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Ok, I very much know this is a name to discuss names, and I know this doesn't involve names, but it involves language...
And you guys are really good at it, and with such diversity, it is easier and faster to use you as references then look up a million and one books.
If someone knows of a site with a message board that has to do with the study of languages, along the lines of their linguistic characteristics, it would be great, and I would leave y'all alone.
So now to the goods.
This summer I started to create the perfect language, a language without homonyms, or synonyms (because I think they are worthless). Basically each word means only one thing, and you can only take it literally. For eg. you wouldn't say I am eccentric with joy, because eccentric means you are a bit insane. So it is very literal, and therefore less confusing. Also, I am not sure how well this is going to work, but all words have an opposite, so to make less words, you add the prefix 'pe' which literally means no onto the word. Some words will not use pe, and will have another word as opposite because it doesn't make logical sense, or there is no real opposite eg. life and death. So 'eus' means peaceful, 'peeus' means unpeaceful, or warlike, you need to know less words. Now the grammatical part. You can arrange sentences so that one word can work as a noun, adjective, verb and adverb, less words again. So depending where 'eus' appears in the setence, it can mean peace/peacefulness, peaceful, to be peaceful, to be at peace (if you add the word with), and peacefully. I made it more clear with words like 'we'. Because even in english I can say 'we are in love' while talking to someone. That can me I am in love with the person I am talking to and they reciprocate, or I could be talking about someone else and me. So there are two we's, me and you, and me and them. Sentence structure and grammar become very simplistic, but the downfall of it is, the language could never be to poetic and could not be tampered with like English. Inverting order of words would result in changing the entire meaning of the sentence, sentences can become monotone. I have a few ideas of how to overcome this, but they don't work all the time. I want this language to be completely fool proof. Now for the perfect language, it must be simple, therefore in my mind should be phonetic with a few exceptions. The suffix 'pe' used to make an opposite will have it's own symbol, therefore so will yes, also for ('sa'), and the have their own symbol. 'a' doesn't because it is the sound 'oo' (im not sure out to write this, like ew but less harsh). Therefore it is only one symbol anyway. Now I want to encompass all possible sounds used in modern languages (and main ancient/older languages) that I cannot find in english, I have found a few.
R - the r in french that is made by vibrating the uvula at the back of the throat in a guttural nasal sound
R - the rolled r sound made in spanish, and in german (not as rolled as harshly), made by vibrating the tip of the tongue against the roof of your mouth
Ch - the ch sound found in gaelic, such as the word 'loch', made similary as the french 'r', it is rather nasal and made at the back of the throat, sometimes written as kh to keep out the confusion of beind related to the english ch sound, like in church
Now I heard in Egyptian they have a 'ha' sound we don't have in English. Part of the problem I am coming across is distinguishing sounds that are made by putting a few sounds together, and sounds that are unique. These problems are arising out of mostly the logarithmic languages like Chinese, where they have 'min' instead of the sounds 'm', 'ei' and 'n'.
So all of you with your vast language view, if you have some other ones, they would be much appreciated.
A few questions, in German I know they have a character that looks something like a B, more like a beta symbol. This makes a double s sound. Is this sound accomplished by putting to s' together, or is it unique. If it is the later, can you try to explain how to make the sound.
Also I am having trouble with the letter z.
In English I see it written as a 'zh' sound. This is true, if you think of like zap for example. It is like zzzz..haaa… ppp. Sounded out. But for zebra, I don't see the h sound after the z, apparently it is always there. Then I look at the words leisure and seizure. Now the 's' or 'z' sound respectively sounds like some bizarre mix of a a softer slow j thro clenched teeth, and an unhissing s. Like leijsure. Anyone know what I mean? Can someone explain this sound to me?
Wow this is long, so ill end it.
If you have any ideas on a 'perfect language' or any of the struggles I am having, an ideas and criticism (as long as constructive) is appreciated.
Thank you for taking your time to read this.
~Silver
And you guys are really good at it, and with such diversity, it is easier and faster to use you as references then look up a million and one books.
If someone knows of a site with a message board that has to do with the study of languages, along the lines of their linguistic characteristics, it would be great, and I would leave y'all alone.
So now to the goods.
This summer I started to create the perfect language, a language without homonyms, or synonyms (because I think they are worthless). Basically each word means only one thing, and you can only take it literally. For eg. you wouldn't say I am eccentric with joy, because eccentric means you are a bit insane. So it is very literal, and therefore less confusing. Also, I am not sure how well this is going to work, but all words have an opposite, so to make less words, you add the prefix 'pe' which literally means no onto the word. Some words will not use pe, and will have another word as opposite because it doesn't make logical sense, or there is no real opposite eg. life and death. So 'eus' means peaceful, 'peeus' means unpeaceful, or warlike, you need to know less words. Now the grammatical part. You can arrange sentences so that one word can work as a noun, adjective, verb and adverb, less words again. So depending where 'eus' appears in the setence, it can mean peace/peacefulness, peaceful, to be peaceful, to be at peace (if you add the word with), and peacefully. I made it more clear with words like 'we'. Because even in english I can say 'we are in love' while talking to someone. That can me I am in love with the person I am talking to and they reciprocate, or I could be talking about someone else and me. So there are two we's, me and you, and me and them. Sentence structure and grammar become very simplistic, but the downfall of it is, the language could never be to poetic and could not be tampered with like English. Inverting order of words would result in changing the entire meaning of the sentence, sentences can become monotone. I have a few ideas of how to overcome this, but they don't work all the time. I want this language to be completely fool proof. Now for the perfect language, it must be simple, therefore in my mind should be phonetic with a few exceptions. The suffix 'pe' used to make an opposite will have it's own symbol, therefore so will yes, also for ('sa'), and the have their own symbol. 'a' doesn't because it is the sound 'oo' (im not sure out to write this, like ew but less harsh). Therefore it is only one symbol anyway. Now I want to encompass all possible sounds used in modern languages (and main ancient/older languages) that I cannot find in english, I have found a few.
R - the r in french that is made by vibrating the uvula at the back of the throat in a guttural nasal sound
R - the rolled r sound made in spanish, and in german (not as rolled as harshly), made by vibrating the tip of the tongue against the roof of your mouth
Ch - the ch sound found in gaelic, such as the word 'loch', made similary as the french 'r', it is rather nasal and made at the back of the throat, sometimes written as kh to keep out the confusion of beind related to the english ch sound, like in church
Now I heard in Egyptian they have a 'ha' sound we don't have in English. Part of the problem I am coming across is distinguishing sounds that are made by putting a few sounds together, and sounds that are unique. These problems are arising out of mostly the logarithmic languages like Chinese, where they have 'min' instead of the sounds 'm', 'ei' and 'n'.
So all of you with your vast language view, if you have some other ones, they would be much appreciated.
A few questions, in German I know they have a character that looks something like a B, more like a beta symbol. This makes a double s sound. Is this sound accomplished by putting to s' together, or is it unique. If it is the later, can you try to explain how to make the sound.
Also I am having trouble with the letter z.
In English I see it written as a 'zh' sound. This is true, if you think of like zap for example. It is like zzzz..haaa… ppp. Sounded out. But for zebra, I don't see the h sound after the z, apparently it is always there. Then I look at the words leisure and seizure. Now the 's' or 'z' sound respectively sounds like some bizarre mix of a a softer slow j thro clenched teeth, and an unhissing s. Like leijsure. Anyone know what I mean? Can someone explain this sound to me?
Wow this is long, so ill end it.
If you have any ideas on a 'perfect language' or any of the struggles I am having, an ideas and criticism (as long as constructive) is appreciated.
Thank you for taking your time to read this.
~Silver
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