Atlas: new auxlang

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shanoxilt
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by shanoxilt »

Rodiniye wrote:- Vocabulary formed with only above 500 roots, from which all other words are formed.
No, this will never work. It is far too few! Make it closer to five thousand and you might have a good base for the language.
Either that, or you'll need to make an exhaustive system for how compounds/agglutination and derivation works.
Rodiniye wrote: Vocabulary following this formula: 10 most spoken languages in the world (L1+L2) and, apart from these, 2 most spoken languages in every continent, as long as they were spoken by at least 1% of the World population.
I applaud you for including African languages in your wordstock. Most auxiliary language makers skip over the continent altogether, except for a token mention of Arabic.
Rodiniye wrote:Have you had a look at its grammar? [O.O] It is extremely easy. 20 pages with a full grammar and some practice too.
Lojban, while not an auxiliary language, is relatively simple yet its grammar book is around 600 pages long.
Axiem wrote:Hold up. Are you seriously suggesting that linguae francae are chosen? Who has the power to bestow lingua franca status unto a language? Is there a secret cabal or something?
I believe they tend to be known as the "ruling class" : those people with all the money and power.
The appeal of an auxiliary language is that it is a grass-roots movement that is consciously chosen and non-coercively promulgated.
Axiem wrote: Do you have a corpus of translation work that you've done to suss out concepts and ideas that you would want to express in the language?
This is definitely a necessary step. I would advise Rodiniye to review Zamenhof's chrestomathy for inspiration.
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by Frislander »

lsd wrote:(but a creole-like grammar is surely not complete enough for a commercial tool an auxlang should be...)
You're getting confused with your terminology: you're thinking of a pidgin, which wouldn't do well as an international auxlang. A creole would, because it has gained grammar through being used by native speakers.
Rodiniye wrote:All I have to say - basically because I need to go to bed now! [:'(] - is that I have studied Chinese grammar and Indonesian grammar, and their books are around 400 pages long. Chinese is not that simple when you look at it deeply. However, some things in Atlas are taken from Chinese (like the idea of the "de" particle). There are a lot of things that are extremely simplified in Atlas, grammars are extremely big.

And no, it is not about saying "hey! my auxlang is very easy!", you have the grammar available and you can compare it to others. Everything you need to be fluent is in 20 pages, including index and practice. No way Chinese is easier than Atlas. The basics basics maybe yes (no tense for instance, no number). But then, if you look into it deeply... things change a bit. Then you adding "le" to verbs, "hui", "zai" and all the possibilities, and all the constructions, and all of the sudden verbs are not that easy anymore.
Ah here we are again, your "my conlang can be described in 20 pages so it must be easy" claim. You could write a grammar of Chinese in 20 pages, but you'd have to compromise a lot, and the same goes for your language. You omit a lot of stuff which should be there if you want your document to be even comparable to those grammar books.

Here's a starting list of glaring omissions:
  • An explanation of the rules of allophony and your phonotactics: what you already have up there is bugger-all help for telling me how to pronounce <tz>. A proper phonology chart would also be nice, but it's not urgently necessary.
  • Examples for everything. Seriously, you need these. You can't just give half you sections examples and then leave the others without any, especially for things like the conjunctions, I don't know how you think you can get away with not giving any examples for those.
  • Full glosses for every single example. Your current strategy of highlighting the bit of grammar which you are addressing at the point is all well and good, but a proper gloss does it equally well and allows us to see the rest of the sentence structure as well.
  • We also needs a long explanation of how the derivational system works. If anything it shoould really be longer than that you'd find in a grammar of Mandarin, because 1. You have far fewer root words than Mandarin does and 2. given your insistence on clear and simple semantics with your prepositions, I expect no catch-all derivational affixes like Mandarin zi.
Once you add all that up together I definitely expect there to be at least 100 pages of grammar for it to be a proper description. What you have so far is essentially a sketch which needs a lot of fleshing out in order to becomes a full grammar.

Also, zai and the other coverbs are precisely the kinds of structures I'm talking about when it comes to your prepositions! (see below). And are you seriously suggesting that your verbs are simpler than those of Mandarin? Your poly-functional middle voice and potential-irrealis mood are just as bad as any Chinese particle, if not more so, and they absolutely scream or Euro-centric norms.
Your comment about verbs of motion, yes but you would need a word for them too, so you are saving prepositions but need to do that in another way.

Prepositions in Europe... Well, either they have prepositions, or postpositions, or declensions (much worse). I am European and don't know any major languages (at least) with no prepositions/declensions. Some of them (many) use both actually
Again, you don't need to get rid of them entirely, just make most of them verbs in their own right. It pretty much completely deals with your beef with "phrasal verbs", since most of them would only ever occur with one or two verbs anyway, because their semantics work like that. You don't even need to give them all their own root either, some of them could come under already existing verbs (like "towards" could be expressed by the same verb meaning "approach", while "on top of" could come under a verb meaning "sit (on)").

And really, if you think Mandarin is harder than your language, how about Yoruba?
Axiem wrote:
Rodiniye wrote: If I tell you that the past ends in "t," present in "s" future in "z" and that's it.
That seems incredibly ripe for confusion, especially for verbs that end in /d/.
Well they've already partly sorted that by having the aspect markers which come before them be vowels (though /a/, /e/ and /i/ are liable to be reduced, especially by native speakers of those languages which both marginalise aspect and reduce their vowels frequently (i.e. English, French and German)).
shanoxilt wrote:
Rodiniye wrote:- Vocabulary formed with only above 500 roots, from which all other words are formed.
No, this will never work. It is far too few! Make it closer to five thousand and you might have a good base for the language.
Either that, or you'll need to make an exhaustive system for how compounds/agglutination and derivation works.
Exactly, and that is something I really want to see.
Rodiniye wrote:Have you had a look at its grammar? [O.O] It is extremely easy. 20 pages with a full grammar and some practice too.
Lojban, while not an auxiliary language, is relatively simple yet its grammar book is around 600 pages long.
Mind you, it's simplicity comes in a different way from how most auxlangers go about it, but even so.
Axiem wrote:Hold up. Are you seriously suggesting that linguae francae are chosen? Who has the power to bestow lingua franca status unto a language? Is there a secret cabal or something?
I believe they tend to be known as the "ruling class" : those people with all the money and power.
The appeal of an auxiliary language is that it is a grass-roots movement that is consciously chosen and non-coercively promulgated.
Even then, the ruling classes didn't "choose" the language themselves, they were just the ones they happened to speak natively.
Axiem wrote: Do you have a corpus of translation work that you've done to suss out concepts and ideas that you would want to express in the language?
This is definitely a necessary step. I would advise Rodiniye to review Zamenhof's chrestomathy for inspiration.
And you'd want at least one of these in your actual grammar document, which only adds to the length of the thing.
Last edited by Frislander on 27 Jun 2017 15:48, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by Rodiniye »

@Frislander

For clarification about 500 roots, see below.

Explanation on how words are formed is found in the grammar, and with a bit more detail here:

http://atlas-language.blogspot.com.es/2 ... e-new.html

As for the rest:
- phonology: yes why not, I will update that soon. Allophony, however, will come with user usage. I am expecting a few things to happen here (inclusion of /z/ by some speakers being one of them) but I do not want to make a rule of it. Let's see how the languages evolves. I think it is easier this way.
- more examples will come soon, I agree.
- derivational system a bit more explained in the blog, probably will be updated in the grammar too. Thanks.

@shanoxilt

Probably it won't end up being 500, but it can be done in something similar to 600. Yes, Atlas uses existing roots and prepositions in order to creat new words. Let me add a few here:

DAUK (take): wandaukes (solve), qudaukes (bury), lidauke (invitation), houdaukes (postpone), vodaukes (anticipate), sdaukes (collect), hindaukes (trascend), surdaukes (carry)

BAX (place): vligbaxu (airport), viaqbaxu (hotel), axtbaxu (shopping centre), zaibaxu (park), dormbaxu (hostel), siasbaxu (parliament), iaxbaxu (beach), honbaxu (scene, scenario), aslahbaxu (garage), surbaxu (north), qubaxu (south), vambaxu (west), dainbaxu (east)

HENK (change, modify): carhenke (reform, reformation), surhenke (upgrade), dethenke (edition), hindenke (evolution), anhenke (transformation),

As you can see, you have a basic root (for instance, "dauk") and you add to the left another root, preposition or number in order to get new meanings. So for the first one I have added:
- wan (finish). finish+take = solve
- qu (down): down+take = bury
-li (inside): inside+take = invite
- hou (after): after+take = postpone
etc.

It comes to the point where even animals or plants will be formed this way. Their inclusion in the dictionary will come very soon, but it will follow a similar process.

However, yes, maybe a few will have to be added, but I strongly believe that not many will be necessary. I find this system very intuitive and easy to learn as well.
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by Lao Kou »

As I live in China without a VPN, your blogspot is unavailable to me, but site/sight unseen:
Rodiniye wrote:- Vocabulary formed with only above 500 roots, from which all other words are formed.
Surely, this will be bound by cultural context. stone-person as "statue" may be perfectly evident to you, but not to someone else, which means you'll still be mugging faces and hopping about as if the IAL weren't even there.
- Vocabulary following this formula: 10 most spoken languages in the world (L1+L2) and, apart from these, 2 most spoken languages in every continent, as long as they were spoken by at least 1% of the World population.
Oh good. So glad colonialism counts for naught.
- Easy phonetics. Vowels a,e,i,o,u and 18 consonants with no difficult sounds. Use of romanic alphabet with no accents.
- Easy/simplified grammar: no declensions, no exceptions at all. Easy verbs (only 2 morphemes possible).
- Gender neutral, although specifying gender is possible.
- Use of grammar particles make complex sentences very easy to use.
I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but you'll stilll actually have to learn something. You could make it the most gender-less, number-less, case-less, tense-less, aspect-less, part-of-speech-less blob of a language (and why do natlangs have such features anyway? (Keeping track of arguments, perhaps?) Are natlangs actually designed by a table of cranky old white men who have nothing better to do than create Byzantine confudling rules?

Words completely bleached will still need some set of rules to construe, parse, construct, and extract meaning (and saying such and such a feature takes only X seconds to master is a fantasy in itself).

I'm sorry, but inasmuch as you don't effortlessy lose weight with a fidgety belt while you eat bon-bons during your TV afternoon stories, you don't suddenly become internationally fluent by just effortlessly wishing it so.
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by Frislander »

Lao Kou wrote:
- Vocabulary following this formula: 10 most spoken languages in the world (L1+L2) and, apart from these, 2 most spoken languages in every continent, as long as they were spoken by at least 1% of the World population.
Oh good. So glad colonialism counts for naught.
Why is my sarcasm-ometer bleeping?
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by Rodiniye »

@Axiem

Give me a fragment (not very long, as I do not have much time today) and I will translate it for your into Atlas (there is already one text uploaded, although it is a story).

Example of preposition "ab":

Al-iaran vesat ab al-passhissu - The children were going up and down the corridor ("back and forth" and "up and down" describes the same movement here, which is forth and then back one place).

However, "ab" is more interesting when forming words:

ab-passu (pass): bridge (pass to go back and forth one place).
ab-songe (move): tremble (back and forth, up and down, continous move)

"ab" indicates this kind of movement.

Regards!


@Lao Kou

Of course some word formations would be culturaly based, but it would be a small number. Examples like vlig (aircraft) + baxu (place) won't have many different meanings depending on where you live.

And of course you need to learn something. It is a language! [:D]
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by elemtilas »

lsd wrote:
Axiem wrote:Hold up. Are you seriously suggesting that linguae francae are chosen? Who has the power to bestow lingua franca status unto a language? Is there a secret cabal or something?
I believe they tend to be known as the "ruling class" : those people with all the money and power.
The appeal of an auxiliary language is that it is a grass-roots movement that is consciously chosen and non-coercively promulgated.
That's all huggy-huggy, but even the so-called ruling classes of France and Germany and China and Japan speak English. Not because Queen Victoria imposed it, and not even because anyone chose it, but simply because of the growth of English speaking mercantile activity.

It might also be noted that the majority of the countries where imperial dominion was lifted upon independence continue to view and use English as an auxlang / official language. I'm talking about big countries like India and South Africa and Nigeria.

Really, who chooses any auxlang is the people who want to engage with the outside world and its broader economy. It's all nice and cosy to think that people are going to get together as grassroots communities and rally around Atlas or Interlingua or Esperanto or some such. But after a meeting or two, where maybe five people showed up (and four of those only showed up on account of the free donuts), they realise that nothing is going to come of it. Ordinary people are not stupid. They may be poorly educated, but they are very smart and savvy. Apart from the language they learn at home, they will quickly gravitate towards the regional auxlang that allows them the best opportunities in their region, and then the auxlang that will get them the broadest contact with the outside.

They really don't care who brought that language to their shores; they don't think in terms of "coercive promulgation". That's code talk used by propagandists with their own agendas to put forward. (Typically, what you just said is code talk used by generations of politically active auxlang proponents. It's one of the reasons why auxlangs have always left a bitter taste in the mouth of very many other glossopoets.) What they care about is getting into that broader community and its economic potential.

Esperanto couldn't do it for them. Interlingua and Volapuke and all the rest couldn't do it. Atlas can't do it either. The Big Five have proven uberdominant; and while I appreciate the intellectual exercise that crafting an auxlang affords, the exercise is really all it can afford. The rest of the politics is just a blind end.
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by Lambuzhao »

elemtilas wrote:Really, who chooses any auxlang is the people who want to engage with the outside world and its broader economy.
Indeed.
And 'outside world' could be as epichoric as the Czardom next door.
Take Russenorsk :rus: :nor: , for example. Not an IAL by any stretch, but an interesting lingua franca, for what it was.

No ruling class created or deigned it or orthographized & regularized it: it sprang from the fishermen and merchants, and spread to other classes and strata.

Some links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russenorsk
http://www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art197e.pdf
http://www.philol.msu.ru/~otipl/new/mai ... enorsk.doc
http://faculty.washington.edu/wassink/2 ... enorsk.pdf

Spend some time with :rus: :nor: . You'll be glad you did.
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by lsd »

elemtilas wrote:
lsd wrote:
Axiem wrote:Hold up. Are you seriously suggesting that linguae francae are chosen? Who has the power to bestow lingua franca status unto a language? Is there a secret cabal or something?
I believe they tend to be known as the "ruling class" : those people with all the money and power.
The appeal of an auxiliary language is that it is a grass-roots movement that is consciously chosen and non-coercively promulgated.
I did not say that (although I could have ...)
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by Lao Kou »

Frislander wrote:Why is my sarcasm-ometer bleeping?
A couple of taps with your index finger will help to reset it. [B)]
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by elemtilas »

lsd wrote:
elemtilas wrote:
lsd wrote:
Axiem wrote:Hold up. Are you seriously suggesting that linguae francae are chosen? Who has the power to bestow lingua franca status unto a language? Is there a secret cabal or something?
I believe they tend to be known as the "ruling class" : those people with all the money and power.
The appeal of an auxiliary language is that it is a grass-roots movement that is consciously chosen and non-coercively promulgated.
I did not say that (although I could have ...)
I know!! [xD]

Sorry about the confusion...I thought I was looking at the right level when filling in the stripped "quote" box. Proper attribution is shanoxilt.
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by lsd »

elemtilas wrote:They really don't care who brought that language to their shores; they don't think in terms of "coercive promulgation".
they should...
The number of endangered languages would decrease ...

A constructed auxland would be a bigger danger to linguistic diversity, because it would be simple to learn ...
Imagine a genetically modified language escaped directly from a lab in nature ...

Humans do not like to learn several languages ...
Except when it was useful: in the tribal world, where all languages were all identically interesting because of being spoken by the neighboring village, with whom one has to agree to materially and genetically survive ...
shanoxilt wrote:Lojban, while not an auxiliary language, is relatively simple
I feel myself a dumb on hearing this......
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by Rodiniye »

elemtilas wrote:They may be poorly educated, but they are very smart and savvy. Apart from the language they learn at home, they will quickly gravitate towards the regional auxlang that allows them the best opportunities in their region, and then the auxlang that will get them the broadest contact with the outside.
people will tend to study the "auxlang" that gives them more opportunities. Agreed. Most people will try to learn English. However, many many people where I live study other languages, just because they like the language, its culture, its concept, whatever. Many speak/learn Italian, French, German... even Chinese, European... why? most of them will never live in those countries. But they love languages. I speak Italian myself, and apart from another line in my CV and a bit of help when I go to Italy, not other uses really. I studied it because I liked it. So.... yes some people will study the auxlang, some not, some will study other languages.

The problem is as well that English is far too difficult to learn. In Spain, where I am from, people learn English for about 12 years at school, and I would say around 70% of the boys and girls finishing school at 18 cannot have a fluid conversation in English. In 12 years! Many struggle with pronunciation, phonetics, grammar... Yes, I understand the lingua franca is not chosen (yet), but would it not be easier to have one common language which was easy(ier) and would not take 12 years to learn? Mind you, I speak 5 languages fluently. It took me around 12 years in school + 3 years private lessons + 4 years at uni + 4 years in the UK + 6 months in New Zealand in order to be fluent in English. Still, obviously, I make mistakes and my English will not be perfect. We have a lingua franca which is far from ideal, and which will change one day. Having the lingua franca as your native language gives you a huge power, beginning by the fact that you can skip 12 years in school learning it, or private lessons, etc, while others will take 20 years. Nobody pretty much can reach the level of a native person, so that gives everybody else apart from English native speakers a bit of a disadvantage. I have seen it. I work in an international environment and people with an acceptable (not perfect, but acceptable) English level have more problems in getting some positions than native speakers. And that is after having put a lot of effort in their lives in order to achieve that level.

That is one of the reasons behind auxlangs, and there is people out there interested in the idea. It is fair. Why would English be the lingua franca? Why not mine? Spanish? Why yours and not mine? Why not Swahili? Oh I know, because of political reasons. That is unfair. I work in aviation, where a good level of English is required. Why do I have to reach that level, while native English speakers don't? Just because English has been chosen as the lingua franca in that field? Is it fair that I have to go through training + learning English while others don't?

Well obviously some people will say yes, because that's society, politics is life, evolution, it is the way it is.... but some of these people would change their minds if tomorrow they woke up and Chinese was the lingua franca. I am 100% sure. But it is difficult to see that when you have the privilege of speaking the lingua franca since you were born.
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by elemtilas »

lsd wrote:
elemtilas wrote:They really don't care who brought that language to their shores; they don't think in terms of "coercive promulgation".
they should...
The number of endangered languages would decrease ...
Ah, spoken like a well & truly priviledged Westerner!
A constructed auxland would be a bigger danger to linguistic diversity, because it would be simple to learn ...
Imagine a genetically modified language escaped directly from a lab in nature ...
A constructed auxlang is no danger at all to linguistic diversity. I think it's safe to say that the net effect of the creation of scores or hundreds of philosophical, trade, auxiliary, and regional interlanguages is a net increase in language diversity. If only on paper, because out of six or seven billion people, only about 1500 native level speakers of auxlangs exist.

The old canard of "simple to learn" has proven time and again to be false. Esperanto is, without a doubt, relatively easy to learn. Yet, where is it in the grand scheme of things? It's nowhere to be seen. Or, rather, heard. Esperanto, like all other attempts at making a constructed auxiliary language, has pretty much run itself into the ground. There is no impetus from without to pick it up and use it; there are no grass roots movements of linguistically repressed masses yearning to tack an en on the end of all their words. Just because it's relatively easy to learn is no measure of an auxlang's utility.

As has been the case since recorded history first got recorded, auxlangs rise & spread with economic activity. That is, the market determines the need and shape of any auxiliary language, and it's the people in that market who make the decision, regardless of available options that may supply artificial benefits.
Humans do not like to learn several languages ...
Spoken like a true American! ;)

In general, most humans are polyglots. It's only in America that we have this strange notion that absolute monolingualism coupled with a constitutional resistance to learning any other language than English is the norm. In very many countries of the world, people will speak a local or regional language, a national language and / or an international (aux) language.
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by Axiem »

Rodiniye wrote: - wan (finish). finish+take = solve
I would have understood that compound as "win", as in a race.
- qu (down): down+take = bury
What is the word for "submerge"? What about "lower"?
Rodiniye wrote: Give me a fragment (not very long, as I do not have much time today) and I will translate it for your into Atlas (there is already one text uploaded, although it is a story).
Sure:
Federalist Papers No. 10 wrote: The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.
At least, if you presume to make it an auxlang used for communication of technical subjects such as science or philosophy, I'm presuming that discussion of political philosophy falls under that purview.
Rodiniye wrote: In Spain, where I am from, people learn English for about 12 years at school, and I would say around 70% of the boys and girls finishing school at 18 cannot have a fluid conversation in English. In 12 years!
My experience is that children learning a language in school prior to university level almost never do very well; there's generally a lack of immersion and a lack of drive. In college, it gets better, but there's still a gap.

I have friends that by the end of high school had taken Spanish for around that long, and also could not have a fluid conversation in Spanish. Perhaps the issue is not with the language, but rather with the students or the education.
Yes, I understand the lingua franca is not chosen (yet)
Who would choose it? Who would impose it? Who would force it upon everyone else and in schools and so on? What would they do above and beyond what they're already doing for English?
would not take 12 years to learn?
I went from nothing to able-to-have-an-interesting-if-not-technical-conversation in Japanese in three years in college. Let's choose Japanese for a lingua franca!
Nobody pretty much can reach the level of a native person, so that gives everybody else apart from English native speakers a bit of a disadvantage.
So why don't more countries just make English their native language? That seems like it would solve the problem.
Why would English be the lingua franca?
Coincidence of history, with England winning the Enlightenment Trade Wars, and then America becoming a dominant military and manufacturing power in the 20th century (thanks in part to its natural resources and not having a war going on internally at the time, while the other industrial powerhouses were dealing with massive wars destroying their infrastructure) and then the 21st because of Silicon Valley and the proliferation of computing.

But English has only been the lingua franca for what, a hundred years? In the early 20th century, my understanding is that the lingua franca of science and philosophy was German.

The language used it the one where the innovation is. Why do the stars all have Arabic names? Because Arabic was the language spoken by the people who compiled the star atlases! Why is cuisine dominated by French words? Because the French were doing all that things. Why is music dominated by Italian words? Because Italians were the ones who came up with stuff!

None of these languages were "chosen"—they developed out of what people were speaking when they were doing things.
Why not mine? Spanish?
Spanish is the lingua franca in a large portion of the Americas, as I understand it. Spanish conquerers and all that. The USA has several major cities named in Spanish (San Francisco, San Antonio) and even at least one state (Colorado)
That is unfair.
Life is unfair.
Why do I have to reach that level, while native English speakers don't?
Native English speakers have to reach that level, too.
Just because English has been chosen as the lingua franca in that field?
It wasn't "chosen", at least not at first. It happened organically because the people doing innovation in aviation were English-speakers; and then, when it came time to make an international standard, it was a pretty easy choice: the language more people were using, and was also turning into a lingua franca anyway.
Is it fair that I have to go through training + learning English while others don't?
No. Life isn't fair.
but some of these people would change their minds if tomorrow they woke up and Chinese was the lingua franca.
But that can never happen (short of massive war). There's not some organization that's deciding a lingua franca—it comes about because of the individual choices of people based on the situation as it exists.

It's possible that Chinese becomes a lingua franca (though Chinese people learn English far more often than Americans learn Chinese), but its path to do so would be a long, time-consuming process whereby slowly, individuals and then websites and then journals and the books and then so on move over to Chinese. Anyone paying attention would see it coming a mile away.

As for me, if I thought that Chinese was actually making headway towards becoming a new lingua franca, I would step up my efforts to learn it. But I've seen no real movement in that direction. It wouldn't particularly bother me, though, aside from the time investment.

Like, I get why there's frustration from non-native English speakers. But it's not like there's some switch we can flip and have everyone start using some new language as an auxlang—and that doesn't even address having to deal with the large amount of pre-existing scientific literature in English. There are massive practical considerations that just shoot any hope of a constructed auxlang out of the sky.
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elemtilas
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by elemtilas »

Rodiniye wrote:
elemtilas wrote:They may be poorly educated, but they are very smart and savvy. Apart from the language they learn at home, they will quickly gravitate towards the regional auxlang that allows them the best opportunities in their region, and then the auxlang that will get them the broadest contact with the outside.
people will tend to study the "auxlang" that gives them more opportunities. Agreed. Most people will try to learn English. However, many many people where I live study other languages, just because they like the language, its culture, its concept, whatever. Many speak/learn Italian, French, German... even Chinese, European... why? most of them will never live in those countries. But they love languages. I speak Italian myself, and apart from another line in my CV and a bit of help when I go to Italy, not other uses really. I studied it because I liked it. So.... yes some people will study the auxlang, some not, some will study other languages.
No doubt about it! You might even find one or two folks here who will study Atlas just for the fun of it! Just because it's a language they haven't studied before!

This is like the many people who study carpentry for the fun of it. Maybe they'd like to make a bookshelf or something. But it's not like six or seven billion people are going to flock to carpentry as their sole occupation!

Myself, I studied very many languages too and I think most of us in a forum like this have done the same.
The problem is as well that English is far too difficult to learn.
This of course is patently absurd. We have some terribly stupid people here in America, and they all learned to speak English pretty well.

You're just repeating the same tired argument that auxlang proponents have made for generations. (I think it must be like Argument No. 3 in the Auxlangers' Little Red Manifesto or something!)
In Spain, where I am from, people learn English for about 12 years at school, and I would say around 70% of the boys and girls finishing school at 18 cannot have a fluid conversation in English. In 12 years!
And then? They live in Effing Spain!! You speak Spanish there! If kids in Scotland studied Spanish for twelve years, they too would probably not be able to hold much of a convo with a monoglot Spanish speaker.

And then there's you...I honestly can't tell if you are a native English speaker or not. I have not detected any "common foreigner errors" in your writing. So clearly, English ain't all that difficult! I can guarantee that my Spanish is nothing like as good as your English.
Many struggle with pronunciation, phonetics, grammar...
Many native English speakers do the same.

For what it's worth, many native Spanish speakers struggle with these same issues in Spanish!
Yes, I understand the lingua franca is not chosen (yet)
The auxlangers' perpetual hope!
, but would it not be easier to have one common language which was easy(ier) and would not take 12 years to learn?
Not really. First of all, as has already been demonstrated, Atlas is really not as easy as advertised. The problem with hampering your auxlang by intentionally making it too simple is that as soon as someone says "how do I say XYZ in Atlas!?" --- Well, you can't, because that was deemed too difficult an idea. --- People will abandon it for a real language that allows them to communicate properly.

Easy is not necessarily better.

Utility and commonality are what win the day.

Short of implementing Atlas by force, how do you expect to win through? What's your plan?
Mind you, I speak 5 languages fluently. It took me around 12 years in school + 3 years private lessons + 4 years at uni + 4 years in the UK + 6 months in New Zealand in order to be fluent in English.
Fantastic! I speak one, and I'm still learning it!
Still, obviously, I make mistakes and my English will not be perfect.
That's one of the funny things about language. No matter what our native language is or how intense our study and practice of an L2 or how long we've been at it, we still make mistakes.
We have a lingua franca which is far from ideal, and which will change one day.
That it is the lingua franca by definition makes it ideal. It does the job assigned to it.

Will it change some day? Of course! How that change will take place and when, those things no one can tell. I would hazard the guess that it will become increasingly difficult to topple the Big Five from the summit of the mountain. As the world community becomes more integrated and more connected, it will also become more difficult to topple the lingua franca from its position as well.

Barring an all-out destruction of civilisation and disintegration of world community & economy, I think we're going to be looking at status quo for forseeable future.
Having the lingua franca as your native language gives you a huge power, beginning by the fact that you can skip 12 years in school learning it, or private lessons, etc, while others will take 20 years.
Another canard. Yes, being a native speaker of the lingua franca does grant a certain advantage. But it really doesn't take 15 or 20 years of polishing one's skills in English to the point of native level proficiency, such as you have most admirably accomplished, in order to make use of English as a tool for communication. You (generic, mind) need to learn it just well enough to make yourself understood and to understand within the scope of need in your location.

If you want to move into diplomatic circles or international business, then yeah, you need to polish your English (and quite probably learn several other languages as well). If you want to set yourself up as a tour guide or a restaurant owner or a small tourism industry in your native country, your English doesn't need to be perfect. Or anything like native proficiency.
Nobody pretty much can reach the level of a native person,
That's alright. A restaurant owner catering to tourists visiting his small but picturesque village in Outer Lumbago really doesn't need to be intimately conversant with Shakespeare or Milton. He needs to be conversant with his guests (who will probably be rude Americans boobs, and therefore won't know what a Milton or a Shakespeare even are!), because for him English is an interlanguage a bridge between himself and his foreign guests, it's a tool of the marketplace.
so that gives everybody else apart from English native speakers a bit of a disadvantage. I have seen it. I work in an international environment and people with an acceptable (not perfect, but acceptable) English level have more problems in getting some positions than native speakers. And that is after having put a lot of effort in their lives in order to achieve that level.
We have the same issue here. Recent immigrants speak English poorly. They do indeed have difficulty getting certain positions.

If they want to take advantage of the opportunities on offer here, they need to learn. They need to ensure that their children learn. If I moved to Spain, do you not think I'd take every opportunity to learn Spanish!? In my line of work, I'd have to perfect my Spanish every bit as much as you've done with English in your line of work!

That's life. No easy to learn auxlang is going to help with this. In fact, in the case of immigrants outlined above, it would only serve to hamper their progress. Because they're still not learning the regional or national language(s) of their new homeland.
That is one of the reasons behind auxlangs, and there is people out there interested in the idea. It is fair. Why would English be the lingua franca? Why not mine? Spanish? Why yours and not mine?
Yours (Spanish), is one of the Big Five, you know! It is certainly a regional auxlang here in America. I learned it for that reason, and though I've forgotten a lot, and quite lot more has been replaced by a new language, it certainly comes in handy for communicating with others who don't speak English, who have not yet learned the lingua franca.

As for why "mine" and not "yours". That's largely an accident of history and culture that neither of us have any control over. We just have a choice to make: play the hands dealt to each of us, or whine in misery and wonder why we get no opportunities of this world. I will note, however, that you played your hand very well.
Why not Swahili? Oh I know, because of political reasons. That is unfair.
It has little to do with politics per se. It has to do more with economics. England and America have proven to be the uberdominant economic drivers of the last two centuries, mostly on account of manufacturing and technology. Spain, not so much.

By the time England's own imperium looked to be coming to a conclusion, English was already well in place, even in countries with established and venerable native languages. And then, once the great European wars of the 20th century pretty much depleted England, there was its golden egg, the USA, to rise in its place and take on the leadership of the world's economic activity. With all due respect, Spanish never stood a chance at anything more than regional hegemony in its former colonies.

As for why not Swahili? Well, show me the world spanning Kenyan Empire... the dominant Rwandan economic powerhouse...

Oh. Right.

Again, and with respect, Swahili just doesn't stand a chance.

Also, life ain't fair. No one ever said it was going to be fair.
I work in aviation, where a good level of English is required. Why do I have to reach that level, while native English speakers don't? Just because English has been chosen as the lingua franca in that field? Is it fair that I have to go through training + learning English while others don't?
English is the preeminent language of aviation, mostly because America was the first home of powered flight, and England and America came to dominate aviation in the early years. As history has marched on, English has come to be the language of science & technology as well as economic activity.

Is that fair? Probably not. We just kind of have to deal with it! But you yourself have advantages over a monoglot English aviation (engineer, maybe?) --- and that is your Spanish fluency as a native speaker. You can bridge all of Latin America, plus European Spain, plus all of the native English speaking world. That's a pretty good chunk of geography!
Well obviously some people will say yes, because that's society, politics is life, evolution, it is the way it is.... but some of these people would change their minds if tomorrow they woke up and Chinese was the lingua franca. I am 100% sure. But it is difficult to see that when you have the privilege of speaking the lingua franca since you were born.
"Chinese" (Mandarin) is also one of the Big Five. If China ever gains sufficient power as far as science and technology go, as well as economic development, then it is possible that we'll see a pole shift in lingua franca from English to Chinese. As they say in old Peking: C' est la vie, c' est la guerre, c' est la pomme de terre.

It's not difficult at all to see. A lingua franca becomes a lingua franca because there is an advantage to its use. Remember: it's a tool.

Look at it like this. For thousands of years, farmers went down to the local hardware shop and bought shiny bronze spades to work their potato fields. No one ever thought the situation would change. Do you really think that either the farmer or the bronzesmith would remain steadfast users and makers of bronze spades when once iron spades came on to the market?

There's an advantage to an iron spade --- it's stronger & lighter. Sure it rusts easily, but if well cared for, it can last a hundred years easily. But either way, both spades are tools. The farmer is going to pick the one that allows him to turn over more soil, dig more potatoes and therefore produce more food. Do you think the smith is going to refuse to make iron spades, just because he grew up with bronze and everyone for generations has used bronze tools?

No! He too will switch to iron. The market has offered a superior tool and people have spoken by choosing the superior tool.

Right now, English is the lingua franca because it offers a superior tool and people speak by choosing that superior tool.

With all due respect to your intellectual exercise in creating an auxiliary language, you're just not offering me a superior tool. What you're offering me is a promise without hope of fulfillment, a tool that is untried and of dubious utility, and to be honest, an argument from "fairness" that is really and truly irksome. It's the kind of irrational argument a nine year old makes.

So what you're réally asking me to do is give up English because you think it's unfair to you as a non-native speaker and in exchange you'll give me a tool I can't use and won't integrate with anyone else in the whole world. Ahh... I think no sale on that one!

And with that, I think I've exhausted my patience with this whole auxlang nonsense for a good long while! [sigh] The shadows of the ancient past have spread their dark wings over this place, too... Time to get away from that before the poison spreads!
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by Rodiniye »

@elemtilas

I am not trying to convince you to leave English, or English learners to learn Atlas.

I am offering an alternative to the system we use. The message from anti auxlangs is mostly: well, it might be unfair but that's the way it is. And some add, "oh, we won the war", or "we had a big empire", etc etc

If people did not create or offer alternatives society would not move or evolve. So let's create new things, new paths. Atlas is not only an auxlang, is an auxlang offering minimal vocabulary but which can cover potentially all concepts, so I don't think it is just another one of those (I am not saying it is better or worse). Will it succeed? I can see myself in 50 years speaking Atlas with my mirror only easily. But what if?

Some people like it, some people don't. That's life.

What I like is two things:

- it has open a healthy discussion which I consider very interesting and needed, and obviously partially thanks to you, for instance.
- generally speaking it has attacted admiration and just a few objections, but far from the ones raised against my previous project.

And I thank everyone for your contribution, whatever your thoughts are about auxlangs or Atlas, but we all learn from each other.
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by Nachtuil »

Well said elemtilas.

Rodiniye: I would be interested in seeing you produce some translations with interlinear glosses.
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by lsd »

elemtilas wrote:
lsd wrote:they should...
The number of endangered languages would decrease ...
Ah, spoken like a well & truly priviledged Westerner!
That is an Empire colonizers' speech: Let the untermensch coming to civilization...
Humans do not like to learn several languages ...
Spoken like a true American! ;)
you should visit France (specially Bretagne, or Provence,...)
With all due respect to your intellectual exercise in creating an auxiliary language, you're just not offering me a superior tool. What you're offering me is a promise without hope of fulfillment, a tool that is untried and of dubious utility
In one word, a conlang...
(stop taking the word auxlang too seriously, it is first a conlang with no utility in real world (except for its builder...))
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Re: Atlas: new auxlang

Post by Frislander »

Rodiniye wrote:I am not trying to convince you to leave English, or English learners to learn Atlas.
gjkfsaghfhgtskj! If you're not trying to convince people to learn your language then why are you even bothering?
I am offering an alternative to the system we use. The message from anti auxlangs is mostly: well, it might be unfair but that's the way it is. And some add, "oh, we won the war", or "we had a big empire", etc etc
Nobody on this forum is saying these things because they actually are happy that this is the situation we live with (in fact I'd even go so far as to say everyone here understands the value of linguistic diversity). We are saying these things because auxlangers as a rule either don't seem to be aware of them or if they are they wilfully ignore them.
If people did not create or offer alternatives society would not move or evolve. So let's create new things, new paths. Atlas is not only an auxlang, is an auxlang offering minimal vocabulary but which can cover potentially all concepts, so I don't think it is just another one of those (I am not saying it is better or worse). Will it succeed? I can see myself in 50 years speaking Atlas with my mirror only easily. But what if?
Idealism bears fruit when there is a large number of people who support it, and that can only acheived when that support is easy to find. Outside of the auxlang community, however, people just don't care. Sure, you may get people who grumble at having to learn another language in order to access this stuff, but at the end of the day there isn't enough feeling, nor the resources, to effect a massive shift to the auxlang, because at the end of the day, however "easy" you try and make it, people are still having to learn a language, and when you then remove the main incentive to actually learn the language (a huge body of preexisting scientific literature, usage in international commerce, etc.) people just won't bother.
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