The Rosenfelder Challenge

[Kereb]

conlanging IS linguistic masturbation
dammit i wish i'd saved Xephyr's rant on that

sorry if that makes grammar-nerds unfit to appreciate huttese ...

or maybe you know, the people who tinker over getting their chanterelles in balsamic reduction just perfect still DO have a hot dog from time to time

EDIT: cheat sheet -- the correct response to this, since it once again addresses your frame rather than challenging you within that frame, is to concoct the smuggest possible declaration of having foe'd me

[ashmoonfruit]

Kereb:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... MiN1c&NR=1
Am I getting the hang of this yet?

[Yng]

I'd like to point out that the first of my quotes was accurate (i.e. it would not have been directed at you if you had, in fact, known how to do French) and the second one added not for your benefit but after you had in fact foed me so you didn't have to deal with accurate criticism

Also what is the point in foeing people if you're going to read the posts anyway? I suppose if you assert publically over and over again that you LOVE THAT FOE FUNCTION and you KEEP USING THAT FOE FUNCTION and OH I'M GLAD THE FOE FUNCTION EXISTS GEE WILLIKERS and HERE ARE SOME PEOPLE I FOED BECAUSE THEY ARE OH SO NASTY~~~~ then you have a great excuse for not dealing with them, viz. that you 'haven't read their posts'.

My criticisms still stand. If you want me to phrase them in the most polite way possible again, fine, I will.

You do not really understand linguistics. There's nothing wrong with this, per se, but the thing that is riling everyone up is that you keep acting like you do, whilst simultaneously going 'well I do not know anything about linguistics!' You need to investigate your concept of simplicity - a concept reflected by your conlang, which I have had a look at. Your idea of what simplicity or minimalism is is remains, effectively, English assumptions minus some of the things which you see as extraneous, showing little or no understanding of pragmatics. Your conlang, for example, maintains two possessive structures, apparently modelled exactly on English. Why? This is neither the most morphologically simplistic way to do it, nor the most syntactically simplistic. And having two options is not simple, either.

As for your great accomplishment, as I said before - it is no great achievement. Well done you, you managed to get by with pidginised Spanish based on a very small vocabulary and some very cursory knowledge of grammar. This is step two in the most basic way of learning a language. And as Pthag says, it is a very low standard of language learning. There is literally no difference between your method and those more detailed wordlist + grammar summaries in certain guidebooks except, as you rightly say, the intention behind their use - and I'm dubious about that. You wanted to communicate, so do normal tourists. The only difference is that you were in a predominantly monolingual environment for a considerably longer time than the average tourist, which meant, presumably, that your fluency was greater (and you also had the chance to internalise new words).

Now can we get on with the conversation like civilised people? I'm bored of this.

oh no god forbid that you be BORED by something oh lordy lordy lordy

Kereb is basically right

[Kereb]

i'm just gonna pretend nothing you said had any content so it's funny to me that you tried to convey something

figured.
and yeah, you nailed the smug thing. totally.

[Vuvuzela]

hey Venezuela how come you don't come on IRC any more

I've started school again. I can write a paper with the ZBB open in another tab, but with IRC open, I'm checking back every couple of seconds and can't get anything done.

[Pthagnar]

also what *is* your favourite interjection? after reading
Philosophy
by
Ash
i have reconsidered and think it might actually be "huzzah". is that right?

[ashmoonfruit]

No, it's 'shit!'

Why 'huzzah'? The part about economics should make it clear that I have an irrational hatred of posh people.

[Yng]

pretty ironic coming from a south american backpacker

[Pthagnar]

no, no that was not clear at all. in fact, the whole thing was rather bourgeois.

[ashmoonfruit]

oh yeah, the French thing. No, I do know where the circumflex etc go, but I'm just lazy - AltGr is easier, and better than nothing. Or maybe not.

[Pthagnar]

i what?

[Nortaneous]

philosophy is terrible

[ashmoonfruit]

Hey, I earn my travel cash, and partly from manual labour - not a penny of mummy and daddy's gap year fund involved, ever.

Bourgeois? Well, I never let my irrational class hatreds get in the way of reason. Some say philosophy is inherently bourgeois.

[ashmoonfruit]

philosophy is terrible

In general, or are you just being a cunt?

[Pthagnar]

ooooooooh, you said cunt! that's a bad word. very sexist.

[Kereb]

In general, or are you just being a cunt?

sorry i couldn't understand that
can't you rephrase it in a breezy manner that suggests the real issue is that Nortaneous can't handle you for blowing his mind?


monocles
just
littering the floor

[cromulant]

In a nutshell, it's this: "With a vocabulary so small that a child could learn it in a week using a flashcard program, and a morsel of grammar learned the same way, you can learn enough of a language (including one that you've made up yourself) to start speaking it with a freedom that will propel your understanding forward at a greatly accelerated rate (and if it's your own conlang, speaking it will bring it alive in new ways)". This message is not addressed to linguists who prefer their own methods, but to other amateurs and non-specialist language learners.

The "Rosenfelder Challenge" has nothing to do with language learning. His point concerns language itself--specifically, the size of a viable lexicon. So your point is off-point.

You have failed to prove that the tiny lexicon you used in Peru was viable, because it's quite obvious you were severely limited in what you could say.

And while what you did sounds fun and great, the nutshell bit quoted above is old news that everyone already knew about. (I don't know where you got this idea that your 'discoveries' would be some shocking heresy to linguists). Nor does your 'discovery' address the "Rosenfelder Challenge" at all, since you used the lexicon only as a starting point. (It did seem like it was veering toward addressing it when you implied that you could hold down political discussions with ease, but I respectfully submit that you grossly overstated the case there).

[ashmoonfruit]

Don't be racist! 'Cunt' is only considered obscene because of the bastard Normans and their poncey French words for everything.

[Pthagnar]

that is not as funny as you think it is. misogyny is no joke -- after reading
Philosophy
by
Ash
i am shocked you could so lightheartedly say such things.

[Yng]

He apparently thinks it's hilarious but then what can you expect from the kind of guy who conducts a meaningful relationship using only platitudes and apologies

[Pthagnar]

i suppose it does put that in a new light, yes

[ashmoonfruit]

In a nutshell, it's this: "With a vocabulary so small that a child could learn it in a week using a flashcard program, and a morsel of grammar learned the same way, you can learn enough of a language (including one that you've made up yourself) to start speaking it with a freedom that will propel your understanding forward at a greatly accelerated rate (and if it's your own conlang, speaking it will bring it alive in new ways)". This message is not addressed to linguists who prefer their own methods, but to other amateurs and non-specialist language learners.

The "Rosenfelder Challenge" has nothing to do with language learning. His point concerns language itself--specifically, the size of a viable lexicon. So your point is off-point.

You have failed to prove that the tiny lexicon you used in Peru was viable, because it's quite obvious you were severely limited in what you could say.

And while what you did sounds fun and great, the nutshell bit quoted above is old news that everyone already knew about. (I don't know where you got this idea that your 'discoveries' would be some shocking heresy to linguists). Nor does your 'discovery' address the "Rosenfelder Challenge" at all, since you used the lexicon only as a starting point. (It did seem like it was veering toward addressing it when you implied that you could hold down political discussions with ease, but I respectfully submit that you grossly overstated the case there).

"Old news" you say? Is there anything here that someone else hasn't already said?

And anyway, get with the system, dude - this isn't about insulting each other subtly by staying vaguely on-topic any more. We're just being cunts each other.

[Kereb]

i dunno i could think of a half-dozen people who would probably say it was about staying exactly on-topic and that the cuntliness and drift could be traced to a certain
... evasiveness?

maybe
even


u

[ashmoonfruit]

He apparently thinks it's hilarious but then what can you expect from the kind of guy who conducts a meaningful relationship using only platitudes and apologies

Who said anything about meaningful?

[Pthagnar]

it wasn't?