New auxlang: Atlas

[zenmonkey]

Guys I wrote "failed" and specified that maybe it did not failed. I have a huge admiration for Esperanto, but it had many things that were far from perfect and it has not become the international language, that's all. That being said, it is by fair the most important conlang/auxlang and it is an inspiration for others, everyone is well aware of that. I live in a middle class neighborhood in BCN, and there is an Esperanto club meeting in a nearby train station, or at it least it was years ago. That is why I used the " with the word "failed", because it has been the most successfull attempt in history.

What expectations do you have for your efforts?
Do you hope to have 100 speakers? A million?

What is success for you?

Success is to be satisfied with what you have done, and I am proud of the final result*. The rest... time will tell, or not.


*this is not as easy as people might think. Creating a whole conlang/auxlang/artlang and feeling really proud of it is not easy at all. I have done small projects in the past (many years ago) and once put together all of them did not look right. I sometimes find pieces of paper belonging to them and I laugh. So reaching the point where you have found what you wanted, and what had in mind is what you see in the text, is a really cool feeling. Rodinian had that, but people opened my eyes and the result is even better. So having that feeling about something that has been terribly difficult to make is already a success.

I wish you the greatest satisfaction. It's pretty neat when you've got to a point on something that you are satisfied and consider that it is a thing unto itself. Best of luck. Thanks for the response.

[leosmith]

I will be waiting for your comments and thoughts on this.

I like the name.

[tommus]

Tommen maybe it was not clear in the grammar book, but ALL verbs end in -t, -s, -z. Aspect is an interfix.

My name is Tommus, not Tommen. You might also want to correct it on your web site.

Yes, I think that part could be a bit clearer, by saying that aspect is an interfix and that time is a suffix. I now see from the examples in the Grammar how aspect and time work together.

You even have determinant correlatives (see grammar) ending in -ar, or connectors ending in -ex

But you also have correlatives ending in k, d, g, i, t, p. It probably is too difficult but if all correlatives ended in the same letter, say "k", and then add -ar or -an as an interfix, that would be great. Same with conjunctions. Perhaps ending in "q". Most attitude particles are all 3-letters long (except 2), most ending in i. Could they all be 3-letters, all ending in i? For computers and for people, consistent patterns are next to godliness.

I know these suggestions are probably difficult to impossible, and I have no real idea just how complex any changes would be. I am simply thinking in terms of people and computers learning and processing.

New question: Given the flexible prefixes, suffixes and interfixes, as far as you know, is there any possibility of building an Atlas word that is the same as another existing word that is unrelated?

In the Grammar on page 9, you state:
"Examples of basic roots are: vale (speech), noce (night), xere (legality), baitu (house), heze (power), wane (end)…"
"Basic roots are the essential part of derived words..."

But are the basic roots not "val", "noc", etc., and the derived words "vale" and "noce"?

Should your numbers example in the Grammar (166: ekkel-sittdas-sitt) be (166: ekhen-sittdas-sitt)?

One of your prepositions for quantity is (o, bai (approximately)). That is the only example I have noticed that gives two possibilities. Why two? Is that correct?

Well, as I said before, this is interesting and fun. I still find it incredulous that you could put all this together so quickly. It is a remarkable achievement!

[Serpent]

I will be waiting for your comments and thoughts on this.

I like the name.

Yeah, I find the names of both conlangs fascinating and it would be fun to know more about them I also wonder what other conlangs the OP has created

[Rodiniye]

Tommen maybe it was not clear in the grammar book, but ALL verbs end in -t, -s, -z. Aspect is an interfix.

My name is Tommus, not Tommen. You might also want to correct it on your web site.

Yes, I think that part could be a bit clearer, by saying that aspect is an interfix and that time is a suffix. I now see from the examples in the Grammar how aspect and time work together.

You even have determinant correlatives (see grammar) ending in -ar, or connectors ending in -ex

But you also have correlatives ending in k, d, g, i, t, p. It probably is too difficult but if all correlatives ended in the same letter, say "k", and then add -ar or -an as an interfix, that would be great. Same with conjunctions. Perhaps ending in "q". Most attitude particles are all 3-letters long (except 2), most ending in i. Could they all be 3-letters, all ending in i? For computers and for people, consistent patterns are next to godliness.

I know these suggestions are probably difficult to impossible, and I have no real idea just how complex any changes would be. I am simply thinking in terms of people and computers learning and processing.

New question: Given the flexible prefixes, suffixes and interfixes, as far as you know, is there any possibility of building an Atlas word that is the same as another existing word that is unrelated?

In the Grammar on page 9, you state:
"Examples of basic roots are: vale (speech), noce (night), xere (legality), baitu (house), heze (power), wane (end)…"
"Basic roots are the essential part of derived words..."

But are the basic roots not "val", "noc", etc., and the derived words "vale" and "noce"?

Should your numbers example in the Grammar (166: ekkel-sittdas-sitt) be (166: ekhen-sittdas-sitt)?

One of your prepositions for quantity is (o, bai (approximately)). That is the only example I have noticed that gives two possibilities. Why two? Is that correct?

Well, as I said before, this is interesting and fun. I still find it incredulous that you could put all this together so quickly. It is a remarkable achievement!

First of all, appologies for changing your name! I would have bet my money that it was ending in -en. omg, I will correct that now on the website!

FIrst of all, the two examples you gave in grammar are mistakes. So I will correct that. Thank you very much. Yes, roots are the words without the final letter, so a basic root would be "val".

Changes in attitude particles... the good thing about them is that except for "nai" and "ie" (no/yes) the rest of them come at the end of the sentence, so they are easy to locate. As they are use as interjections, probably people would find difficult to express all their feelings always ending in -i? if you know what I mean.

As for the rest, I can certainly have a look and see what I can do. Prepositions have for instance a rule that are maximum 3 letters long, so there you have the difference from most substantives and adjectives (except probably "be" and "es"). I will have a look and see what could be done! Correlatives are the easier ones, as they already take substantive endings when they act as a pronoun, and -ar when they modify a noun. So I could find another ending for when they are adverbs. However, in these case they are always preceded by a preposition, so they are to locate too.

About building a word with two meanings... there are three prepositions that are the same as basic roots. "van" (activity prep) - "van" (root for rice), "dur" preposition for "while/during", "dur" basic root for "hard", "var" (prep. for "far") and "var" basic root for "wait".
Now the first two are not a problem, because they would never be used to create words. Maybe the second one "dur" you could argue that it is useful when we want to modify a basic root with a meaning of "time", but in that case the basic root "zait" (time) is used (and there are many examples in the dictionary).

The last one yes, it could be a bit of a problem and I will change it probably. "varbaxu" could be both a "far away place" or "place for waiting", and both could be alright. I had already though about this one and you will probably see that the preposition changes.

About "o" and "bai"... I don't understand 100% your question, but I will give you one example of each:

"Ze surdaukas o 40kg" - "he-she is carrying 40kg" (exactly)
"Ze surdaukas bai 40kg" - "he-she is carrying approximately/more or less 40kg".

Can't see any other meanings myself would open my eyes if I am wrong please

So a few minor changes coming today probably. And I will take your advice and have decided that:
- conjunctions will all be 2 letters ending in -a: "ta", "ma", etc.
- attitude particles will end in either -q or -i, and be 3 letters long.
- probably correlatives will have their own endings for all cases.

so the only ones remaining with no fixed ending will be prepositions.

[Rodiniye]

I will be waiting for your comments and thoughts on this.

I like the name.

Yeah, I find the names of both conlangs fascinating and it would be fun to know more about them I also wonder what other conlangs the OP has created

Conlangs that I can consider finished probably 3. One of them was forgotten after I did not like the result but took me a lot of time too (I even printed a copy of its grammar, which is at home still!). I was very very young though, so I cannot consider that as a serious project.

After that, another one was under construction, but after a year or so my computer broke down and I lost everything. I was not liking it very much either.

Then only Rodinian and Atlas. Rodinian however went through many stages. It was published partially in 2012 at uni I think but it was a bit different than what it is now.

I love languages but creating them is something long and exhausting. Atlas is probably my final project, whatever happens. I love writing too so I will probably create a basic artlang for a novel in the future or something, but nothing compared to Rodinian or Atlas. Something very basic to be used from time to time within the story!

[Serpent]

I also kinda meant "wow these are cool language names, what do they mean*? any other cool names, including those for conlangs you abandoned?"
*well atlas is relatively obvious but I wonder if you had any specific meaning in mind and maybe it's not actually obvious of course.
rodina means homeland or family in various Slavic languages does Rodinian have to do with it? what about your username?

[tommus]

About "o" and "bai"... I don't understand 100% your question, but I will give you one example of each:
"Ze surdaukas o 40kg" - "he-she is carrying 40kg" (exactly)
"Ze surdaukas bai 40kg" - "he-she is carrying approximately/more or less 40kg".
Can't see any other meanings myself would open my eyes if I am wrong please

Those two examples seem to be straightforward. However, in the Grammar about part 8. Prepositions, you have what you call "Find a list below". This list or table is confusing to me. Some of the items in the gray left hand column have a word or letter to their right, and some do not. Most prepositions have a letter or word plus the English meaning in brackets. Some do not. So I am referring to what is written to the right of "Quantity":

Quantity o, bai (approximately), bix (more, more than), mei (less, less than)

How does that tell the user that "o" means exact, and that "bai" (and not "o") means approximately.

I think the issue may be that the list is difficult to understand.

OK. I am going to have a closer look at prepositions, correlatives, conjunctions , connectors and attitude particles. Especially the attitude particles seem like a mystery to me if they can produce these two challenging sentences:

ze kommez vai – I desire, that he-she comes.
wi kaqez houdine kei – I am angry that I am working tomorrow.

vai=desire of the speaker
kei=anger by the speaker

So the sentences are literally:

ze kommez vai – he-she comes <-- I desire that
wi kaqez houdine kei – I am working tomorrow <--- I am angry at that

What language group does this sort of attitude particles formulation come from? That would take some getting used to for many learners.

[Rodiniye]

I also kinda meant "wow these are cool language names, what do they mean*? any other cool names, including those for conlangs you abandoned?"
*well atlas is relatively obvious but I wonder if you had any specific meaning in mind and maybe it's not actually obvious of course.
rodina means homeland or family in various Slavic languages does Rodinian have to do with it? what about your username?

I did not name any other conlangs, they did not deserve a name!

Rodinian comes from Rodinia, which is/was a supercontinent containing pretty much all current territories.

Atlas has its obvious meaning, plus it was the greek Titan that held up the sky. Furthermore, he was the son of Aether (magical element) and Gaia (nature), so I think all meanings together are the reason why I chose the name, I love all the meanings related to an auxlang.

[Rodiniye]

How does that tell the user that "o" means exact, and that "bai" (and not "o") means approximately.

[...]

What language group does this sort of attitude particles formulation come from? That would take some getting used to for many learners.

Yes! So what I mean is that in Atlas the Verb complement of quantity does need a preposition. So the standard preposition for quantity is "o", as "i" is for place or "u" for time.

It is interesting how English, for instance, seems to treat the quantity complement as a DO:

I want 3kg.

However, when asking questions, you get:

How much do you want?

(Clearly not *What do you want? - in this context)

So Atlas has got "o" for that, which yes, means precise, and "bai" would be approximately.

In Atlas it would be:

wi vules o 3kg.
di vules o ven?

As for the attitude particles, the idea comes from Lojban, and some langauges like Chinese have it partially.

It is good because they work as interjections too. Imagine for instance in English ha! (laugh) and "wow" (surprise). You could say:

he fell ha! (I find funny, that he fell)
he fell wow! (it was a surprise for me that he fell).

That is their use in a nuthsell. Of course they are not compulsory.

PS: The "vai" attitude particle has now changed a bit because I have changed the attitude particles and no more prepositions are equal to roots, so the problem you arised in one of your lasts posts is solved!

I will try to update the dictionary as well today with fruits, food and animals, using basic roots for everything.

And if possible a little text too.

Thanks for your comment!