Simplistic auxlang

[Bryan]

The point is that I don't want dialects in this type of language.

That wouldn't be a dialect. That would just be an accent. If you invent an IAL, you have to expect people to bring traces of their L1 phonology with them. People will have accents, no matter how minimalist your phonology.

Indeed.

I mean, Sko, make it how you want, it's just that I never really understood auxlangers who were overly fussy ('oh, it must be pronounced like the 'r' in French, nothing else will do!').

As Imralu says, dialect and accent are not the same, and I don't think an auxlang with only one accent is reasonable; if people use your language, they'll just ignore you.

Ditto everything else Imralu says, too.

[Skomakar'n]

Indeed. All of that is very true. The smaller the phonology, the less room for error (yes; error), though.

Why not /l/?

Same reason as avoiding /r/.

@Imralu:
I'm less concerned about small differences in those sounds, though, and yes; I'm being very inconsistent in my thinking. A mispronounced rhotic (or lateral) just so happens to be a lot worse than a lot of other consonants, in my ears. English people are going to butcher the vowels, turning them all into diphthongs, no matter what, and the only way to avoid it would be to have no vowels, and that doesn't seem like a good solution. A rhotic can be easily thrown out, on the other hand.

[Bryan]

Hi Skomakar'n, I've been working on a similar project for ten years or more now. Indeed, I believe we may have vaguely discussed these projects before. Here are some of my basic criticisms.

they are often mangled beyond recognition

Uh-ho. What is the point of using them if they are mangled beyond recognition?

I love that the sound system is so simple. Most auxlangers really just can't grasp the bull by the horns and do what needs to be done -- hacking out our beloved Standard Average European phonemes! But perhaps you've overdone it a tad. In any case, check out Maori for an example of how foreign (English) roots can be incorporated into such a minimalistic sound system (although Maori obviously has ten (IIRC) consonants). (C)V: great.

Nouns always end in "a"? Adjectives always end in "u"? Noooooooooo. Even Esperanto, the mother of this notion, hates it, as many Esperantists drop the final vowels for "poetry" and wherever else needed.

Also, perhaps it's just me, but I don't see what is uninteresting about your language. I think it's pretty interesting!

[jal]

Hey Bryan,

Why are you necromancing a four year old thread? Also, Sho hasn't been seen around these parts for years...


JAL

[Bryan]

Hi Jal.

I ran a search on "auxlang". This was one of the first threads to come up. I got juiced up, posted. Quickly realised it is an old thread and I had already posted in it!

= FAIL.