Languages! Are! Weird!

...I think Tony Montana pronounced it like that too... :P

Found Deseret to screw about with. Here's the same thing I wrote a page back with my same pronunciation 'cept in Deseret.

𐐎𐐲𐑌𐑅 𐐲𐐹𐐱𐑌 𐐩 𐐻𐐴𐑋, 𐑄𐐲 𐐺𐑏𐐻𐐮𐑁𐐲𐑊 𐐼𐐱𐐻𐐯𐑉 𐐲𐑂 𐐩 𐑀𐑉𐐩𐐻 𐑋𐐲𐐾𐐮𐑇𐐮𐑌 𐐶𐐱𐑌𐐻𐐮𐐼 𐑋𐐬𐑉 𐐹𐐯𐑉𐑊𐑆 𐐻𐐭 𐐹𐐳𐐻 𐐲𐑋𐐲𐑍 𐐸𐐯𐑉 𐐽𐑉𐐯𐑈𐐯𐑉𐑆.

I wonder if anyone will be able to see it. My Google just turns it into squares but my notepad sees it just fine.

Note I used 𐑄𐐲 due to me not stressing the word. This is Not Proper Deseret. Schwas are to be spelt as if they were stressed. It would properly be '𐑄' as the letter while standing alone says it's name 'thee'.

Deseret? What is this sorcery?

You could look it up on Wikipedia :B. The jist is in the mid to late 19th century there was a sort of spelling reform boom. What spellings should be changed? Which kept? How to make sure their etymologies aren't lost? Well, some just suggested scraping the whole alphabet, English had changed alphabets before, why couldn't it do it again? And thus several such alphabets were made.

I decided to put the stupid sentence into Deseret because I happened to have the letters and I was bored. Plus it looks kinda cool.

Maybe we should change it. We could have one alphabet for the week and one for Sunday best. For hundreds of years, laws and books would be written in old-style English until one day, some enterprising novelist and/or poet decides to write in the manner of the common people.

There have been such suggestions in the past. The problem is the conversion of medias into the new form of speech/writing. It gets very expensive.

The Latin alphabet being used formally and some other simplified phonetic alphabet used informally would just raise a whole new mess of issues in my opinion. Even just trying it would be hard. It has to be popular, it has to have media of some form made in it, it needs to be easily accessible, keyboards need to be able to type in this alphabet and computer software needs to be able to properly show the text and not squares.

It could be done, emphasis on could. But it would be hard as sin and would take a very dedicated, very popular group a rather long while.

I looked up Deseret alphabet and wiki walked from there to Shavian alphabet. My opinion: Shavian is a dyslexic's nightmare.

Alphabets are fun, aren't they? That's why my eventual conlang has two.

Speakin o' conlangs I may as well point out Folkspraak. It's a Germanic based conlang whose goal is to be easily taught to all who know at least one Germanic language. It's kinda hinder'd however because the group making it has squabbles over which languages should be used as the basis for words. The original idea being choose the word or similar form most often used. This has actually divided Folkspraak into many dialects oddly enough, which actually makes it seem more realistic.

Here's The Lord's Prayer in Folkspraak for comparison:

Ons Fater,

whem leven in der Himmel,

Mai din Name werden helig,

Mai din Konigdom kommen,

Mai din will werden,

in der Erd und in der Himmel.

Geven os distdag ons Brod,

Und forgiv ons sindens,

samme Weg als wi

forgiv dem whem eren

skuld to uns.

Und test os nihte,

men spare os fraum der Sind.

edited 23rd Feb '14 2:50:00 PM by Blackcoldren

I think English has to have some measure of uniquity in being the only Romantic Germanic language. Pro-tip for L1 English L2 Spanish speakers - if you're ever struggling for a word in Spanish just say the English one with accent.

99pc of the time.

(joking mode) Romish Germanic tung? I find this ettling laughable and besmearful.

edited 23rd Feb '14 3:08:42 PM by Blackcoldren

Well, Dutch has a rather large collection of French words too (though not nearly as much as English). French itself actually has a large stock of Germanic roots, as the Franks were a Germanic tribe and spoke a Germanic language.

A lot of people seem to think, however, that English is somehow "uniquely" prone to borrowing words from other languages (especially French), which it isn't. Looking at Romanian, Albanian, and Japanese would make that clear enough; anywhere where there is massive overlap between two groups who speak different languages, those languages mix. Armenian actually took so many words from Persian that it was originally considered a part of the Indo-Iranian group, before linguists realized it formed its own branch of the Indo-European family.

Yes, but English seems to borrow quite aggressively. Predate, if you will. When we have to coin a new word we faff around in Latin and Greek dictionaries. Just call it Bonk! For god's sake it doesn't matter.

edited 23rd Feb '14 3:17:49 PM by Bede

Uncleftish Beholding. And to my knowledge Japanese is the most aggressive at borrowing new words.

I'd love to hear someone call water 'Dihydrogen monoxide'.

Every language is aggressive when it comes to borrowing new words. We "fluff around" with Greek and Latin roots because those are traditionally what is associated with the sciences and other academia in our language; other European languages do the same thing.

edited 23rd Feb '14 4:08:35 PM by somerandomdude

Not Icelandic,that language goes out of it's way not to borrow.But English wasn't afraid to just use the same word for geyser.

Caught myself saying " 'tain't ". My first thot was "is that even a word?" Turns out it is. Why I thot to even say let alone shorten 'tis ain't I don't know. I do say 'tis but never before 'tis ain't.

Also, I'm too lazy to put apostrophes in my tho'ts.

edited 24th Feb '14 3:35:19 AM by Blackcoldren

Nations that have a history of being ruled by foreign powers often take steps to "purify" their languages. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't (like it happened with Greek), and sometimes it leads to groaningly bad puns. Like, in that case when thus localised word for an integral was also an archaism for a virgin. Cue generations of students tormented with jokes about integrals being difficult to find.

Hmmm, Folkspraak sounds very similar to Haernian from my fantasy stories, and Haernian was pretty much all sorts of vaguely Germanic words made to sound Dutch or thereabouts.

If I read that Folkspraak prayer in my mind it almost sounds like the type of Low German (Münsterländer Platt) my grandparents speak.

One thing I always find annoying about modern German is that we don't have seperate words for friend and boy/girlfriend. The only way to distinguish between both is the article you use:

Er ist ein Freund = He is a friend (of mine)
Er ist mein Freund = He is my boyfriend => cue snikering from the others.

Most guys don't even use "friend" at all and just use words like "pal" or "fella" to tiptoe around this.

edited 25th Feb '14 12:02:00 AM by Kiefen

Somehow "schwas" reminds me of Harry Potter.

Anyway, this thread... does it include discussions of Conlang?

/shrug I'd spose so. It just specifies 'languages' whether it's Latin or Klingon I don't care. I can't speak for others tho.

In Berlin, I found that "Kumpel" mostly eclipsed "Freund" as the general word for "friend," precisely for that very reason.

It's shakier ground when it comes to girls; generally, you have to take the long route and say eine Freundin von mir lest people get the wrong idea, and I never heard the word Kumpelin, although apparently it's a thing.

On the other hand, friends I had from other countries, most of whom spoke gendered languages, found it completely baffling that English doesn't have separate words for "male friend" and "female friend."

edited 25th Feb '14 10:09:58 AM by somerandomdude

Spent the last 2 hours trying to find if the word 'friend' has ever had gender in English. As far as I can tell at one early point in Old English there was a similar feminine word that never continued afterwards. So afterwards I tried to find the origin of the Dutch and German '-in' ending that makes the nouns feminine. I found the suffix in Old English as '-en'. Not to be confused with the diminutive '-en' i.e. chicken. It seems to have greatly fallen in use dying sometime in Middle English as '-enne'. Perhaps due to the popularity of French -ess / -ette?

FUCKING LATIN.

We started it in my university this semester.

My native tongue is actually Russian, so English "as a foreign language" makes it really easy for me to guess certain Latin words. So in some ways they are similar to the more "complicated" English words... until Latin decides to be Latin and throws a fucking curveball.

Sorry. Had to vent. I'm still the best student at "guessing" words without looking them up in the dictionary, which greatly saves time, so I'm not complaining. It still feels weird walking on such solid-shaky ground, though, when "I can understand that word, hold on" suddenly becomes "Wait, what was that?"