New international language: Rodinian

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Re: New international language: Rodinian

Postby smallwhite » Wed Jun 14, 2017 2:12 pm

Rodiniye wrote:... and a wink-wink to French speakers for instance /y/ sounds, or to other languages


I watched a bit of your Youtube video on Rodinian phonology just now. It bored me how you say the sound only twice and then spend up to half a minute telling me what the example word means, which was not what I wanted to know when I clicked on this video on phonology. So I fast-forwarded, noticed /y/, and I played again to hear you pronounce it. But it seems that you left this sound out. I'm not exactly sure if you did, though, as the volume of the video is so low I couldn't really hear what you were saying even though it's midnight here and very quiet.

How many Rodinian speakers are there at this moment? Do you speak it fluently?

What is the benefit of capitalising sentences?

It's not just professional computer people who parse and process text. I keep vocabulary lists in Excel and I have to deal with the apostrophe in "l'arbre", too.
Last edited by smallwhite on Wed Jun 14, 2017 2:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: New international language: Rodinian

Postby zenmonkey » Wed Jun 14, 2017 2:12 pm

smallwhite wrote:
Rodiniye wrote:
Thanks a lot guys for your opinions, but I truly don't see why somebody could be attacking as you mentioned. I am not earning a single penny for this, I am not selling anything, I am just an expert in linguistics who has been building a project for 11 years and I am happy to see what you have for or against it. Extremely happy. But no need to "attack" anyone. I know speaking about an unknown language is difficult, but some people are making lots of assumptions and I do not understand why. Again, I am very happy about constructive opinions and I am getting many, but some people seem a bit irritated and there is no need! :) peace

Try writing a different introductory post and/or introductory page. 11 years of work deserves a well-thought-out presentation, a professionally-written one, even.

Your website was the first ever to cause my computer mouse to slog.


I think that is part of the issue. Over-promise on the OP probably raised an eyebrow or two. Simply, "perfect tool for communication", "it allows no discrimination of any kind" are really vast promises.

Lik s urina.

If I wrote that correctly, basically associates the gender-neutral to being urine - it would seem quite possible to construct epithetic and general discriminatory statements about a group. Now I know that isn't what was meant by that initial statement but it requires a little more refinement in its communication.

So no one want to touch the strong Sapir–Whorf claims?

Rodiniye wrote:Take their example with the Hopi speakers: they did not know the difference between orange-yellow, simply because the language was using the same word for both.


First of all, it was the Zuni and it isn't that they did not know the difference - it is that they more often confused the yellow and orange during a recognition exercise and have greater difficulty in remembering specifically these colors than English speakers. You'll find the same occurs with the French when it comes to stop lights (despite that the French certainly have a term for a variety of colours in the spectrum) it is just that stop lights are 'feu orange'. Physiological function is not defined by language.

Anyway, it is at the very least, far from clear cut and linguistic relativity and color naming remains a vast and unresolved debate.
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Re: New international language: Rodinian

Postby Stefan » Wed Jun 14, 2017 2:23 pm

tarvos wrote:Equally I've read articles that have pointed out its use has skyrocketed, it has been used in the Riksdag before and that scientists have published research that it is clearly here to stay.

I fully agree with you. However, when the minister for gender equality first mentioned hen, it became big news and Riksdagen agreed that it shouldn't be allowed in their texts. It highlights the controversy around it. Sweden's most subscribed morning newspaper (DN) banned the use in 2012. It's changing rapidly though and it's becoming a lot more common, partly thanks to dedicated users. I just wanted to put it in context for non-swedes but it's becoming extremely off-topic.
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Re: New international language: Rodinian

Postby Henkkles » Wed Jun 14, 2017 2:30 pm

Rodiniye wrote:Sounds... yes you are right. You create a language with what, 5 sounds? tama mata latama tamata. It can be done. Standard English has got how many sounds? 40? more? so 28 against 40 is already a big saving.


English is an unhelpful comparison, because Germanic languages are among the most vowel rich in the world. I think Ma'ori has 15 sounds, give or take, and it sure looks more complicated than "tama mata ta". Here's a piece of Ma'ori text I found on Omniglot:

"Ko te katoa o nga tangata i te whanaungatanga mai e watea ana i nga here katoa; e tauriterite ana hoki nga mana me nga tika."

On a brief google it would seem that Spanish has 24 sounds, I think if you kicked the rhotics out you'd already have a pretty great general purpose phonology.

Rodiniye wrote:I do not think many languages go below 28 real sounds.


Well this is pretty easy to check, let's go to WALS.info. Here's a link: http://wals.info/combinations/1A_2A#2/19.5/152.8

There is a total of 560 possible pairs on WALS.

Here they are the most common five types (overlap due to consonant/vowel ratio):

1. 26-39 speech sounds (86 languages, ~15%)
2. 24-31 speech sounds (84 languages, 15%)
3. 20-24 speech sounds (75 languages, ~14%)
4. 11-22 speech sounds (53 languages, ~9%)
5. 31-39 speech sounds (42 languages, 7.5%)

These scales are bottom heavy because according to WALS 1A smaller consonant inventories are more common than large ones. Let it also be noted that 2/3rds of ALL languages ever studied have fewer than six phonemic vowels. I'd say it's fair to say that the amount of small inventory languages is in excess of 25% of all languages, that is, at least a thousand.

Rodiniye wrote:The distinction you are referring to is not that uncommon, it appears in one of my mother tongues for instance (Catalan), and it comes from Latin, so it cannot be that uncommon.


Common in Europe, not everywhere. Most of the time if a language has affricates, it only distinguishes voicing, very few languages in the world distinguish both voicing and palatal/alveolar distinction. Look at the data, there are studies and books about phonological typology.

Rodiniye wrote:Are sounds overcomplicated when it has got probably the same amount or close to Esperanto, and close to -33% than English? Well... if it had 60 sounds I would say wow yes! but... it is not the case.

Yes and yes. Please don't bring up the abomination that is Esperanto, it is a disgrace and an example of terrible design.

Rodiniye wrote:BUT I will give you that one. Could I come back in time? Maybe 2-3 sounds less could be considered. I agree with you. But for me, adding those 2-3 sounds meant more possibilities for creation, and a wink-wink to French speakers for instance /y/ sounds, or to other languages. I want people to find features in this language that are part of their native language, so that they say... hey! I know that. 2-3 sounds more might be worth that, or not.


94% of the world's languages don't have front rounded vowels, source: http://wals.info/chapter/11

Rodiniye wrote:Most languages do not have future, English does not. However, it uses "will", "going to", present perfect... as non-native speaker and English teacher, I can tell you that is extremely difficult for some people. Single morpheme "z" takes seconds to teach. "will", "won't", "going to", .... etc. is a lot harder and takes months to master, I can tell you that.


I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish by comparing it to English and saying "at least it's not like that!", as it should be a given that a well designed auxlang is free from hurdles that natural languages have.

Rodiniye wrote:No marking at all... well I know what you mean, but do you want to lose accuracy and precision, just because you do not want to put a "z" at the end of the verb?


I suppose not, but if I say "I sleep" and you can clearly tell I'm not sleeping, surely you understand that it's a future reference? No accuracy or precision is lost. Semantics, pragmatics, inferences, world knowledge all serve to disambiguate meanings. We can never be unambiguous, temporal reference is the least of such problems.

Rodiniye wrote:vit (lived) - vis (live) - viz (will live-going to live), 3 letters. Is it that complicated? really?


Besides the point. People who don't speak a future-coding language (ie. most people of the world) would have to learn to align their linguistic production to take that into account. I think a good auxlang should go the opposite way.

Rodiniye wrote:I think not having tense markers is even more complicated. You have to be looking for that adverb, or inferee the tense... sounds much more complicated to me!

Nice contribution, thank you.


You're basing this on your gut instinct rather than science, and underestimating the parsing capabilities of human beings.

Peace.
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Re: New international language: Rodinian

Postby Rodiniye » Wed Jun 14, 2017 2:34 pm

smallwhite wrote:
Rodiniye wrote:... and a wink-wink to French speakers for instance /y/ sounds, or to other languages


I watched a bit of your Youtube video on Rodinian phonology just now. It bored me how you say the sound only twice and then spend up to half a minute telling me what the example word means, which was not what I wanted to know when I clicked on this video on phonology. So I fast-forwarded, noticed /y/, and I played again to hear you pronounce it. But it seems that you left this sound out. I'm not exactly sure if you did, though, as the volume of the video is so low I couldn't really hear what you were saying even though it's midnight here and very quiet.

How many Rodinian speakers are there at this moment? Do you speak it fluently?

What is the benefit of capitalising sentences?

It's not just professional computer people who parse and process text. I keep vocabulary lists in Excel and I have to deal with the apostrophe in "l'arbre", too.


I think I made, you have "u" written in the screen but I pronounce "û", ant then viceversa in the next one (althoguh examples are correct). I was reading it from another list so hence the confussion I think.

Rodinian speakers? it has been published 3 days ago... Myself? I can say a few things correctly yes, I know all the grammar of course and I could have a conversation. Of course I do not know by heart the 11.000 entries.

Looks neat and gives order to the text. My opinion.

I am a translator (too, if you are) and never had a problem with apostrophes, but I guess some people have different experiences.

--

Having said this, I think some people are reacting a bit weirdly. Only one or two, but it is a bit tiring now. There is ways and ways of saying things, just be polite guys. I am not earning anything so thinks like "I got bored" just don't make any sense. Or saying how many speakers are there when it was published 3 days ago. Or treating the OP like if I did not know anything. I admire your knowledge but some of you are overreacting and saying things you simply don't know. But it is very easy to be behind a screen and sound as if everyone was an expert in something. I am trying and making a big effort to be nice and answer to everyone, and I will keep doing so. But pointless interventions will be skipped. Sorry but I am just expecting a bit of respect. I want to know what you do not like, but that is far from being arrogant, saying things that you do not really know, trying to underrate this work with no reason or being extremely unpolite. Some of you should know what respect and politeness means, that is all I am asking for from a few that seem to ignore the meaning of all of that.

--

To finish the Sapir-Whorf and other mentions... this project was part of my dissertation in one of the best unis in Spain and it got 99% mark. It included all this theory. Do you think expert people would give a 99/100 if things were made up or just wrong? or if they did not make sense? then think twice, it is all I have to say about this arrogance some people have sometimes.
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Re: New international language: Rodinian

Postby Rodiniye » Wed Jun 14, 2017 2:53 pm

Henkkles wrote: Text


All I am going to say is that those statistics are basically misleading. It gives the same importance to a language spoken by 1000 million people and 3 people.

English is a lingua franca and it uses many many sounds, oh well. The problem with English is not the amount of sounds. The problem is that in English, each "e" in Mercedes is pronounced differently, or live/life are pronounced differently, etc. Having a few more sounds? I am Spanish and speak English with pretty much x2 sounds. Many English learners, easily, get to know 90% of the English sound in a very little time. So theory is very good but it is just that.
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Re: New international language: Rodinian

Postby Sol » Wed Jun 14, 2017 2:54 pm

Rodiniye wrote:
Sol wrote:Do you have an example of how it sounds spoken?


There you go, as promised, how it sounds (beginning to the story: Ali Baba and the fourty thieves):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pJNnQ1 ... e=youtu.be

Hope you like it.


Sounds like a mix of Persian and something Scandinavian.
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Re: New international language: Rodinian

Postby smallwhite » Wed Jun 14, 2017 3:02 pm

Rodiniye wrote:... any comments are very welcome.

Rodiniye wrote:I am not earning anything so thinks like "I got bored" just don't make any sense.

I am not earning anything from giving you comments either.

Rodiniye wrote:Or saying how many speakers are there when it was published 3 days ago.

I noticed you read the Alibaba story very fluently but recalled word definitions slowly, so I wondered about your fluency, and hence, who else you've been speaking the language with. I did not know when you published your language but even if I did, I'd have thought you'd tested it and used it over the 11 years.
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Re: New international language: Rodinian

Postby Rodiniye » Wed Jun 14, 2017 3:10 pm

smallwhite wrote: Text


Yes it has been tested but published 3 days ago, so I am learning with all of you. Of course I want comments, but respectful and constructive ones! Which most of them are I have to say ;)

Thank you
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Re: New international language: Rodinian

Postby aokoye » Wed Jun 14, 2017 3:12 pm

Rodiniye wrote:Well, if you do not like auxlangs/conlangs then it is fair enough and there is nothing more to discuss. Languages that pursue being international (only a handful have been made that could truly pursue this dream) are effective because they eliminate lingua franca being owned by a single nation/group of speakers.

I will ask you three questions:
- do you think is fair that ENG is the lingua franca, and ENG native speakers have the advantage of not having to learn another language? (with the amount of effort it takes for others).
- do you think is useful that the lingua franca changes depending on who is ruling the world? (was French before, could be Chinese next?)
- do you think is fair that even if other people learn English, reaching an expertise level is so difficult that they will always have problems when communicating, so they will be in disadvantage in front of ENG native speakers?

If the answers are "yes" to everything, there is no more discussion. If you hesitated, I ask you:
- wouldn't be interesting to create or use a tool for common communication? that does not change from time to time, that is made with a bit of every language and that is easy to learn? that everyone requires the same or similar effort to learn? (won't be the same, but certainly you would not have this discrepancy of people learning 0 and people learning EN for 20 years).

Thanks for your reply! :)

Question 1: No
Question 2: I think it's realistic, I don't know that I would say it's useful, but I think it's logical.
Question 3: This isn't about fair and unfair - I think it will require the L2 speaker to have resources at their disposal to allow them to learn English to a high level and not everyone has those resources, but that is going to be true for an L2 speaker of any language.

For your last question, in principle I do not like the idea of languages constructed in order to be international. They are, in my view, no better than lingua franca, if anything they're slightly worse (in theory) because at least with a lingua franca there is a (non-con) language that is kept alive. If we had some imaginary situation where a conlang became a regional or global lingua franca then you'd have even more languages lost. English and the other large languages associated with linguistic colonialism also aren't the only languages that are pushing out and essentially causing the death of other languages.
I also suspect that you know this, but living languages change. It is completely and utterly unrealistic to assume that a language that is alive won't change. It's not even like they change from time to time, they are changing all the time. Languages are constantly in a state of flux. There would also be a far wider discrepancy in the ease of language acquisition than I think you're assuming.
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