Your Favorite Almea Language

[goneriku]

I enjoy Cadhinor the most. Due to the history and grammar.

[cartweel]

I've always liked Wede:i because of its agglutinative style and, well... it's hellsa old.

[Lleu]

I like Wede:i for similar reasons. Of all of the Almean languages, it's probably the one I'd consider learning first.

[BGMan]

I personally think Wede:i looks rather like Indonesian.

Again, I agree. Primarily because of the syllable structure, I would think. Syllable structure goes a long way in determining the "flavor" of a language, or at least so it seems to me.

Having said that, it also sounds a bit like a blend of Japanese and some strangely polysyllabic Chinese dialect. To a lesser extent its descendants and the Axunaic family also sound a bit like that.

I would have to say Elkaril, as most of the others were too European.

Eddy: I could understand your calling Cadhinor and its descendants "too European", since they are deliberately designed to resemble European languages, but it's that word "most" that puzzles me. Do Kebreni, Old Skourene, Wedei, Flaidish, and Axunašin really seem that way to you? I realize Axunašin does have some IE-ish elements, due to its relation to the Central langs, but in truth it also has a lot in common with other language families; for example, the shift of the nominative-accusative distinction into a new variety of grammatical gender is decidedly un-IE-like, and the phonology seems to me to more closely resemble that of a sort of Turkic-Japonic hybrid. Flaidish has a vowel shift in its history similar to the English Great Vowel Shift, but that's about all it has in common with English. Cuêzi has a rather IE-ish grammar overall, but its roots bear little resemblance to IE roots, in contrast to the Central langs. So I guess your remark strikes me as a bit odd. I'm not attacking you; I'm just kind of surprised that you said what you did.

That said, Elkarîl is pretty sweet. However, my favorite among Mark's creations has to be Old Skourene. There's just no contest. The verbiness, the ergativity, the sound system, the twisted semantics, and last but not least the ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE WRITING SYSTEM -- what's not to love?

I think Axunashin and hence Xurnash would not correspond with European, but rather as a distant relative of European languages... such as Hindi and the other languages of north India (and Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran...)

I still think that Zomp needs to clean up his Old Skourene (and those other southern languages) a bit. Not meaning to be harsh, but I find those wacky T's to be eyesores.

As for your statement that "Flaidish has a vowel shift in its history similar to the English Great Vowel Shift, but that's about all it has in common with English."... I wouldn't say that. Flaidish seems to have several features in common with the Germanic languages... not just English, but German as well. Besides the plural, verb infinitive, and preterite formations which Flaidish has in common with German, both languages share the "ck" feature (with English) and German employs the "double consonant makes previous vowel short" rule more vigorously than we do (we anglophones get quite sloppy with our longer Latin borrowings.) Lastly, Dutch has written doubles for all five vowels (ij = "ii", a throwback to when j was an alternate i).

BG

[WeepingElf]

Hallo!

As for your statement that "Flaidish has a vowel shift in its history similar to the English Great Vowel Shift, but that's about all it has in common with English."... I wouldn't say that. Flaidish seems to have several features in common with the Germanic languages... not just English, but German as well. Besides the plural, verb infinitive, and preterite formations which Flaidish has in common with German, both languages share the "ck" feature (with English) and German employs the "double consonant makes previous vowel short" rule more vigorously than we do (we anglophones get quite sloppy with our longer Latin borrowings.) Lastly, Dutch has written doubles for all five vowels (ij = "ii", a throwback to when j was an alternate i).

BG

Don't confuse peculiarities of the spelling with features of the language.

What regards the "European-ness" of the Almean languages - the Cadhinorian group feels very European, Cuezi a little less so, while Axunashin has departed from the IE-ish pattern of Proto-Eastern in an interesting and unique way. Old Skourene feels vaguely Semitic due to its triconsonantal root system (though the phonology is more like languages of India with that retroflex series). Elkaril has features (such as graded signs and "assigned anaphora") that are not just non-European but plainly non-human. But that, according to what Mark has said about it (which, though, isn't much), will probably pale against what we're likely to get to see once he rolls out his first Ilian language.

[BGMan]

Don't confuse peculiarities of the spelling with features of the language.

I'm a little confused.

I had said:

"Besides the plural, verb infinitive, and preterite formations which Flaidish has in common with German..."

...which to me seems like features of the language, even though it was mentioned as an aside.

BG

[WeepingElf]

Hallo!

Don't confuse peculiarities of the spelling with features of the language.

I'm a little confused.

I had said:

"Besides the plural, verb infinitive, and preterite formations which Flaidish has in common with German..."

...which to me seems like features of the language, even though it was mentioned as an aside.

BG

True. They are. But the main point of your post seemed to be the similarities in spelling.

[Neek]

But that, according to what Mark has said about it (which, though, isn't much), will probably pale against what we're likely to get to see once he rolls out his first Ilian language.

I have a feeling Mark'll require to grow a second brain in order for him to produce anything Iliu.

[ghur]

Hallo!

Hallo.

Elkaril has features (such as graded signs and "assigned anaphora") that are not just non-European but plainly non-human.

I believe ASL, which is definately human, has something like the assigned anaphora, where you can sign something in a space around you and then refer to that area to refer to the thing. (And I think the lack of a 1st and 2nd person is much more nonhuman).

That said, it is still rather bizarre, and I haven't ever seen it in a spoken language (other then one I made).

[WeepingElf]

Hallo!

Hallo!

Hallo.

Elkaril has features (such as graded signs and "assigned anaphora") that are not just non-European but plainly non-human.

I believe ASL, which is definately human, has something like the assigned anaphora, where you can sign something in a space around you and then refer to that area to refer to the thing. (And I think the lack of a 1st and 2nd person is much more nonhuman).

That said, it is still rather bizarre, and I haven't ever seen it in a spoken language (other then one I made).

I didn't know about assigned anaphora in ASL, and I wasn't aware that Elkaril lacks 1st and 2nd person pronouns - the latter is indeed a non-human trait.

[BGMan]

I didn't know about assigned anaphora in ASL, and I wasn't aware that Elkaril lacks 1st and 2nd person pronouns - the latter is indeed a non-human trait.

I understand that Japanese doesn't really have pronouns either. What "pronouns" they do have are full words rather than short enclitics, and not normally used in speech. "Watashi" seems to be more equivalent to, for example, a new Marine saying "this recruit" rather than what we would think of as "I" (and in fact requires the same number of syllables ).

BG

[zompist]

I understand that Japanese doesn't really have pronouns either. What "pronouns" they do have are full words rather than short enclitics, and not normally used in speech. "Watashi" seems to be more equivalent to, for example, a new Marine saying "this recruit" rather than what we would think of as "I" (and in fact requires the same number of syllables ).

I've heard this too, but I'm a bit skeptical. It seems to confuse the transparent etymology of pronouns with their nonexistence. But you don't have to go any further than Portuguese to find transparent pronouns-- is "o senhor" simply the phrase "the lord" (or "the mister")?

And for what it's worth, linguists like Samuel Martin and Masayoshi Shibatani cheerfully refer to Japanese pronouns.

[BGMan]

Actually, "o senhor" reminds me of a swanky French waiter saying, "would le monsieur like a glass of wine?"

But I'll agree, I don't know of anything like the Elkaril -qebat/-at vowel assignations.

BG

[butsuri]

With regard to Japanese, it ultimately becomes a question of how you want to define "pronoun". But the important difference is not the etymology, but that Japanese often uses full nouns to refer to 1st and 2nd person referents, and the personal pronouns are a comparatively much less important part of this system than in e.g. English. (3rd person pronouns hardly exist, being dealt with through zero anaphora.) When seen in this context, it's less clear that the pronouns really constitute a distinct class within the set of terms used for self-reference and address.

I'd go into more detail, but most of what I know about this I got from Suzuki's Words in Context; since I picked that up due to its being recommended in the LCK, Zompist at least must already be familiar with the argument.

(I'll agree in any case that even if one doesn't consider watashi, boku, anata &c to be pronouns, they aren't quite like Elkaril anaphora, which probably are genuinely inhuman.)

[Adso de Fimnu]

I have a special fondness for Barakhinei, but I admit I probably don't know any Almean language well-enough to evaluate them.

[Solarius]

My favorites are Kebreni and Old Skourene. Kebreni is more aesthetically appealing, but Old Skourene introduced to tons of new ideas to me.