Constructed languages

[Hulalessar]

Creating a lexicon which will please everyone is never going to happen.

If you start from scratch everyone has to learn everything. Learning can up to a point be reduced by using affixes to form new words, but the snag with that is that it will not always be apparent precisely what effect the suffix has. If you have to be told then you effectively have to learn a new word.

If going for basing the lexicon on existing languages the more languages you bring in the less appeal it will have to a speaker of any of the languages chosen. The ten most widely spoken languages are:

English	16.5%
Mandarin Chinese	14.6%
Hindi	8.3%
Spanish	7.0%
French	3.6%
Arabic	3.6%
Bengali	3.4%
Russian	3.4%
Portuguese	3.3%
Indonesian	2.6%

Lexiconwise, English, Spanish, French and Portuguese can be classed together as all contain a significant number of words ultimately derived from Latin - though see also below. Googling, I found opinions differ on how close Hindi and Bengal are in terms of lexicon. So, taking the above languages only, there is the possibility of drawing on five or six sources meaning that anyone learning the language familiar with one source only has help with a fifth or sixth of the vocabulary - and that assumes that the need for a modest inventory of phonemes has not mangled some words so as to make them unrecognisable. The more languages you add into the mix the less attractive it will be.

The above table shows that if you speak English, Spanish, French and Portuguese you can communicate with almost a third of the world's population. Would a conlang drawing on those languages not be a more practical option? There are of course existing conlangs, such as Interlingua, that already do that. However, whilst such languages may be relatively successful in writing in higher registers (though perhaps not in speech), everyday language is another story. The words in the following list are likely to be learned in the first lesson as they all relate to something to be found in a classroom. None of the French or Spanish words match the English words and most of the French and Spanish words are significantly different from each other.

English	French	Spanish
door	porte	puerta
floor	plancher	suelo
ceiling	plafond	techo
window	fenêtre	ventana
desk	pupitre	pupitre
blackboard	tableau noir	pizarra
chalk	craie	tiza
pencil	crayon	lápiz
book	livre	libro
exercise book	cahier	cuaderno
wall	mur	muro/pared
pupil	élève	alumno/a

And that is just vocabulary. There is no way a one size fits all grammar can be devised.

 

[Penyafort]

Well my idea would be to have vocabulary created mostly from scratch, and only include internationalisms when they're widespread enough.

In my opinion, if we created it from scratch, like, randomly generating it with a computer, opposition to it would even be higher. I think one of the good points for choosing not the ten most spoken but ten representatives of a major family was the fact that the counterbalance among them created a sort of diversity index for the choosing of words.

Yes, it could be a contendant too. It's the most spoken Iranian language, a subfamily with more than 150 million native speakers, which is distinct enough from Indo-Aryan languages.

Not only that, it also can be considered a 'Classical language', in the sense that it has had its share of influence upon others, from Europe to Indonesia. Although not to the point of the five I mentioned, of course.

Swahili has lots of loanwords from Arabic too.

Indeed. And that makes me think that Arabic might even be a little privileged in this system, after all.

 

[Dymn]

creating a vocabulary from scratch attempts to level the field, by making it harder for everyone. I think a better solution would be to broaden the number of languages used as sources.

In my opinion, if we created it from scratch, like, randomly generating it with a computer, opposition to it would even be higher. I think one of the good points for choosing not the ten most spoken but ten representatives of a major family was the fact that the counterbalance among them created a sort of diversity index for the choosing of words.

I'm aware of the pitfalls of a posteriori constructed languages, but honestly, we're talking about castles in the sky here, so my personal taste is make tabula rasa and put everyone on an equal footing. I don't like the mishmash that would result from taking a bit from here and there.

Unfortunately with grammar and phonology we can't intend to do that, so an average of the most representative languages should be considered. For example, is SVO or SOV more representative? You can come up with all sorts of reasons but none are objective. Just take a list like mine (just a proposal) and we get 7 votes for SVO (zh, sw, id, vi, es, en, ru), 4 for SOV (ta, tr, ja, hi), 1 for VSO (ar). And do the same with every aspect (maybe the list can be reduced if it gets too laborious).

If you have to be told then you effectively have to learn a new word.

Of course you have, but it's easier to remember a word like Zuckerkrankheit (sugar disease) made up of familiar words instead of its English equivalent diabetes with no internal meaning.

 

[dojibear]

The above table shows that if you speak English, Spanish, French and Portuguese you can communicate with almost a third of the world's population. Would a conlang drawing on those languages not be a more practical option?

Mandarin Chinese	14.6%
Hindi	8.3%

I think we can ignore these two languages, despite large numbers of speakers.

Mandarin Chinese is a lingua franca in one country (China), where 70% of the people speak it. It is only an official language there and in Singapore and Taiwan. Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu) is a lingua franca only in northern India and in Pakistan, not worldwide.

English, Spanish, French are spoken in many countries. Plus they share a sound system -- if you remove a few unusual sounds in English, most of the sounds match.

 

[Uncreative Name]

And that is just vocabulary. There is no way a one size fits all grammar can be devised.

How about a one-size-fits-all phonology?

The Iroquoisan languages don't have anything remotely similar to /p/ or /f/, so your AuxLang shouldn't have those. Hawaiian doesn't distinguish between /t/ and /k/, so your AuxLang shouldn't distinguish these. Spanish doesn't distinguish aspiration, and Mandarin doesn't distinguish voicedness, so your AuxLang shouldn't distinguish either of them. Arabic only has three vowels, so your AuxLang should only use those three. There are several languages that don't allow consonant clusters, and several that don't allow diphthongs, so your AuxLang must conform to a strict CV syllable structure. Most Romance languages don't have anything remotely similar to /h~x/, so your AuxLang can't have that. Many languages consider the lateral approximant /l/ to be a rhotic, so it can't be a separate phoneme.

All languages considered (as far as I know), you are left with four consonants /n t s r/, and three vowels /a i u/, and a strict CV syllable structure. This leaves only 15 possible syllables, and that's assuming that vowels are allowed word-initially.

 

[dojibear]

Just take a list like mine (just a proposal) and we get 7 votes for SVO (zh, sw, id, vi, es, en, ru), 4 for SOV (ta, tr, ja, hi), 1 for VSO (ar).

Where is that list? Found it: way back at post #233. What is "zh"? What is "es"?

I was thinking: Mandarin, Swahili, Arabic, Indonesian, Tamil, Turkish, Japanese, Vietnamese; Hindustani, Spanish, English, and Russian.

Apparently "zh" stands for "Chinese" (using its Chinese name 中文 zhongwen). and "es" stands for Spanish (using its Spanish name español). Is this a contest? Did I win a prize? One could use English for all of them and write "ch" and "sp"...but I suppose that would be too boring.

Back to the comments. There is SVO, and then there is SVO. I've studied Mandarin Chinese (in theory SVO) for some time and can read and write some things. But whenever I post a sentence in the Chinese forum, it's wrong. Badly wrong. Apparently not all SVOs are alike.

 

[dojibear]

All languages considered (as far as I know), you are left with four consonants /n t s r/, and three vowels /a i u/, and a strict CV syllable structure. This leaves only 15 possible syllables, and that's assuming that vowels are allowed word-initially.

It's worse -- the English R sound exists in very few other languages in the world. It is allowed in the syllable "ar" in Mandarin Chinese. That's about it. All other major languages use a different R sound: one that English doesn't use.

 

[Stoggler]

Where is that list? Found it: way back at post #233. What is "zh"? What is "es"?

Apparently "zh" stands for "Chinese" (using its Chinese name 中文 zhongwen). and "es" stands for Spanish (using its Spanish name español). Is this a contest? Did I win a prize? One could use English for all of them and write "ch" and "sp"...but I suppose that would be too boring.

Back to the comments. There is SVO, and then there is SVO. I've studied Mandarin Chinese (in theory SVO) for some time and can read and write some things. But whenever I post a sentence in the Chinese forum, it's wrong. Badly wrong. Apparently not all SVOs are alike.

The two-letter codes are standard ISO codes for languages (ISO-639).

 

[Penyafort]

I'm aware of the pitfalls of a posteriori constructed languages, but honestly, we're talking about castles in the sky here, so my personal taste is make tabula rasa and put everyone on an equal footing. I don't like the mishmash that would result from taking a bit from here and there.

But what was the point then in choosing ten representative languages?

The mishmash would eventually 'make sense' because that was actually the point: not reducing the look of words to just one group, even if it is the one many of us are more used to. Or we'd just be creating another Esperantoid.

Besides, the reduced number of phonemes would make that mishmash quite uniform in the end.

Unfortunately with grammar and phonology we can't intend to do that, so an average of the most representative languages should be considered. For example, is SVO or SOV more representative? You can come up with all sorts of reasons but none are objective. Just take a list like mine (just a proposal) and we get 7 votes for SVO (zh, sw, id, vi, es, en, ru), 4 for SOV (ta, tr, ja, hi), 1 for VSO (ar). And do the same with every aspect (maybe the list can be reduced if it gets too laborious).

Not only in your list, I'd say SVO is the most generalized one and therefore the one to privilege, of course.

I think we can ignore these two languages, despite large numbers of speakers.

Mandarin Chinese is a lingua franca in one country (China), where 70% of the people speak it. It is only an official language there and in Singapore and Taiwan. Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu) is a lingua franca only in northern India and in Pakistan, not worldwide.

English, Spanish, French are spoken in many countries. Plus they share a sound system -- if you remove a few unusual sounds in English, most of the sounds match.

I don't agree. Except for English, which is the only one that's gone really global, most other major ones can be considered just as regional. Spanish is just as reduced to one corner of the world as Chinese or Hindustani. Would you think the other way round if China was divided into twenty countries and Latin America was just one single country? French is (or was) certainly more disperse but the bulge of it is found in West-Central Africa (by 2050, 85% of Francophones will be from that area). So everything is quite relative.

Besides, the spine of many learned words in most Eastern and Southern languages of Asia goes back to Chinese and Sanskrit. Disregarding Chinese and Hindi would almost mean disregarding the most populated continent on Earth, that is, the two most spoken languages when the West is sleeping.

 

[elroy]

I'd say SVO is the most generalized one and therefore the one to privilege, of course.

Wasn’t the point NOT to give anyone an unfair advantage? This and a number of other comments suggest that the opposite is being pursued.

 

[Penyafort]

Wasn’t the point NOT to give anyone an unfair advantage? This and a number of other comments suggest that the opposite is being pursued.

A language must have phonemes and a structure. By doing this, you're not giving an unfair advantage to one language or language group. You're just choosing what is common to a majority of them, regardless of their group.

 

[elroy]

You're just choosing what is common to a majority of them, regardless of their group.

And in doing so, you are privileging people who speak languages with those features and disadvantaging those who don’t.

If you’re saying that the goal is to make it as neutral as possible and that in practice neutrality is impossible, then I agree with the latter and therefore strongly question the notion of neutrality as one of the rationales for a constructed/auxiliary language. If it’s impossible to achieve, then it’s not a possible benefit.

 

[Hulalessar]

Of course you have, but it's easier to remember a word like Zuckerkrankheit (sugar disease) made up of familiar words instead of its English equivalent diabetes with no internal meaning.

I was not thinking of compound words, but rather words being formed by agglutination.

The Esperanto for hospital is malsanulejo. The root is san- carrying the idea of health, which is recognisable by at least some Romance language speakers. Mal- is a prefix meaning "the opposite of"; -ul- a suffix meaning "person associated with"; -ej- a suffix indicating "place associated with"; and -o a suffix indicating the word is a noun. A person familiar with Esperanto suffixes and knowing that sana means "healthy" can work out that malsanulejo means "place where unhealthy people are". However, the meaning is by no means transparent to a Romance language speaker, or indeed anyone else, who knows no Esperanto.

"Place where unhealthy people are" is somewhat generic. It certainly covers "hospital", but it also covers many other places where sick people are to be expected which are not hospitals. Natural languages develop by a mysterious process by which a convention is established. If Esperanto were a natural language its speakers would have decided if malsanulejo is (a) generic, (b) specific or (c) both generic and specific leaving context to decide which.

If you look up malsanulejo in an Esperanto dictionary it gives not only "hospital", but also "ambulance". It is not of course unusual for natural languages to have words with more than one meaning, but they normally operate in different spheres so that confusion is unlikely to arise. One would though expect a conlang (other than one made up for amusement or artistic purposes) to rule out ambiguity. Having the same word for "hospital" and "ambulance" allows for confusion. It seems that those in charge of Esperanto have realised it. If you look up "hospital" you are given not only malsanulejo but also hospitalo; if you look up "ambulance" you are given not only malsanulejo but also ambulanco. That seems sensible, but does rather undermine the claims made for Esperanto. Whilst the roots and affixes can be manipulated to form new words, once you get a word like malsanulejo its meaning becomes opaque so that the supposed benefit of having roots like san- gets lost.

Whether it comes to phonology, lexicon, morphology or syntax you are not going to be able to please everyone. A fully functional language cannot be founded on supposed logical principles or built up from a limited array of roots. Natural languages evolve organically and are messy because human experience is messy. A conlang can be declared "easy" if it lacks conjugations, declensions, gender and whatever else its creator considers a complication. However, the only truly simple languages are pidgins, not generally considered to be complete languages. A pidgin becomes a creole, a fully developed language, because a community has worked on it and made it a vehicle to communicate the way humans want and need to communicate with all its messiness and subtleties. What conlangs lack is messiness and subtleties. They can only develop them by being adopted by a community, but not a disparate one which communicates over distance and only meets at organised events.

Zamenhof was an idealist. He believed with justification that language can divide people. He did not envisage Esperanto being anything other than an auxiliary language. He said:

"I am profoundly convinced that every nationalism offers humanity only the greatest unhappiness …. It is true that the nationalism of oppressed peoples – as a natural self-defensive reaction – is much more excusable than the nationalism of peoples who oppress; but, if the nationalism of the strong is ignoble, the nationalism of the weak is imprudent; both give birth to and support each other…"

 

[elroy]

Natural languages evolve organically and are messy because human experience is messy.

The non-organic-ness/non-messiness is probably the biggest thing that turns me off constructed languages.

 

[Uncreative Name]

The non-organic-ness/non-messiness is probably the biggest thing that turns me off constructed languages.

I think the problem is that we're trying to compare constructed languages to natural languages -- they serve completely different purposes, and should be treated as different things.

I don't want to support or defend "auxiliary" languages like Esperanto, but there are several other types of constructed languages that exist for different purposes. We shouldn't brush them away just because they didn't evolve naturally -- often times, the point is that they didn't.

 

[Dymn]

But what was the point then in choosing ten representative languages?

Deciding what phonology and grammar are best. It's just a personal taste, nothing more. I don't like conlangs that look too artificial. I would like to see the idea of an "average language" implemented. I also think your idea of the four language spheres is correct but at least somewhat arbitrary.

If it’s impossible to achieve, then it’s not a possible benefit.

The current word lingua franca is English, which is totally not neutral. Even if you have to settle on a common grammar and specific choices might favor some languages over others, that doesn't make it any less neutral.

In political terms, a government that leaves some satisfied and others unsatisfied is not ideal but there's no other way around and it's still a democracy as long as the vote is fair. Compare this to a single-party dictatorship.

I was not thinking of compound words, but rather words being formed by agglutination.

What's the difference? Both derivation and compounding create new words from existing ones and make them easier to learn.

once you get a word like malsanulejo its meaning becomes opaque so that the supposed benefit of having roots like san- gets lost.

You're of course right the meaning of "hospital" can't be directly derived from malsanulejo with 100% confidence, however, compared to an arbitrary sequence of phonemes: (1) you can get a pretty good of idea of its meaning just by reading it, (2) it makes it easier to learn because in case of doubt you can always think of its underlying morphemes.

 

[Hulalessar]

Deciding what phonology and grammar are best. It's just a personal taste, nothing more. I don't like conlangs that look too artificial. I would like to see the idea of an "average language" implemented. I also think your idea of the four language spheres is correct but at least somewhat arbitrary.


The current word lingua franca is English, which is totally not neutral. Even if you have to settle on a common grammar and specific choices might favor some languages over others, that doesn't make it any less neutral.

In political terms, a government that leaves some satisfied and others unsatisfied is not ideal but there's no other way around and it's still a democracy as long as the vote is fair. Compare this to a single-party dictatorship.


What's the difference? Both derivation and compounding create new words from existing ones and make them easier to learn.


You're of course right the meaning of "hospital" can't be directly derived from malsanulejo with 100% confidence, however, compared to an arbitrary sequence of phonemes: (1) you can get a pretty good of idea of its meaning just by reading it, (2) it makes it easier to learn because in case of doubt you can always think of its underlying morphemes.

I am having difficulty seeing how you can arrive at an "average language". How do you average out grammatical features?

Have we not reached the stage where English has become neutral for most people?

If you produce something which is "fair" because it takes in several languages, no one will appreciate it as anyone whose language is featured will probably not recognise its contribution. It will be like Volapük which took its vocabulary mostly from English but mangled it. "Volapük" is barely recognisable as deriving from "world speech".

I have never studied German, but I understand that some German compounds are not semantically transparent and present difficulties for learners. Affixes have the potential to provide different meanings. Does malsana mean "sick" or "unhealthy"?

Most of the of the affixes in Esperanto change the meaning of a word rather than indicate its function. Are such derivational affixes as readily taken in as grammatical ones?

 

[Hulalessar]

I don't really understand what this means. There are plenty of subjunctive forms in English. They just match (in both speech and writing) indicative preterite forms.

But that is very common in English. I eat. You eat. He eats. We eat. You(pl) eat. They eat. In many languages, that is 6 forms. In English, just 2. Are there very few forms of present tense Indicative?

When talking about the subjunctive you need to consider whether you are referring to form or mood; the two are not always clearly distinguished. Forms get names and sometimes the name only fits with one function of the form. It is a pity that grammars of Indo-European languages do not follow the practice of Arabic grammars and number the forms.

If we take Spanish, finite verbs have forms labelled either indicative or subjunctive. In all paradigms of every verb there is no overlapping and the subjunctive is quite distinctive from the indicative. The subjunctive has more than one use. It is very common.

In French the situation is a bit different. For most verbs the present indicative is only different in the first and second persons plural and then only slightly:

Indicative	Subjunctive
porte	porte
portes	portes
porte	porte
portons	portions
portez	portiez
portent	portent

However, with some verbs, including some of the most common, the subjunctive form is quite distinct. So, even though for most verbs the subjunctive is not much of a form, insisting that in "Il faut que je porte" "porte" is subjunctive, despite having the same form as the indicative, can be justified. The reduction of forms for most verbs may explain why the subjunctive is used a lot less than in Spanish.

When it comes to English it is a different story. It is not unreasonable to suggest that French/Spanish grammar is being imposed on English and that "subjunctive" is not a concept that fits easily with modern English. As a form the present subjunctive barely exists. Such purpose as it serves only operates with the third person singular so any perceived benefit is limited. Insisting that in "He insists I go" "go" is subjunctive is pressing it somewhat. Few when actually saying it feel they are making any sort of distinction simply because of the lack of a distinctive form.

Describing forms such as "If I were you" and "If I had money" as past subjunctives is something of a misnomer. All that should be said about such conditional forms is that they require the past tense. Whilst I think English should only be considered in its own terms, it is instructive to note that in Spanish "If I were you" requires the imperfect subjunctive, while in French the imperfect indicative is used just as in English. The fact that the imperfect is normally "I was" does not justify classifying "If I were" as subjunctive.

In short, forms described as subjunctive are more profitably described as oddities or leftovers from an earlier form of the language. When you speak Spanish you need to "think subjunctively" because Spanish regularly makes distinctions which English leaves unexpressed. You do not need to think subjunctively when speaking English.

 

[elroy]

Even if you have to settle on a common grammar and specific choices might favor some languages over others, that doesn't make it any less neutral.

I don't follow; can you elaborate?

To my mind, a language that privileges some languages over others is not neutral. Can you explain why you feel that it's still neutral even if it privileges certain languages over others?

In political terms, a government that leaves some satisfied and others unsatisfied is not ideal but there's no other way around and it's still a democracy as long as the vote is fair.

Wait, who's voting here? In what way is this a democracy?

But also, my point is this:

Why strive to create something that has the same problem as the status quo? Why invest all that energy and effort if you're going to wind up with another version of what you already have?

Neutrality was mentioned as one of the possible benefits of a constructed/auxiliary language, but so far I don't see anything that suggests that it's achievable. And if it's not achievable, then it's not a benefit.

 

[pimlicodude]

I feel that here ''I would buy'' is conditional, and ''had'' is subjunctive.

However, I admit that I'm influenced by similar structures in Italian (my mother tongue). English grammar definitions are often different.

"If I had" is the past subjunctive, yes, but it is morphologically identical to the past indicative, and there is only one verb where the difference is seen (If I were). That's the problem. But you can generally expand other past subjunctives with "were". "if I bought you a car" = "if I were to buy you a car" = "were I to buy you a car" = "if I should buy you a car" = "should I buy you car" (should I buy you a car, it would be purple). There are therefore five forms of the past subjunctive in English. Having said that "if I were to have" for "if I had" sounds overwrought. It's odd that the subjunctive survives in real usage in the English population (a large percentage of them, maybe a large minority, 30-40???, guesstimating), but occurs precisely 0% of the time on the BBC. I think the BBC has a style guide which tells their presenters not to use the subjunctive.

 

[bearded]

I think the BBC has a style guide which tells their presenters not to use the subjunctive.

Incredible! In this country we have the (evidently unjustified) bias that the BBC speaks a very 'conservative' English..

 

[Olaszinhok]

If I were you" requires the imperfect subjunctive, while in French the imperfect indicative is used just as in English. The fact that the imperfect is normally "I was" does not justify classifying "If I were" as subjunctive.

How would you explain the use of were instead of was in the first and third person singular for the Second Conditional in if clauses? Secondly, what about the following formal phrase: Were I to do ... Do you consider this were to be a Preterit, too? As regards French, the Imperferct Subjunctive is not used in Conditionals in modern French and it is a literary and extremely rare verb tense at large, nowadays.

 

[pimlicodude]

Incredible! In this country we have the (evidently unjustified) bias that the BBC speaks a very 'conservative' English..

That used to be the case, but they are going for more and more demotic forms of English nowadays.

 

[Hulalessar]

How would you explain the use of were instead of was in the first and third person singular for the Second Conditional in if clauses? Secondly, what about the following formal phrase: Were I to do ... Do you consider this were to be a Preterit, too? As regards French, the Imperferct Subjunctive is not used in Conditionals in modern French and it is a literary and extremely rare verb tense at large, nowadays.

"Were" would seem to be explained historically by the Old English past subjunctive "wær".

I would consider all of "If I were", "were I" and if "If I was" to be forms of what is called the past tense but which have nothing to do with the past. In "If I knew what to do I would do it" the knowing element is very much in the present; I do not know now. The same thought could be expressed by "I do not know; if I did I would do it" which emphasises that the not knowing is in the present. The sentence contains a counterfactual conditional.

If we ask whether counterfactual conditionals involve something called the subjunctive we need to consider whether we are asking what form of verb is needed or what grammatical mood is being expressed. We can highlight that this a tricky question by comparing French and Spanish. "If I knew..." expresses a counterfactual condition. In French the verb needs to be in the imperfect indicative while in Spanish it needs to be in the imperfect subjunctive. In both cases the verb expresses the same mood. We either have to conclude either that "subjunctive" is no more than a label for a form of the verb, or that "subjunctive" is a concept which varies from language to language. In practice it can amount to something of both.

Despite the fudge, we need to be clear, especially in the case of English, whether we are talking about form or mood. Given the paucity of form, we should be slow to label a verb as a subjunctive just because it lacks an s or looks like a past tense. A different way of describing what is going on is needed.

 

[Hulalessar]

That used to be the case, but they are going for more and more demotic forms of English nowadays.

It is nothing new. Writing in 1908 Henry Fowler said:

"The use of true subjunctive forms (if he be, though it happen) in conditional sentences is for various reasons not recommended. These forms, with the single exception of were, are perishing so rapidly that an experienced word actuary puts their expectation of life at one generation. As a matter of style, they should be avoided, being certain to give a pretentious air when handled by any one except the skilful and practised writers who need no advice from us. And as a matter of grammar, the instinct for using subjunctives rightly is dying with the subjunctive, so that even the still surviving were is often used where it is completely wrong."

The experienced word actuary has been proved incorrect. However, the advice is sound.

See further here: Conditionals. Fowler, H. W. 1908. The King's English

 

[pimlicodude]

It is nothing new. Writing in 1908 Henry Fowler said:

"The use of true subjunctive forms (if he be, though it happen) in conditional sentences is for various reasons not recommended. These forms, with the single exception of were, are perishing so rapidly that an experienced word actuary puts their expectation of life at one generation. As a matter of style, they should be avoided, being certain to give a pretentious air when handled by any one except the skilful and practised writers who need no advice from us. And as a matter of grammar, the instinct for using subjunctives rightly is dying with the subjunctive, so that even the still surviving were is often used where it is completely wrong."

The experienced word actuary has been proved incorrect. However, the advice is sound:

See further here: Conditionals. Fowler, H. W. 1908. The King's English

Well, he's talking there about the present subjunctive only ("with the single exception of were"). Things like "if he have" are indeed defunct. But there are many English people who still say "if I were you".

 

[Dymn]

I am having difficulty seeing how you can arrive at an "average language". How do you average out grammatical features?

I did at #263. You can follow a similar approach for every aspect you can think of.

Have we not reached the stage where English has become neutral for most people?

No.

I have never studied German, but I understand that some German compounds are not semantically transparent and present difficulties for learners.

It helps. Is a glove literally a shoe in your hand? No, but it's much easier to learn "Handschuh" than "glove" in English which doesn't mean anything internally. Is a rhinoceros just an animal with a horn on its nose? No, but "Nashorn" is easier to learn than "rhinoceros" (which actually means the same thing but it isn't evident if you don't know Greek). Etc.

Are such derivational affixes as readily taken in as grammatical ones?

They can't be because you're trying to encapsulate reality into words. To truly capture what a word stands for it should be sentence long. However they sometimes do a good job. For example in European languages the adjective associated with a country is quite irregular. In Esperanto, you just have to change -(i)o with -a. It's equally as easy in East Asian languages, which shows languages can do this naturally too.

To my mind, a language that privileges some languages over others is not neutral. Can you explain why you feel that it's still neutral even if it privileges certain languages over others?

Because the reasoning behind it takes into account all languages (through representatives), and it doesn't belong to one particular nation.

Let's say two teams have to meet in a neutral field to play a game. Does it have to be exactly halfway between both? Would a field that is 200 km from one team and 100 km from the other not be neutral, in fact it would be just as partial as just playing in the field of one of the teams?

In fact I don't even think the word "neutral" has to imply equidistance or the pretence of equidistance to all. Esperanto is obviously a European language but it's still neutral in comparison with English, because it doesn't belong to a single nation.

Wait, who's voting here? In what way is this a democracy?

#263.

 

[Hulalessar]

I do not think that the proposal in post 263 is going to make any conlang adopting it more democratic or attractive. Even assuming each feature is to be chosen according to the number of speakers who use it, rather than the number of languages which have it, if you chose a feature according to its popularity, that is all you are doing. There is no "average" or compromise between different word orders - it is either one thing or another. If the most common word order is used by, say, 40% and all the others are much lower you have the situation where 60% are ignored. Word order is only one thing. If the same principle is applied to all aspects of grammar you will end up with something where some people will ask: "Why haven't you got these features?" while others will ask: "Why are you bothering with these features?"

This discussion is very interesting, but essentially hypothetical when considering conlangs as auxiliary languages. There is no general feeling that the world needs one. Even if there was (or if you prefer were) in a world where it took 20 years for everyone to agree that North Macedonia should be called North Macedonia, there is never going to be agreement.

A native English speaker is not perhaps the right person to offer an opinion on whether English has become neutral. However, I think it can safely be said that in many former British colonies it serves a useful function. Nigeria, for example, has 525 languages. No way can any country have 525 official languages. It makes some sort of sense for English to be the only official language. Do Nigerians consider English to be neutral? Have they reached the stage where they feel it no longer carries any colonial baggage? Do they take a pragmatic view saying they will stick with English because it is the world language par excellence?

 

[dojibear]

Given the paucity of form, we should be slow to label a verb as a subjunctive just because it lacks an s or looks like a past tense.
A different way of describing what is going on is needed.

It is not a good idea to label something "subjunctive" because of its written spelling. If it acts like a duck, call it a duck. We don't need a different way to describe it. I really don't care if every variation has a unique written form or if you use "marklar" for all nouns like Kyle:

https://www.youtube .com/watch?v=BSymxjrzdXc

I'd say SVO is the most generalized one and therefore the one to privilege, of course.

I don't consider the SVO to SOV transition difficult. When I studied Japanese, that change was trivially easy for me. So was the Japanese use of post-particles (similar to noun endings in Latin). By contrast, it was much harder to learn Mandarin Chinese. Both Mandarin and English are SVO and rely heavily on word order. But they use very different word order.

 

[dojibear]

Spanish is just as reduced to one corner of the world as Chinese or Hindustani. Would you think the other way round if China was divided into twenty countries and Latin America was just one single country?

China is about the same size as the combined Spanish-speaking countries, so it is a reasonable comparison. Hindustani covers a region almost as big.

China has 302 languages. Central and South America have many regional languages, unrelated to Spanish. Northern India has many languages.

I see your point. Based on area covered and number of local/regional languages, all 3 languages are comparabe.

 

[Dymn]

There is no "average" or compromise between different word orders - it is either one thing or another.

Well, you can, Romance languages for example are SVO by default but put object pronouns before verbs. Although arguably a simple language should be consistent. Anyway whatever preference there is in choosing one order or the other may be set off with other aspects.

This discussion is very interesting, but essentially hypothetical

Yes, that's the way I look at it. You're right people wouldn't stop complaining. That's what happens with Esperanto. That doesn't mean some of these critiques in this thread don't look dishonest to me.

Do they take a pragmatic view saying they will stick with English because it is the world language par excellence?

Rather because it's a colonial heritage that is useful as a lingua franca, first, and neutral among the various ethnic groups, second. Same thing for French or Portuguese in other former colonies. However on a global scale, English, French, or Portuguese wouldn't be neutral.

 

[Hulalessar]

It is not a good idea to label something "subjunctive" because of its written spelling. If it acts like a duck, call it a duck. We don't need a different way to describe it.

Cross linguistically, the word "subjunctive" is a bit problematic, at least in part because it is not always made clear whether what is being talked about is a form of the verb or a mood. It tends to be the case for any given language that the number of what are referred to as moods correspond with the labels attached to verb forms. Both French and Spanish have verb forms called subjunctive, but they are not used in the same way. For example, as indicated above, when it comes to counterfactual conditions French uses the indicative while Spanish uses the subjunctive. That leaves us wondering if the subjunctive, considered as a mood, is something different in French and Spanish. If it is, then there is difficulty providing a universally applicable definition of the subjunctive as a mood.

It is completely justifiable to distinguish between indicative and subjunctive as forms in Spanish because there is no overlapping. In French there has been some convergence, but the distinction is still justifiable. Apart from "to be", no English verb has more than five forms and no form is exclusively used for what is described as the subjunctive mood. That compares with something like 50 forms in Spanish. Given that, it is not unreasonable to ask if it is appropriate to classify English verbs using the same terminology as used for Romance languages.

Much better would be to describe each form using a number. For "give" it would be Form 1: give; Form 2: gives; Form 3: giving; Form 4: gave; Form 5: given. Neutral labels avoids any preconception about what the form can express. It also avoids awkward terms like "bare infinitive". It would also rule out the need to have a discussion about whether "knew" in "If I knew" is the past tense or subjunctive. You would just say you have to use Form 4.

 

[Hulalessar]

Rather because it's a colonial heritage that is useful as a lingua franca, first, and neutral among the various ethnic groups, second. Same thing for French or Portuguese in other former colonies. However on a global scale, English, French, or Portuguese wouldn't be neutral.

If a language is the sole official language and used in government, law, commerce and education, I think it is more than a lingua franca, which I think of as describing a language when people speaking different languages resort to it as a language they have in common.

Zamenhof was right that language can cause conflict, but not everyone everywhere gets excited about language. Problems are usually stirred up by demagogues with an agenda.

 

[Penyafort]

Yes, there is a difference. In some African countries, standard English or French are the official languages (therefore used in government, education, law and formal media) but the lingua franca, the one used for communication in common informal situations, is either a widespread local language or an English/French-based creole.

Generally speaking, I don't particularly like the term 'neutral', though. No natural language, whichever its size or history, is going to be 'neutral', as it always brings a cultural extension included in the pack. But we'd also be lying if we thought that a constructed auxiliary language would remain 'neutral' (or 'cultureless') for a long time after its initial stage. Whether it'd then serve the purpose of generating a really neutral global culture alongside the local ones, that is, in my opinion, hard to predict.

 

[dojibear]

There is no "average" or compromise between different word orders - it is either one thing or another.

It isn't that simple, for 2 reasons:

(1) Some languages have strict word order. Some languages (Latin, Japanese, Korean) do not. It's a decision.

(2) Natural languages that "are SVO" are not SVO in every clause. Some languages (Russian, Turkish) use both OV and VO. Some languages (German, Dutch) are SVO in the main clause, but SOV in subordinate clauses. Some languages (English) change the word order in passive sentence and questions, and even have non-SVO main sentences: "In the garden sat a cat."

So calling each language SVO or SOV is over-simplifying. Part of creating a language involves deciding the details.

 

[Hulalessar]

It isn't that simple etc

I cannot disagree with anything you say. I was of course referring to the default or preferred word order.

My main point is that what seems natural and necessary to the speaker of one language, may come across as weird and unnecessary to the speaker of another.

 

[Awwal12]

Some languages (Russian, Turkish) use both OV and VO.

In the case of Russian it's even difficult to deduce the basic word order, as it's heavily influenced by pragmatics and everyday speech is full of emphatic dislocations. I've encountered opinions that colloquial Russian is, in fact, more inclined to OV than to VO.

 

[Hulalessar]

Generally speaking, I don't particularly like the term 'neutral', though. No natural language, whichever its size or history, is going to be 'neutral', as it always brings a cultural extension included in the pack. But we'd also be lying if we thought that a constructed auxiliary language would remain 'neutral' (or 'cultureless') for a long time after its initial stage. Whether it'd then serve the purpose of generating a really neutral global culture alongside the local ones, that is, in my opinion, hard to predict.

I think it probably comes down to a question of degree, with people in the same community holding different views. If we take India, anyone born in the year of independence is now in their mid seventies, so anyone with a significant memory of British rule has to be well into their eighties. Of course stories will be handed down and people will read books. The Wikipedia article on Indian English says: "The view of the English language among many Indians has changed over time. It used to be associated primarily with colonialism; it is now primarily associated with economic progress, and English continues to be an official language of India." I suggest that Indians feel they "own" Indian English just as Americans feel they own American English and that it has its own cultural baggage. It is quite possible for two different cultures to share a common language. In most places English is about as neutral as football.

 

[Thealaskansandman]

Well, as a complete novice to this field. My introduction into Linquistics, etymology and conlangs was from Tolkien. While I enjoyed what Tolkien was doing, setting a Finnish-Uralic type origin for his languages that begot the Celtic and Germanic type ones was an interesting idea. That being said, I thought most else was pretty useless, especially upon learning that he didn't create enough verbs and such to make it a functional language in the real sense.

Tolkien made me love real language more and desire that more was done for the existing languages. I like the idea of a lingua franca for European languages, even as a conlang, but that would be about it. I would love to see more ties to real stuff. Im an aspiring writer and am trying to draw upon real stuff.
Im searching for answers else where regarding Welsh Llyndun vs Llyn Dun as Google translates the first as London, and the second as "Tin Lake". My interest is in the City of Lindon in England. Searching for a "hypothetical" origin of the city from Welsh words, possibly related to Dublin "Black Pool". I thought Llyn Dun/Llyndun might be a translation of this.
If It also means "Tin Lake" then this is good for my story in a sense, as Tin mining would be a thing and gives me a sense of direction with the History of Lindon in my novel.
I would like to see more use of real words though, old ones or otherwise. Ones possible even but not attested. Tur Fiann/ Tor Wynn maybe being a Tower that a merry band of Troops use deep in the ancient woods of the Forest of Belerion before the breaking. Maybe a group of "Green Men" or Knights. Harkening back to the Greenman myth, Green Knight Myth, or Robin Hood and his merry band of men. Idk, I love those kind of real world links.

 

[Hulalessar]

English is effectively the lingua franca in Europe.

 

[Penyafort]

I suggest that Indians feel they "own" Indian English just as Americans feel they own American English and that it has its own cultural baggage.

I don't think that developing a few local expressions for some decades is enough to compare both. English is not a native language of India, it's a language with a form and content that reveals its European Christian origin. The fact that there are reasons to speak it like the one you mentioned, or the fact that Tamils refuse to use Hindi as the 'common' language, etc, does not really make it a native language of India out of a sudden.

It is quite possible for two different cultures to share a common language.

I mostly disagree. Unless you meant to share it as a common lingua franca.

In most places English is about as neutral as football.

That is probably what native speakers of English tend to think.

That being said, I thought most else was pretty useless, especially upon learning that he didn't create enough verbs and such to make it a functional language in the real sense.

What does functional mean? Tolkien's languages were functional for his purpose. Artistic conlangs do not intend to be fully functional for our world but for the stories they were created for. Which is why some of Tolkien's languages were also more developed than others.

 

[elroy]

I think @Hulalessar has a point about English.

I think that for many non-native speakers of English, English serves a primarily, or maybe even exclusively, functional purpose. It's a means to an end. Among non-native speakers of English with different native languages, English is by far the most commonly used language for communication. For the vast majority of these people, English is the only option available.

Many, if not most, of these people perceive and treat English as a simple means to an end. It's like taking the bus to work. You don't really think about what company designed the bus or what the driver's nationality is; you just think of the bus as a means to accomplish something, especially if it's the only option you have available. And that's how many non-native speakers of English feel about English. They don't ascribe any cultural or political importance to it.

 

[Hulalessar]

I don't think that developing a few local expressions for some decades is enough to compare both. English is not a native language of India, it's a language with a form and content that reveals its European Christian origin. The fact that there are reasons to speak it like the one you mentioned, or the fact that Tamils refuse to use Hindi as the 'common' language, etc, does not really make it a native language of India out of a sudden.

I mostly disagree. Unless you meant to share it as a common lingua franca.

That is probably what native speakers of English tend to think.

Not many speak English as a first language in India, but 125,000,000 million people in India speak it, 25,000,000 of them with native like fluency. 44% of the books published in India are in English compared to 46% in Hindi. English is the language of the judiciary. It is virtually universal in higher education, though that is being queried. Some argue that English played a significant part in the rise of Indian nationalism - there is no Indian mother tongue. I am not clear exactly how the form and content of English reveal its European Christian origin, but however it does it it has not stopped English becoming firmly entrenched in India.

There is not necessarily a correlation between language and culture anymore than there is between language and nationality, language and religion or language and race. It is wrong, if not oppressive, to insist that any one or more of language, culture, nationality, religion or race must go together.

I would consider English to be neutral in Continental Europe. Its expansion since WWII is not due to a colonial past, but to the decision of countries to give it priority as the first second language. German lost prestige after losing two world wars. Russian declined with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the break up of the Warsaw Pact. Knowing French does not have the cachet it once had.

 

[dojibear]

its European Christian origin

Origin? 500-1500 years ago? Sure. How does that affect modern use? Perhaps it doesn't.

 

[Penyafort]

There is not necessarily a correlation between language and culture anymore than there is between language and nationality, language and religion or language and race.

I disagree with the comparison. Language + nationality/religion/race do not need to go hand in hand. But language and culture is a different story, since culture uses language as its main means of expression. Literature, for instance, is expressed through a certain language. Salman Rushdie's and Chinua Achebe's novels are in the English Literature section.

I would consider English to be neutral in Continental Europe.

Not being used because of a colonial past does not mean it is neutral. It can be 'neutrally' used between a Finn and a Greek who are having a casual conversation at an Austrian pub. But if the context is a different one and it includes a native English speaker, the advantage in several aspects is going to be quite evident.

Origin? 500-1500 years ago? Sure. How does that affect modern use? Perhaps it doesn't.

I remember a conversation some time ago with someone who regarded English as a neutral language, but Arabic as one that showed too much connection to Islam because of so many constant references to Allah, etc. Apparently people only notice how much embedded a language is into its cultural background when this comes from a different one. For Christ's sake...

 

[elroy]

But if the context is a different one and it includes a native English speaker, the advantage in several aspects is going to be quite evident.

Of course the English native speaker will have an advantage, although I don't know what you mean by "several aspects," since the only thing I can think of is superior proficiency in English. That's going to be the case anytime you have a native speaker of a language talking in their native language to a non-native speaker of the same language. In fact, this is also the case anytime one speaker is more proficient than the other, even if neither speaker is a native speaker of the language in question. A more proficient Esperanto speaker speaking with a less proficient Esperanto speaker will have an advantage.

I remember a conversation some time ago with someone who regarded English as a neutral language, but Arabic as one that showed too much connection to Islam because of so many constant references to Allah, etc.

This is misleading. Most of those expressions are bleached, and the connection to Islam is no more than an etymological/historical one. Often native speakers use them without even realizing they're making a religious reference (at the literal level). Every language has such relics; I think it's a bit unreasonable to suggest that they somehow make a language less neutral in a way that would negatively impact somebody from a different cultural background.

 

[Penyafort]

Of course the English native speaker will have an advantage, although I don't know what you mean by "several aspects," since the only thing I can think of is superior proficiency in English. That's going to be the case anytime you have a native speaker of a language talking in their native language to a non-native speaker of the same language.

In the case of the Finn and the Greek speaking in English, it's a matter of 'superior proficiency'. In the other case, it's a matter of privilege.

In fact, this is also the case anytime one speaker is more proficient than the other, even if neither speaker is a native speaker of the language in question. A more proficient Esperanto speaker speaking with a less less proficient Esperanto speaker will have an advantage.

As long as there is no country with native Esperanto speakers, there is no privilege, only superior proficiency.

This is misleading. Most of those expressions are bleached, and the connection to Islam is no more than an etymological/historical one. Often native speakers use them without even realizing they're making a religious reference (at the literal level). Every language has such relics; I think it's a bit unreasonable to suggest that they somehow make a language less neutral in a way that would negatively impact somebody from a different cultural background.

Considering hundreds of words, expressions, idioms, etc, as 'relics', just because many people are not aware of their origin, doesn't make them irrelevant. The more one wants to be proficient in a particular language, the more one has to learn about it, the points of view shaped by the choice of words, either implicitly or explicitly, and the culture from the countries of their native speakers. Or do you really think that no school in Europe or the world dedicates part of the time for learning the language to cultural items from the Anglosphere, whether it has to do with authors, films, information about the countries and their traditions, etc?

 

[dojibear]

One thought about the connection between language and religion:

The Koran was written in Classical Arabic (1400 years ago). That may be somewhat different than Modern Standard Arabic, but it is still the same language.

The Bible was written in Greek (2000 years ago) and Aramaic (older). There is no connection between Christianity and English. England was just one of dozens of countries where Christianity was common.

 

[Trisia]

There is no connection between Christianity and English.

For better or worse, Christianity has both helped shape and spread your language. To some extent, you yourself speak English now, as does what is known as the Commonwealth, by means of the KJV. You also have more expressions from it than from Shakespeare, who by the way draws significantly from Christian imagery, vocabulary and principles. Most of your literature does. The fact that not everyone is nowadays equipped to recognise those influences is another matter.

-------------
It may be fashionable to chalk it all down to colonialism, but that's a sort of oversimplification even I would shy away from (and boy, do I oversimplify).

I do understand that for a modern native speaker all the influences that shaped their culture and vernacular, especially those they're taught or have convinced themselves it's better to ignore and deride are less visible than for an outsider. But English, real English and not restaurant or business English (though on this forum we often find a source of amusement in the slightest things that reveal our different cultural and linguistic baggage, even when saying hello or placing an order) is the furthest thing from neutral, just like any other natural language.

 

[dojibear]

For better or worse, Christianity has both helped shape and spread your language.

I agree. I mis-spoke. English did not shape Christianity. But Christianity shaped English.

The King James version (the first widely available Bible translation in Englsh) was published in 1611, but it is still in widespread use (in the US) today, despite more recent translations. So are Shakespeare's plays, written between 1590 and 1615. Those plays are the bane of every US high-school student (they really can't read 1600 UK English).

I leave more subtle influences to scholars, of which I am not...one...of...? 不好意思，有时候我的英语水平不够高
(¡Perdóname! Hay momentos en que mi nivel de inglés no es suficiente. )