Comments and Criticisms up to 9th Edition
"I think that it is probably a mistake to push particular solutions too hard. I think that it might be better to act as a facilitator, rather than as an advocate. I suggest that your website might act as a venue for the equivalent of the SSS's PVs (Personal Views). At the same time there might be an on-going project. Visitors to the site could be invited to vote for various alternatives." (RC 31/8/00)
"I've been giving this some thought. I think I understand what you're getting at, and, if so, I agree - up to a point: "facilitator of IALs and advocate" might be better. Indeed, these two missions should be combined, since a number of people have set up IAL lists with links to various sites (including "Artlangs" and other constructed languages) - i.e. the list providers are already acting as facilitators.......
As for your questionnaire, I'm not sure that grammar should be an either/or between simple and complex forms; I think the grammar should contain both, with a seamless web between them. Only the simple form would be taught to learners, but this would not matter in the IAL, since nobody would "own" it idiomatically. Probably there would be no stigma in speaking pidgin-like grammar in the short or medium term (a couple of centuries, perhaps) since the complex grammar of the mother-tongues would remain." (AA 15/9/00)
"I agree that finding a culturally neutral IAL is the preferred choice of many thinkers, but I'm not sure that it's realistic. Language is such a social construct - the medium for culture, ideas and feelings - that it's hard to imagine it being neutral. Also, our languages are enriched by slang and idioms, and the loss of this in an IAL would be regrettable don't you think.......
Another question which I didn't really see addressed in Lango or the website but which I think is central to creating an IAL is the question of language change. With language change taking place naturally in every language, how can any IAL retain its universalness for long, as local dialects move inevitably in different directions, unless it becomes like Latin became, a purely written language? Agreed, isolation, one of the major reasons for divergence, is nothing like what it used to be, but it seems that many peoples deliberately isolate themselves culturally, using language or dialect as a barrier and border of identification against their neighbours. This tendency towards the localised goes in direct contradiction to your efforts towards universality. Without getting into the pros and cons of each inward or outward dynamic, what do you anticipate the effects of language change to be on the universality of an IAL?
Just to add another point about the popularity of English as a second language. I gather that you think its universalness is becoming restricted to certain specialist fields, most obviously the sciences. I would have thought it was clear that English is also the preferred language of international business, and that this fact alone would guarantee its short-term survival and further dissemination, since any language of power has always thrived. And what will ultimately become the language of international media - news, films, politics etc.? Again I think that English is the current front-runner, BBC World Service and CNN having established themselves as the mouthpieces of the West." (MP 2/9/00)
"You could be right about the future victory of English. I see it as a case of backing both horses.
For a very long time the IAL will be concerned with no more than simple prosaic communication. Slang, idioms, complex synthetic grammar etc. will continue to find full expression in the mother-tongues, which will remain extant for generations if not centuries." (AA 5/9/00)
"To continue my reply to yours of 2 Sept.......What I am really trying to do with LANG53, M___, is to keep all the options open. IALs in the "Glosa" fashion have started with minimal grammar, phonology, vocabulary etc., but haven't really allowed scope for expansion in the future; conversely, Esperanto etc. began at too complex a level.
On the other hand, your observations re the advantages of highly synthetic grammar are true enough. What doesn't kill often cures. Those who master a complex language find the books of the world open before them. However, no polyglot can learn the world's 800 languages, much less the many thousands of dialects. This is where the IAL comes in, of course.......
You raise the question of language change, M___. As you rightly say, people use language to include or exclude. The matter of who is in favour at any particular time determines the perceived status of the various alternative modes of expression, and hence the direction in which a language is changing.
The IAL takes this dynamic to the global level, where the bifurcation is between languages rather than words, phrases etc.. Hence those who wish to be inclusive will use the IAL (whatever it will be) and those who wish to restrict their sphere of communication will use another language.
Of course, I am referring to the IAL: the properly constituted IAL (as explained in "LANGO") - not a politically expedient language imposed without full consultation and informed consent. Though it were called the IAL, the latter would turn out to be exclusive and divisive." (AA 11/9/00)
"I see that one of the suggestions made in LANGO is for an international commission to oversee the production of an artificial language. My view is slightly different. I believe that the basics of an acceptable international language are best created by an individual inventor/composer/author. There is a saying that a camel is just a horse that has been designed by a committee! The time for an international commission is for the fine tuning, not the creation." (AG 5/11/00)
"Firstly, I have come to a certain conclusion about an IAL, which underlies my approach to the creation of __ . Basically, there already exists an IAL in the world - English. The English language is probably better as an IAL than a number of other languages (e.g. it does not have the complicated grammar of German or Russian, the spelling and pronunciation difficulties of French or the tonal difficulties of Chinese). Nevertheless English is still very difficult (and time-consuming) to learn due to aspects of its grammar, vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation and idioms. If I had to choose an existing natural language as an IAL then probably Spanish would be top of the list. However, that is not the position where we are starting from. It is English that is the language most likely to be learnt by people wishing to communicate with people of other languages.
My approach to an IAL has therefore been to take what I consider to be the best aspects of English (e.g. the SVO word order and the vocabulary roots) and build, from that foundation, a simplified vocabulary, simplified grammar and standardised rules for compound word creation etc. I have tried to develop a language that would ease the learning burden of English speakers (by enabling them to use their existing knowledge) yet was still sufficiently simple, logical and quick to learn for non-English speakers. The final result is not just a modified form of English, but an IAL that English speakers would feel fairly comfortable with." (AG 10/12/00)
"The EU is aiming at an interim total of 27 members. The absence of a universally acceptable IAL is becoming critical. Same for the UN and other international agencies. This game is going to get very hot. Serious power and money involved. Implacable political opposition to English, not least from the Chinese, the rising power......Chinese script non-starter but major concession to Chinese grammar, word-formation and vocabulary necessary. No problem since Chinese usage in these areas is very often the best anyway........
As for vocabulary / orthography, perhaps we should go back to first principles and consider political realities. Who is going to determine the vocabulary of the IAL? Aren't all nations / languages going to get a fair share of words? As for orthography, I think the fundamental question is this: is the IAL always going to remain an auxiliary or second language (as Esperantists etc. suppose) or will it need to possess the potential capacity to develop into a single world language in the distant future?" (AA 12/12/00)
".....your grammar is not at all bad. I think you're very much on the right lines here. Not keen on your orthography, though, for various reasons incl. shortage of vowel symbols and presence of diacritics. Sure, some languages - Spanish, Japanese etc. - manage with few vowels, though it's questionable whether these societies (languages) would be regarded as exemplary. (I wonder whether there is a correlation between restriction of vowel phoneme segments and macho right-wing cultural bias.)
Granted, many phonemes are difficult for various nationalities, but I don't think that necessitates a proscriptive approach. People can normally learn to articulate unfamiliar phonemes, if they choose to do so; indeed, the evidence suggests that they possess this capacity from birth, until it is removed by national or class acculturation (we discuss this in "LANGO Phonology"). The best solution, I think, would be for common words to be limited to the "universal" phonology (see UPSID section in "LANG53 Vocabulary"). Also, I would be inclined to adopt a shorthand system for common words. I think you might agree on this.
While your vocabulary is useful for the purpose of illustration, the choice of vocabulary for the IAL is neither in your hands nor mine. That isn't to say that individuals' suggestions and recommendations won't be heard. Same goes for the name of the IAL. Believe me, before long the IAL cause will be taken over by the powers-that-be. Influence will go to those who anticipate their thinking and reasoning. All this assuming, of course, that English doesn't prevail." (AA 16/12/00)
"The idea of using words that are taken from a variety of different languages is to make sure that no major nation feels that they have been ignored. I suspect the concern is more of a political and psychological one than one of ease of learning. If I had to choose what language would suit me best in a new IAL vocabulary, I would naturally choose English (since it is my own language). My second choice would be French. Why? Because it is the only other language that I am familiar with and I would rather make use of the little French vocabulary that I know than have to learn a new vocabulary from scratch. In my view the political aspect of having a multinational vocabulary misses the point - I have no doubt that the majority of people who are prepared to learn an IAL would prefer to use the vocabulary of the second language that they already know best - English." (AG 16/12/00)
"I don't think grammar is going to be a problem. We're evidently more or less agreed upon the basics. Moreover, I gain the impression that majority IAL opinion is coalescing around the same grammatical fundamentals. Obviously, details remain to be worked out, but in most cases I would be happy to go along with the consensus.
I'll return to your listed points in due course, but first of all I think we should tackle the question of orthography and script, which seems to be the main area of difference. As you know, I've taken a very radical position here, and one which many IALers would probably place on the lunatic fringe.
However, I believe that people only regard a consonantal script as a crazy idea because they don't comprehend its potential, as applied to an IAL. More than that, they don't have the first idea as to what a consonantal script is, or how it operates. This is perfectly understandable and forgiveable, since Westerners cannot be expected to have any knowledge of Semitic languages, the main employers of consonantal scripts.
Hence I'm not at all surprised that you imagine the perception of vowels in a consonantal script to be a matter of guesswork. (I've come to anticipate such a reaction.) In fact a consonantal script operates as a kind of compromise between the phonetic / phonemic scripts typical of the West and the ideograms / logograms typical of the Far East. It seems quite fitting that they should predominately be found in the Middle East.
As you may know, Hebrew was once entirely consonantal, but at some stage three consonants (yodh, waw and he) started to be used to represent long vowels. Also, diacritics (vowel points) began to be placed above and below the consonants to indicate vowels in unfamiliar words.
Under the Nikud System employed in Modern Hebrew the text printed in books, newspapers etc. is normally without vowel points, yet readers can identify the missing vowels without difficulty. What makes this possible is the fact that children, and foreign students of Hebrew, use text containing vowel points but also learn to recognise and pronounce words correctly with the diacritics omitted. A somewhat similar system operates, though to a lesser extent, in Arabic and other languages of Semitic origin.
For obvious reasons, homographs are a potential problem in existing consonantal scripts. As in English, the meaning of a homograph can always be determined by the context, though perhaps at the expense of brevity. My guess is that the three-consonant roots characteristic of Semitic nouns are at least partly a response to homography. Given that the variety of consonant sequences in these existing languages is limited by convention, three consonants or syllables allows more differentiation between words.
On the other hand, an IAL incorporating words from the entire spectrum of the world's languages will contain a much greater number of permissible consonant sequences than Hebrew or Arabic, thus allowing much more scope for a consonantal script free of homographs.
I am suggesting that vowels be denoted by capital (upper-case) letters rather than diacritics. As with Modern Hebrew, the vowels would normally only be hand-written, by children and other learners (except in the case of an unfamiliar word or passage of text). Hence the actual printed appearance of (LANG53) in its developed form might well be similar to the text in this email, though the words would of course be entirely different, and probably shorter on average.
For all I know, a consonantal script is an impractical idea, if not totally barmy. I am quite prepared to abandon it, if necessary, but not solely because it is too radical. How often in history has a quantum jump been necessary in order to solve a seemingly intractable problem! In my estimation the IAL script issue must be resolved before the grammar and vocabulary can advance. In a real sense the script / orthography is the material out of which the vocabulary and grammar are constructed.
Another question which must be faced and answered is whether the IAL will always remain an auxiliary. I firmly believe the answer to this question is negative: that the IAL will at some stage become the primary language of the world - for reasons explained in Chapter 6 of LANGO - so it must have the potential capacity to embrace all other languages. I would be interested to know what you think about this. A script with the potential to manifest 53 phonemes would be absurd if the IAL were forever to remain a second language.
The fact that you seek provision for the representation of all the IPA symbols in your script suggests to me that you may be thinking along the same lines.
I feel that we must resolve this issue before moving on to others." (AA 18/12/00)
"You have raised two points about orthography and script. These are issues that you are perfectly entitled to have your own opinions about, but I don't really think that you have given any logical reason for your views or tried to explain why you think your method is better.
I have no doubt that 53 phonemes could work in a language and also that a consonantal script could also work. The point is, that I think 28 phonemes are better, because there are less to learn. I'm afraid that I simply cannot see your logic in suggesting that 53 phonemes are required for an IAL. If you are trying to provide an alphabet that can reasonably depict the majority of phonemes of the world's languages and replace the IPA then fine (this is something that would also apply to an extended __ alphabet). Although I would certainly expect that any accepted IAL would eventually become a world language, you still don't need 53 phonemes.
A consonantal script requires an element of guess work and/or experience to understand (if it didn't then why should children and learners need the vowels to be written). I have already said that in my view, one of the main objects of an IAL must be ease of learning, not an ability to save ink. I cannot see any advantage in a consonantal script." (AG 19/12/00)
"You believe that one of the main objects of an IAL must be ease of learning, not an ability to save ink. I'm afraid I have to disagree with your emphasis here. We should realise that the IAL will largely be implemented through the school system in every country of the world. Esperanto and other IALs have been mainly promoted via adult idealists - mostly busy people for whom simplicity is the most important factor. They don't want to spend a lot of time mastering something that might fail.
Certainly, all aspects of the IAL should be as simple as possible, but not to the extent that all other factors be sacrificed to ease of learning. If the IAL were only to be promoted through adult hobbyists the absolute primacy of simplicity might well be desirable, but the curriculum of every school will provide ample time for the IAL. No child will need to learn more than two languages: their mother-tongue and the IAL.
I suppose it is upon the basis of simplicity at all costs that you derogate the importance of print (or ink, or space) saving. I have demonstrated why simplicity is not the be-all and end-all. If follows that print-saving should be included as a relevant factor, if the evidence shows it to be necessary. Am I being logical so far?
So far as I can see it is reasonable to assert that print-saving is a relevant factor. My colleague Robert Craig was able to establish that print-saving is a major concern of publishers and newspaper editors. For example, they are aware that a digraph definite article would allow an approx. 3% print-saving, all other things being equal. More generally, the natural progression over time is for words to become shorter (Zipf's Law). Correspondingly, people don't seem to like "spelling reforms" that result in longer words. I don't know whether you ever saw the SSS's "Neu Speling". Phonemic transliterations of many English words according to its regularised orthography were unpopular because they were longer than the TO versions. (We provided some examples in LANGO.)
Some people say that "limitless cyberspace" has negated the "cost of ink" argument. I'm not convinced: it still seems that one gets what one pays for. My ISP allows me "unlimited webspace" but charges a bit more than some companies offering 5 MB. Even if cyberspace were entirely free of charge, the fact remains that longer words take longer to read, and time is money.
There is also evidence that languages with fewer vowels tend to have longer words. Average text in Italian - which has 7 (?) vowels - is approx. one seventh longer than its English equivalent. Longer words take longer to say, i.e. they slow down the transmission of information.
This is a significant factor. I don't know whether you saw Su Cheng Zhong's website about Chinese. I'm glad I printed it off because it seems to have been taken down. He is of the opinion that the former superiority of Chinese culture was related to the ability of the language to transfer information especially quickly, and that the decline set in after the Mongol overlords had decreed that one of the tones be removed.
If I remember correctly, Chinese (Putonghua not Cantonese) still has 4 tones. SCZ states that the 9 (?) Chinese vowels are effectively increased four-fold as a result. He's quite certain that the increased phonetic range speeds up information transfer. If you've heard typical Chinese speech you might agree that they seem to be able to convey thoughts extremely rapidly. In SCZ's view, two additional factors give Chinese a considerable edge, even over languages with more vowels. One stems from the fact that the Chinese vocabulary is of great antiquity: hence, according to Zipf's Law, many words have been reduced over time to a single articulary motion so that they may be said very quickly and with the least amount of effort. The other is Chinese grammar, which tends to express ideas very succinctly." (AA 21/12/00)
"I find that you provided some very convincing arguments for increasing the number of vowels in a language, in order to increase the number of words without increasing the length of those words. I have already come across this problem in developing the __ vocabulary and find the two "extra" vowels (ã & ø) extremely useful. Without them a number of words would either have to become multisyllable compound words or use rather obscure roots. Similarly, I am presently working on finding suitable translations for English phrasal verbs (e.g. "show out") for which I can provide (usually) a short two-syllable compound word but where a single root word would definitely be better.
The idea that the IAL could eventually become a world language is fine and I accept that it is worth considering that potential at an early stage.
The move towards shorter words is also accepted. In __ I have deliberately kept the words as short as possible (even "yes" & "no"). Why use more than one syllable for a root word when it is not necessary?
However, I'm afraid that the idea of a consonantal script is still not something that I am happy with. People communicate by both verbal and written methods. It is generally accepted that people can absorb the meaning of written text much quicker than the spoken word. Hence the speed of reading is already higher than that of listening (not because people cannot understand fast spoken words, but simply because people cannot speak as fast as others can listen). By removing the consonants from written script, every written word has to be scanned and then mentally adjusted for context. There will be occasions when the reader will mis-interpret and then either have to jump back a few words or simply mis-understand what is intended. In my opinion, the benefits of clarity and unambiguity outweigh those of speed of transmission, because the speed of transmission does not necessarily equal the speed of communication.
I cannot see that the benefits of saving ink will outweigh the benefits of having an IAL that is both simple to learn and unambiguous. One of the major selling points of an IAL is that it would be easier than any natural language. To start to reduce that advantage by bringing in a feature that is unfamiliar to the majority of people is counter-productive. To have dictionaries that list similar looking words without showing the vowels would be strange, to say the least.
The only compromise I can suggest here is that if you wished to pursue this aspect then it could be done either outside of an IAL collaboration or as a second stage when the IAL was "completed" in a conventional way. In other words, if you could take a developed IAL, knock out all the vowels from the printed text and still convince people that it made sense, then fine.
What this all boils down to, is that we have a number of views in common but I really feel that a consonantal script is a looser........" (AG 27/12/00)
"It's certainly a sign of progress that you apparently concur with my belief that the IAL should have the potential to develop into the primary global language in its own right.
This has long struck me as the most important issue of all, though I have never come across an IALer who recognised it as such (or even recognised it at all for that matter!).
......I'm against diacritics for the practical reason that they are quite difficult and time-consuming to add using the standard QWERTY keyboard (unless the F keys along the top could be readily programmed to accept them). French accents would be less problematic of course, if the French alphabet could be used. I can't see software manufacturers being accommodating about diacritics. If the demand isn't there they aren't interested as a rule. Even characters such as the IPA and the Esperanto capped consonants aren't easily available.
Diacritics are found in most languages where the Roman script is well-established. The great exception of course is English, which has been gradually losing its remaining diacritics, I dare say not least due to the laziness of word-processing journalists who can't be bothered to look up the code numbers. It's also my impression that most of the many previously unwritten languages transliterated into English script during this century (often by American Christian missionaries) have missed out on diacritics. Hence there is now a considerable population of Roman script users to whom diacritics are something alien. Please correct me if I am wrong here.
Diacritics are also common in non-Roman scripts, of course. I would be interested to know the percentages in the different scripts. Most alphabets have about 24-30 characters - diacritics are certainly a handy way of increasing the number of phonemes represented. I happened to read today that Arabic uses diacritics both as vowels and for changing the sound of consonants. No wonder English spelling reformers and IALers using the 26-letter English alphabet tend to run into difficulties.
My own view is that diacritics are a considerable difficulty for those not used to them, and for computer-users, but that the 26-letter English alphabet is simply too short for an eventually expandable IAL. If diacritics had to be used, I would divide the alphabet in half, thus:
a c e m n o r s u v w x z and b d f g h i j k l p q t y
No prize for differentiating these two sets of 13 letters! The first would be vowels and the second would be consonants. Alternatively the standard cursive or longhand form could be used, which might place "z" with the consonants and "i" with the vowels. Note that a single diacritic - an Esperanto circumflex perhaps - atop each letter would allow for 26 vowels and 27 consonants (incl. the apostrophe for the glottal stop).
What do you think of this? It's quite radical but I don't think half-measures are possible re the IAL script. I might go along with something like it, if necessary, but still prefer the option set out in LANG53.
Your email tells me that you still don't fully understand what I mean. You are evidently still thinking in terms of English vocabulary. A consonantal script would only be possible in LANG53 on the basis that the vocabulary contained words from all the world's languages. In that case a consonantal script would be entirely possible without homographs (though with the aid of some conventional shorthand forms) due to the extreme variety of consonant sequences found in diverse languages. In other words, every word in the consonantal script would be different (not that a scattering of homographs would matter), and could be looked up in a dictionary.
Seeing the way the political situation in the world is moving, I would have thought an IAL based on the vocabulary of all the world's languages much the more likely. The influence of the English-speaking world is unlikely to be the same at the end of the current financial crash as it was at the beginning.
Even with no consonantal script LANG53 would work perfectly well - the vowels would simply be denoted by capital or upper-case letters. However, the consonantal script would remain an option, as it does in Semitic languages.
........I was amused that you spelt "loser" as "looser" because the difference between these two spellings has come up a few times on "Gold Eagle", a financial forum (bb, ng) I frequent. Some posters evidently get very irritated by this kind of thing - to the extent that they forget the "netiquette" that says "let it pass". It doesn't really bother me that much, but I think it does make the point that people really care about fairly subtle pronunciation and semantic differences between words.
I'm sure IALers will come unstuck if they try to blur or paper over these differences in the interest of a restricted number of permissible phonemes in the vocabulary........ I took my friend __ , author of __ , to task about this. Wishing to reduce the number of vowels to 14 or 15 he had "caught " as "cot", "bear" as "ber" etc.. My conviction remains that attempts to "simplify" vocabulary simply won't work. On the other hand, choosing words with simple or universal phonemes for beginners is perfectly acceptable." (AA 29/12/00)
"......a limited number of vowels necessitates the use of digraphs if the vowels are used phonemically. However, vowel digraphs aren't entirely intuitive to children, i.e. they must be learned. So since the digraphs must be learned anyway, why not just let them learn new single letters to represent these "non-core" speech sounds - a device which would allow for shorter words?" (AA 8/1/01)
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