into the subject of tense. Some novels are written in present tense but the majority are written in past tense, usually simple past, past perfect and past progressive.
Some creoles, such as Hawaiian, have a considerable body of printed material but constantly having to write “wen” (or some other tense marker or auxiliary verb) in each sentence seems inefficient. A good case can be made for having a more compact indicator of a past tense.
Jespersen reached a similar conclusion and selected the suffix “-d” for this purpose. I cannot fault his logic in this choice so propose that past tense in Diinlang can be marked with the suffix “-d”. Most verbs in Diinlang end in “-m”, “-n”, “-ng” or a vowel, so this is phonically compatible. In the rare cases where a word already ends in “d” then “-id” will be used. A word ending in “t” may take either the “-d” or “-id” suffix, as the writer prefers. Pronounciation will be much the same. This system is used in parallel with the use of “wen” as an adverb. In Diinlang one can write the past tense as:
“wen VERB”, “VERBd” or “wen VERBd”, although the last is, of course, somewhat redundant.
The “duoverbs” discussed elsewhere use “-t” for their past form. For the moment I will keep this variation, it being more desirable for the past of “riy” (write) to be “riyt” rather than “riyd”. Logically it might be better to use “-t” for all past tense marking.
The progressive aspect of a verb is created using “is-” as a prefix. A past progressive verb may therefore be written as “wen isVERB” or “isVERBd”. It seems logical to drop “dun” as an adverb and revert to the earlier system of having perfect aspect marked with a prefix. Rather than “dun-” I propose to emulate Jespersen by using “ha”, but as the prefix “ha-” rather than as an auxiliary. The perfect progressive can therefore be formed as “isha-”, the perfect passive as “hage-” and the perfect progressive passive as “ishage-”.
Present perfect is “haVERB”.
Past perfect is “wen haVERB” or “haVERBd”
This system also gives us a single word form that can be used as an active past participle.
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Language

Duoverbs of Communication

Version 1.1

Back when I first drafted down some ideas for Diinlang I proposed that there should be two types of verbs. The majority of verbs would be “lexverbs”.
Lexverbs evolved into the verbs that have been encountered in previous  posts on this blog. Lexverbs are mainly uninflected. The prefixes “is-”, “ge-” and “isge-” are used with them as are the markers “gon”, “wen” and “dun”. There is still some work to be done with respect to mood, volition and potential but I am happy with the basic system as it now is. The small number of suffixes permit the creation of new but obviously related verbs.
The second type of verbs are called “duoverbs” since they have two basic forms rather than one. Originally auxiliary and modal verbs in Diinlang were duoverbs. Some of these verbs became lexverbs. The role of auxiliary verbs currently seems to be met by the marker and prefix system. Modal verbs will be worked on at a later date.
The second group of duoverbs are what might be termed “verbs of communication”. Verbs that have meanings such as “say/said” or “write/wrote”. Such verbs would see frequent use and there is an obvious economy in using alternate single syllable words rather than multiple words.
Talking of economy, consider a conversation such as:
“So he was like “No way!” and I go “Why not?” And he went all “Don’t ask” and I’m like “Why?” Then he goes crazy!”
Whatever else you may feel about such English, it is certainly fluid!
Of note are the use of the verbs “like” and “go/went” to introduce statements or reactions. Verbs for similar purposes in Diinlang should have equal brevity, versatility and fluidity.
How many duoverbs of communication are needed remains to be seen. As two possible starting candidates I will suggest “la(h)/la(h)t” for “to say” and “riy/riyt” for “to write”. “Tok/tokt” for “to talk” is another possiblity although “tok” is a good onomatopoeic word for a clock. La or Lah is a verb for general communication while riy and tok specify methods. The Portuguese verb “to read” is “ler” and this might make a nice complimentary duoverb to “la(h)/la(h)t”.
As can be seen, duoverbs have two tenses, the past form created regularly by the addition of a terminal “-t” (or possibly -d instead). Tense regarding verbs of communication is interesting. Traditionally in English we would use “I write/am writing to you” (present tense) in a letter, well aware that by the time the reader sees those words our action will be in their past. Nowadays communication by written word is often real time. My inclination is to think of the two tenses of duoverbs as being “past” and “nonpast”.  Should you need to use a duoverb in the future tense the lexverb marker “gon” is used. In fact any of the lexverb markers can be uses with duoverbs, the past form being a convenience of economy. “Mi laht..” and “mi wen lah/laht…” all mean “I said…”
Potentially the duoverb system will lead to attempts to form past forms of lexverbs with a -t (or -d). The success of this will depend on the individual euphony of the resultant word. Notably, some versions of Novial allowed the past form of a verb to be formed by either the auxillary verb or a “-d” suffix.
It is quite possible that “gon”, “wen” and “dun” might be used as standalone verbs themselves, serving as contractions of “gon du”, “gon bi” etc. Statement of the actual verb may be unnecessary where the following statement makes it clear that the subject was doing or saying something.
Human communication has undergone considerable change in the last few decades and natural languages have lagged behind in some fields. This must be addressed in Diinlang. To me, “phoning” someone implies vocal communication; talking to someone or at least leaving a message on their voice mail. “Texting” implies a written communication sent between phones. My Brazilian girlfriend considers the term to be more generic and if she promises to “text me” the message is most likely to appear on my computer and may have been sent from either phone or laptop. If an interviewer promises to “write to me” this could mean either email or snail-mail. “I’ll talk to you later” could mean a variety of methods or devices.
Diinlang needs a system that can be specific without losing versatility or brevity. For example “fohnlah” would mean communication by phone without specifying the format. “Fohntok” and “fohnriy” would indicate vocal and text communication by phone.
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Language

Clashes with Compounds and Affixes

Version 1.1

A common feature in many natural languages is to drop or change a vowel when two words are combined or a word is suffixed. This tendency is also seen in a number of conlangs. This complicates the process of determining what root or stem word a word has been created from.
This is a convention that is to be avoided in Diinlang. This does pose the problem that the combination of words or the use of an affix might create unintended diphthongs. Let us consider some possible cases.
Diinlang has relatively few true suffixes and the words that may serve this purpose tend to begin with “-i” or “-e”. “-sio” is an obvious exception. For a word that ends in a consonant adding a suffix beginning with “-i”, “-e” or “-s” poses no problems. This leaves vowel endings. “-s” works with any vowel ending. “-i” potentially could form “ai”, “ei”, “ii”, “oi” or “ui”. “ui” poses no problems and “ai”, “ei” and “oi” are not vowel diphtongs in Diinlang, the constructions “ay”, “ey” and “oy” being used instead. For “ai”, “ei” and “oi” a Diinlang reader would know to insert a syllable break before the “i”. Terminal “o” and “a” in Diinlang tend to have the “oh” or “ah” sound. Terminal “-e” is pronounced in Diinlang so can be rendered as “eh”. Therefore when the joining of words results in “-ai-”, “-ei-” and “-oi-” they may be written as “-ahi-”, “-ehi-” and “-ohi-”. “-ii-” is a vowel digraph in Diinlang and for this we have the “rule of y and i”:
“When a word that begins in “i” is being added as a suffix or compound to a word ending in “i” a “y” is added between the two “i”s.”
For “-e” we see a similar situation. “ae”, “ee” and “oe” are not Diinlang vowel digraphs but can be written as “-ahe-”, “-ehe-” and “-ohe-” to avoid confusion.  “ie” and “ue” should pose no problems but can be written as “-iye-” and “-uye-” if desired.
There are a few suffixes that begin in “a-” and words or suffixes begining in “o-” or “u-” are possible. Where there is a conflict, or where it makes things clearer add a “-h-” to words ending in “-a”, “-o” or “-e” and “-y-” to “-i” and “-u”. The same process is used with prefixes that end in vowels. Perhaps the rule should be:
“U and I go with Y.”
It may, however, be simpler to adopt the universal rule that suffix endings take an initial “h” where a word ends in a vowel.
If it is desirable to break up an unwelcome consonant cluster between joined words the obvious remedy is to add a vowel. Esperanto uses “-o-” for this purpose but for Diinlang this may accidentally gender some words. Therefore “-u-” is suggested instead.
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Language

Noun Suffixes

Version 1.1

In Diinlang the majority of nouns derived from other words will be created by compounding. To facilitate this the majority of the most useful words will be kept to a single syllable. A small number of affixes will, however, prove useful in noun creation.
In a previous post I suggested forming abstract nouns with the “-ia” suffix used by Lingua Franca Nova (LFN). Upon further reflection Novial’s “-eso” may be the better choice, being phonetically more distinct.
English forms agent nouns with “-er” but also uses the variations “-or” and “-ar”. It also use “-er” for comparatives and a wide variety of words nothing to do with comparison or agent nouns. Novial suggest “-ere” for this but my preference is towards LFN’s “-or” as a suffix. In Diinlang the standard method to indicate the gender of a word is with the zo-, za– or ze– prefix. A small collection of nouns may also have their gender indicated by placing an -o or -a at the end. Agent nouns are part of this class and thus an agent noun may end in -or, –oro or –ora. Other words that have this characteristic are “jhen”, the word for person and “ling”, which means “young and small”.
For some verbs it will be useful to be able to form patient nouns. This is a category that seems to be somewhat neglected by many conlangs. Novial proposes “-arie”, which I find somewhat ungainly and phonetically too close to the adjective ending “-ari”. Patent nouns are inherently passive in that they denote something that is having the action of the verb done to them. Adding the prefix “ge-” to the word is a possible solution. There will be cases when it is desirable to indicate that the patent noun is a person. For Diinlang I suggest the suffix “-ar” with its derivations “-aro” and “-ara”. When this suffix is used the use of the prefix “ge-” is redundant and therefore optional.
The suffixes “-ist” and “-ism” are used to respectively mark the follower of a belief or philosophy and the belief or philosophy itself. A scientist follows a philosophy of problem solving so is “-ist” rather than “-or”.
Adjectives and nouns pertaining to nationalities are ended with “-an” or “-ian” where practical. Country names take the ending “-ia” where possible. The sounds of such words are kept phonetically as close as practical to the native rendering or most commonly recognized name.
Another system for the formation of nouns is the use the active or passive participle of a verb to designate the process, action, product etc of the verb action. In many languages the active and/or passive participle have a form distinct from verb. In English the active participle is identical in spelling to the continuous form and the passive to the perfect form. In Diinlang the active takes the same form as the continuous: “isVERB”. The passive participle takes the passive prefix, “geVERB” rather the perfect “dun VERB” form. While this is a useful mechanism it does not cover all bases.
The suffixes “-ion”, “-sion” and “-tion” or derived variants can be found in many languages. It has the meaning of “the action of a verb” and/ or “the result of the action of the verb”. For some natlang words this meaning has changed or this definition no longer fully applies. The pronunciation of these suffixes is also very variable, posing problems if phonetic rending is preferred, as it is in Diinlang. “-tion” can ʃən” or “-tʃən” while “-ion” can sound like “-yan/ yən” or “-jan/ jən” in some English words. For Diinlang I propose that for “the action of a verb” and/ or “the result of the action of the verb” we use the suffix “-sio” when the active participle is not suitable.
There may be a need for verb derived words that specifically indicate the “substrate”  or the product of a verb action. For the latter Novial offers the suggestions “-um” and “-ure”. While words like “fabrikatum” and “printatum” work well for some applications I am not fully certain on this use for more general products. The suffix “-ure” gives words resembling picture and sculpture but it is not obvious when to use “-um” and when to use “-ure”. The English noun and adjective ending “-ate”, which in Diinlang would be “-ayt” or “-eyt” may serve.
Like much of Diinlang, these topics are a work in progress and hopefully useful solutions will be found.
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Language

Pitch and Tone for Conlangs

Some time ago I was in the company of my girlfriend’s teenage son. At one point he responded to a question with a non-committal grunt. Not to be outdone I grunted back. There then followed about five minutes of “conversation” using only grunts, shrugs and other occasional gestures. It was quite surprising what nuances of emotion and information that could be communicated by such means.
There is a hypothesis that before true language existed early hominids communicated with body language, gestures and vocalizations. Possibly one of the earliest “sentences” was something that meant “look at me, pay attention to what I am showing”. Modern greetings effectively do the same. “Give me your attention/Acknowledge me”.
Below is an interesting experiment that had subjects trying to communicate a variety of concepts with grunts. What is interesting is that subjects choose rising noises for concepts like “big” or “high” and lowering ones for “small” or “low”. If one concept used a rising tone the paired opposite would get a lowered one. Would we see the same results with non-English speakers? What if the experiment was made with speakers of tonal languages such as Mandarin? Is there a correlation between concepts and the tones used for them in languages such as Cantonese and Mandarin?
Interesting stuff, and of relevance to Conlang creators too. Hence Diinlang uses “ta” and “up” and pairs them with tonal opposites “ko” and “loh”.
Human Language May Have Started Differently than Thought
Caption: The plots show the acoustic characteristics of each of the 18 meanings. The five variables are represented on the x-axis: D, duration; H, harmonics to noise ratio; I, intensity; P, pitch; C, pitch change. All values are normalized (z-scored) for each of the five measures. The red line shows the median and the blue box spans the first and third quartiles. The up and down arrows indicate variables that differed reliably between antonymic meanings. For example, vocalizations for bad differed from those for good by having a lower harmonics to noise ratio and pitch. The variables marked with arrows were the basis for the iconic template of each meaning. Credit: Royal Society Open Science, DOI: 10.1098/rsos.150152
(Phys.org)—A trio of researchers, two with the University of Wisconsin, the other with the University of California, has conducted a study, the results of which suggest that maybe humans did not get a start on language using only hand gestures as many scientists have theorized. Instead, as Marcus Perlman, Rick Dale and Gary Lupyan note in their paper published in Royal Society Open Science, it may have been a result of both noise-making and gesturing.
Nobody can say for sure how it was that we humans first began speaking to one another—surely it was a gradual process with different groups and individuals using various signals such as eye contact, body language, gesturing with arms, hands and fingers, or as the researchers with this new effort suggest, noises that were meant to convey some degree of meaning.
To come to this conclusion, the research trio conducted a study whereby volunteers were asked to make noises to convey the meaning of different words, without using body language or even facial expressions. Nine pairs of volunteers were asked to play what amounted to vocal charades, taking turns trying to get their partner to understand which of 18 contrasting word ideas (up, down, big, small, etc.) were being expressed. The researchers recorded their efforts and then compared the results among the different pairs. In so doing, they found that there was a discernible pattern—people attempting to convey the idea of "up" for example tended to use a rising pitch, whereas they did the opposite for "down." The researchers discovered that the pairs tended to improve when going multiple rounds, eventually getting to a point where the partners could figure out which word idea was being expressed on average 82.2 percent of the time. It also carried over to a non-lab environment. When the voice sounds were played for anonymous people over a crowd-sourced site, listeners were able to guess correctly on average 35.6 percent of the time, far better than chance would suggest.
These findings, the researchers claim, suggest that it appears more likely that our ancestors used both hand-signals and noises to convey meaning, which over a long period of time, evolved into more complex sounds that came to be associated with common ideas among multiple people.
Abstract
Studies of gestural communication systems find that they originate from spontaneously created iconic gestures. Yet, we know little about how people create vocal communication systems, and many have suggested that vocalizations do not afford iconicity beyond trivial instances of onomatopoeia. It is unknown whether people can generate vocal communication systems through a process of iconic creation similar to gestural systems. Here, we examine the creation and development of a rudimentary vocal symbol system in a laboratory setting. Pairs of participants generated novel vocalizations for 18 different meanings in an iterative 'vocal' charades communication game. The communicators quickly converged on stable vocalizations, and naive listeners could correctly infer their meanings in subsequent playback experiments. People's ability to guess the meanings of these novel vocalizations was predicted by how close the vocalization was to an iconic 'meaning template' we derived from the production data. These results strongly suggest that the meaningfulness of these vocalizations derived from iconicity. Our findings illuminate a mechanism by which iconicity can ground the creation of vocal symbols, analogous to the function of iconicity in gestural communication systems.
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Adjectives from Novial

Rereading texts about Novial causes me to again return to the subject of adjectives for Diinlang. Diinlang is going to need to use suffixes and compounding of words to create a versatile and flexible system. Ideally the number of these should be kept small to make them easy to learn.
Many adjectives can be created from the active or passive versions of the Diinlang verb. In Diinlang these have the prefix “is-” or “ge-”.
This Novial source lists ten adjective suffixes, although arguably some of the other general and substantive suffixes may also form adjectives. Adjectives in Novial tend to have an “-i” on the end, although this may be dropped, particularly for words ending in “-n”. There are some non-adjective words that end in “-i” too.
The first Novial adjective suffixes to consider are “-al”, “-iv”, “-asi”, “-osi” and “-ari”. “-al” and “-iv” can be written with an “–i” on the end and this may be pronounced if the speaker prefers. Dropping the “–i” gives the words a more English sound.
“-al” conveys the meaning “pertaining to, to do with, relating to, concerning” and is the general purpose adjectival suffix, as it is in English. Most English adjectives that end in “-al” are “-al(i)” adjectives in Novial, as are also most that end in “-ic”. Lingua Franca Nova and several other IALs also use this ending and its use is proposed for Diinlang.
“-iv(i)” means “doing naturally or capable of doing”. Novial words using this include “instruktiv”, “sugestiv” and “atraktiv” which are “instructive”, “suggestive” and “attractive” in English. “Positive” is another word of this class.
“-asi” means “has a tendency or inclination to” while “-osi” means “having, especially in a great quantity of”. “-asi” is used in “disputasi” (quarrelsome), “laborasi” (hardworking) and “atakasi” (combative). “-osi” is used for “porosi” (porous), “kurajosi” (courageous) anf “danjerosi” (dangerous).
“-ari” means “agreeing with or fit for”. This meaning becomes clear when we consider the words “regulari” (regular), “populari” (popular) and “ordinary” (ordinary).
These are the Novial adjective suffixes that seem most likely to be useful for Diinlang. Jespersen offers the suffix “-isi” but cautions against overuse. It appears to be an augmentative derived from “-issimo” so in Diinlang its use would conflict with “ta”. “-osi” would probably meet most situations where Novial might use “-isi”.
“-indi” and “-endi” I don’t see much immediate use for. The suffix “-an” I will deal with elsewhere.
The final adjective suffix is “-bli”. “Bli” is also a standalone word in Novial used to make passive voice constructions and Jespersen does describe adjectives made with “-bli” as passive. “-bli” appears to be the Novial equivalent of the English suffix “-able” and its variants. Unfortunately “-able” in English is a suffix with a broad range of uses. According to wikitionary, it forms adjectives meaning:
1. Able to be done; fit to be done.
movable: able to be moved
amendable: able to be amended
breakable: liable to broken
blamable: fit to be blamed
salable: fit to be sold
2. Relevant to or suitable to, in accordance with.
fashionable: relevant to fashion
seasonable: suitable to season
3. Giving, or inclined to.
pleasurable: giving pleasure
peaceable: inclined to peace
4. Subject to.
reportable: subject to be reported
taxable: subject to be taxed
5. Due to be.
payable: due to pay

 Consider “laughable”, fit to be laughed at and “honourable”, which means having honour. For this reason I think it is best to avoid using a suffix too close to English. In previous drafts I suggested compounding with the word “zhan”, which is the Diinlang verb “to be able”. This does not end in “-i”, although in Diinlang this is not compulsory for adjectives and many are likely to in fact end in “-n” or “-al”. “-avel” or “-ivel” derived from Portuguese may be alternatives.
The Novial suffixes are a good starting point but I think a few more may be useful.
“-yi” exploits the English mechanism of creating adjectives or adjective-like words by adding a “-y”. It forms adjectives that mean “having the quality of” or (with verbs) “inclined to”. It has a lesser magnitude than “-osi”. For example “hairy” means something has hair, but not necessarily in abundance. Combination with the word “kom” (with) is an alternate construction. We can say something is “sugary” or “with sugar”.
A suffix or compound word element that means “-like” will also be needed. This will most likely be whatever word is chosen for “like” in Diinlang.  Lingua Franca Nova suggests “-in” for this application, which may be too simple and generic! The suffix “-oid” used in words such as humanoid and rhomboid is widely understood. This would be spelt “-oyd” in Diinlang and does break the pattern of “-i” endings. “-ish” can have a similar meaning to “-oid” or “like” but with the implication of a lesser degree. While I like the idea of “ish” as a standalone word meaning “approximate” in Diinlang in English it is a word that has several different meanings.
The adjective uses of the English suffix “-ful” can probably be covered by “-osi”, possibly using an augmentative if necessary. To create a noun such as “handful” Novial offers us “-ede”.