New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of work

A forum for all topics related to constructed languages
User avatar
Frislander
mayan
mayan
Posts: 2088
Joined: 14 May 2016 18:47
Location: The North

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by Frislander »

Nononono, don't do any of that, you're missing the point. You can keep all that stuff if you stop trying to push this language as an auxlang and instead just let it be an artlang.

Also "getting rid of accented letters"? Again, you miss the point, it's not the letters that are the issue (though I object to Esperanto's s-caron), it's the system of sounds that the letters represent, and getting rid of the ones you chose to denote with diacritics on letters if anything makes it worse and just doesn't solve the problem. The way to make/reform a phonology is to start from the phonemes, not the romanisation.
Rodiniye
cuneiform
cuneiform
Posts: 75
Joined: 13 Jun 2017 23:44

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by Rodiniye »

Frislander wrote:Nononono, don't do any of that, you're missing the point. You can keep all that stuff if you stop trying to push this language as an auxlang and instead just let it be an artlang.

Also "getting rid of accented letters"? Again, you miss the point, it's not the letters that are the issue (though I object to Esperanto's s-caron), it's the system of sounds that the letters represent, and getting rid of the ones you chose to denote with diacritics on letters if anything makes it worse and just doesn't solve the problem. The way to make/reform a phonology is to start from the phonemes, not the romanisation.
I know, but that was one of the con's in another forum too. Apart from that, I was thinking of getting rid of a few more phonemes.

My question is: it was created to be an auxlang, what changes do you think are necessary in order to achieve that? that's the point

tHANKS!
User avatar
lsd
greek
greek
Posts: 740
Joined: 11 Mar 2011 21:11
Contact:

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by lsd »

Frislander wrote:stop trying to push this language as an auxlang and instead just let it be an artlang
you can view auxlang as comitted artlang...
artlang for art's sake is a decadent form of conlang if we look at its goals between consolation and escapism...
My question is: it was created to be an auxlang, what changes do you think are necessary in order to achieve that? that's the point
find a gafa sponsor to promote it... the difference between any language and an international langage is the political choice to use it...

As long as the policies remain national, the national language will always be preferred, I see only the multinationals of communication that have enough means to go beyond them ...
User avatar
elemtilas
runic
runic
Posts: 3021
Joined: 22 Nov 2014 04:48

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by elemtilas »

Frislander wrote:Nononono, don't do any of that, you're missing the point. You can keep all that stuff if you stop trying to push this language as an auxlang and instead just let it be an artlang.
Agreed. Not to put too fine a point on the issue, but, really, Rodinian is absolutely horrible as a truly international / world-wide invented IAL. Just from what I can see, it's not really that easy to learn or use. The claims made of its simplicity, logic and accuracy are, I think, quite overstated.

As I said before, a lot of aspects of the language recommend it as a fine artlang. But those two goals are often contradictory and mutually exclusive!
Rodiniye wrote:My question is: it was created to be an auxlang, what changes do you think are necessary in order to achieve that? that's the point
Easy.

Just alter everything about it until you reach a 1:1 with English.

Hey presto! You've just invented the biggest, baddest IAL ever! [xD]

I'm still interested in how you plan on convincing the world your invented language is leaps and bounds and far and away the best option for a communication strapped world!
User avatar
lsd
greek
greek
Posts: 740
Joined: 11 Mar 2011 21:11
Contact:

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by lsd »

elemtilas wrote: a truly international / world-wide invented IAL. Just from what I can see, it's not really that easy to learn or use. The claims made of its simplicity, logic and accuracy are, I think, quite overstated.
You should try English ... which only fulfills the criterion of having been chosen...
just alter everything about it until you reach a 1:1 with English.
or rather imposed...
User avatar
elemtilas
runic
runic
Posts: 3021
Joined: 22 Nov 2014 04:48

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by elemtilas »

lsd wrote:
elemtilas wrote: Just from what I can see, it's not really that easy to learn or use. The claims made of its simplicity, logic and accuracy are, I think, quite overstated.
You should try English ...
No cigar. English was never propósed to be "easy". Rodian was, and it ain't either.
lsd wrote:
elemtilas wrote: a truly international / world-wide invented IAL.
which only fulfills the criterion of having been chosen a/o imposed ...
I know it irks the dyed in the wool auxlangers no end, but when you get right down to it, "having been chosen" is the only criterion any IAL needs to fulfill for it to be counted as successful. We've seen Latin, French, Spanish, Mandarin and English all being chosen. English has been and continues to be rather more chosen. Even the most prominent, most widely spoken and most respected of invented IALs have not fulfilled that allermost important criterion...

...and among the prophets come out of the wilds East of the lands of the people, there was much gnashing of teeth, and wailing and lamenting. (The Gospel of the Promulgation of Iala)
masako
mayan
mayan
Posts: 1813
Joined: 12 Aug 2010 16:42

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by masako »

I can't be the only one amused by the OP taking our notes has suggestions rather than full-throated critiques.
Last edited by masako on 15 Jun 2017 17:43, edited 1 time in total.
g

o

n

e
Nachtuil
greek
greek
Posts: 595
Joined: 21 Jul 2016 00:16

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by Nachtuil »

Yeah, lingua francas arise not out of their features but out of economic or political need or necessity. English happened to be the language of the largest empire in world history which happened to be in the last few centuries a former colony of which happened to turn into the worlds largest economy and political force. Luck would have it the language is morphologically simplified compared to its earlier states. That said, if the British empire used Old English, Indian and American children might be studying Beowulf in school instead of Shakespeare. For modern learners of English, there are economic and political rewards from doing so, not because English has "better" grammatical features than say, Finnish or Ket.

Looking at constructed languages for a minute, Esperanto certainly wasn't the first auxlang nor will it be the last but has been the greatest success and part of that has to do with it having been founded at the right time in the right political climate. A large enough amount of people believed in its purpose enough to put the effort in to learn it. Esperanto was an expression of wide political sentiment, not just a language for the sake of having a different language. As you no doubt know, becoming fluent in a language is a considerable investment of time.

My point is it is hard to establish an auxlang or a constructed language even recreationally without a community behind it. Dothraki has game of thrones fans, Na'vi the Avatar fans etc. If you want your Rodinian to be picked up you should contemplate why you are not learning something like lojban or Interlingua yourself instead of trying to create another IAL.

I don't mean to discourage you from doing what you're doing. You've still invented something highly creative and that has its own merit. In my opinion, you should keep what you've made and continue to work on it but also explore something more accessible with some or all of recommendations made here, and see if you like it and what your goals for it might be.

I want to say, having grammatical features found in Indo-european can be quite practical if you want your language to be accessible to as many people as possible. Something like 45% of the world speaks and Indo-european language. Features that are typologically rare by number of languages in the world are common in number of speakers.

Have you tried teaching your language to any friends by the way to see how easily they can pick it up?
Last edited by Nachtuil on 15 Jun 2017 04:12, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
Axiem
sinic
sinic
Posts: 316
Joined: 10 Sep 2016 06:56

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by Axiem »

I would posit—admittedly with nothing but conjecture and anecdote—that the things that make a language difficult to learn are the very things that make the language incredibly expressive. To file off all of the "hard to learn" corners merely creates an anodyne language that cannot say very much of anything at all.
Conworld: Mto
:con: : Kuvian
User avatar
qwed117
mongolian
mongolian
Posts: 4094
Joined: 20 Nov 2014 02:27

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by qwed117 »

Axiem wrote:I would posit—admittedly with nothing but conjecture and anecdote—that the things that make a language difficult to learn are the very things that make the language incredibly expressive. To file off all of the "hard to learn" corners merely creates an anodyne language that cannot say very much of anything at all.
To be honest, I think the most impressive and the most daunting thing to learn are the thousands upon thousands of words you must learn in order to have a true mastery of the language. I am afraid to say I cannot see how an auxlang can offer that.
Spoiler:
My minicity is [http://zyphrazia.myminicity.com/xml]Zyphrazia and [http://novland.myminicity.com/xml]Novland.

Minicity has fallen :(
The SqwedgePad
User avatar
lsd
greek
greek
Posts: 740
Joined: 11 Mar 2011 21:11
Contact:

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by lsd »

Difficulty decrease when benefit to learn increase...
The point is how can it be politically imposed by a national authority which already own its natural language... Try multinationals ( unfortunately majors of entertainment get power on apolitical audience...)....
And don't forget the path is the real goal... The goal is just a path...
Rodiniye
cuneiform
cuneiform
Posts: 75
Joined: 13 Jun 2017 23:44

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by Rodiniye »

Thanks for all your answers, every single comment has been very helpful.

I have made a proposal (here and in other places), and I have to say I am impressed that actually many people did not want any modifications at all. But still I have learned a lot from these 4 days or so of existance and I have come to the following conclusion: In the following days, Rodinian will have the following changes:
- elimination of accented letters: ŝ, ê, û.
- elimination of sounds /y/, /ø/, /ç/, /ʤ/.
- eliminaton of experimental aspect.

Now! I have taken everything onboard guys and I thank you very much. There has been a concept appearing from time to time, which is "only keep the complexities that make the language richer and more interesting". And well, all of the above might not be necessary.

Apart from these, the website will be simplified and a few other changes made, and page numbers added!

Again, thank you very much. Hopefully I will have everything ready very soon.
User avatar
Lambuzhao
korean
korean
Posts: 5405
Joined: 13 May 2012 02:57

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by Lambuzhao »

Cannot wait to see you try it out on the Conlang Conversation Thread!
[:)]
User avatar
elemtilas
runic
runic
Posts: 3021
Joined: 22 Nov 2014 04:48

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by elemtilas »

Nachtuil wrote:Yeah, lingua francas arise not out of their features but out of economic or political need or necessity. English happened to be the language of the largest empire in world history which happened to be in the last few centuries a former colony of which happened to turn into the worlds largest economy and political force. Luck would have it the language is morphologically simplified compared to its earlier states. That said, if the British empire used Old English, Indian and American children might be studying Beowulf in school instead of Shakespeare. For modern learners of English, there are economic and political rewards from doing so, not because English has "better" grammatical features than say, Finnish or Ket.
Exactly. These are a couple things that auxlangers rarely if ever take into account. They decry the "difficulty" of a "national language" while striving to create the perfectly easy language --- yet no one beats a path to their door. They wax poetical or at least demagogical about the inherent -isms contained in the hated natural language they're focussed on. Yet no one in the world seems to care about all the supposed "nationalism" and most don't really care about the supposed difficulties. They're more interested in understanding the broader world and making themselves understood by it and engaging with it. It doesn't matter if the language in question is French or Mongolian or Quechua. So long as it allows people to satisfy that economic & political need, that's the language they'll use.
User avatar
Frislander
mayan
mayan
Posts: 2088
Joined: 14 May 2016 18:47
Location: The North

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by Frislander »

masako wrote:I can't be the only one ammused by the OP taking our notes has suggestions rather than full-throated critiques.
You are not! I'm loving this attitude, Rodiniye! [B)]
User avatar
Lambuzhao
korean
korean
Posts: 5405
Joined: 13 May 2012 02:57

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by Lambuzhao »

That said, if the British empire used Old English, Indian and American children might be studying Beowulf in school instead of Shakespeare.
Most certainly NOT! If 1066 never happened, then it'd be Beowulf and Christopher Marlowe (!)

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
and burnt the topless towers of Ileum?


UY! That needs to be a Translation challenge!


Really, Shakenspeared would have found his way to fame in any number of infinite non-Norman-Conquested Universes.

But he'd've said quotables like:

To be or not to be: that is the asking.
User avatar
lsd
greek
greek
Posts: 740
Joined: 11 Mar 2011 21:11
Contact:

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by lsd »

It has been calculated the economic gain that would represent the adoption of Esperanto for IAL rather than a national language ...
Except for those that have this natlang in L1...
That why the military or economic leader impose its language...
And better knowledge increase power...

But Globish is now as different from English as auxlang from natlang...
except of the lack of rationalization...
Rodiniye
cuneiform
cuneiform
Posts: 75
Joined: 13 Jun 2017 23:44

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by Rodiniye »

It has been a pleasure to share my work with you but I have decided to stop it for now. The general thinking is that it is an amazing artlang but probably not so good as an auxlang, so rather than wasting my time with some tweaking here and there I have cancelled the project for the time being. I have other things I will concentrate on, and probably think about new things. I have learnt that some things I considered very valuable might not be, and probably that these kind of things will be better working in a community, rather than myself alone.

Having said this, many people have approached me and have offered me help and or interest. The website itself got around 600 visits in just a few days with only 3-4 forums active, so thanks very much everyone. However, to be fair I was expecting better reactions overall. I failed and it is OK, I will move on.

I will probably start something else taking what people liked about Rodinian, but probably as well it will be in cooperation with other people. So if you are interested, PM me or write me: rodiniye@gmail.com.

For the new project I want to do something else. Something really based on every language, with fewer sounds, a lot easier probably, but with a bit of accuracy too.

It has been a pleasure!
User avatar
elemtilas
runic
runic
Posts: 3021
Joined: 22 Nov 2014 04:48

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by elemtilas »

Rodiniye wrote:Having said this, many people have approached me and have offered me help and or interest. The website itself got around 600 visits in just a few days with only 3-4 forums active, so thanks very much everyone. However, to be fair I was expecting better reactions overall. I failed and it is OK, I will move on.
I don't see your invented language as a failure at all! On the contrary. Where I think you did fail was trying to sell the idea of an invented IAL to one of the two groups of people who are notoriously anti-auxlang.

The first group is, of course, other auxlangers. Had you tried to introduce Rodinian over on Auxlang-L, I'm pretty sure you would have received far more criticism than you got here. The other group is, of course, artlangers. In general, we disdain or are even outright disgusted by the whole political philosophy and propagandasing that auxlangers engage in. In your defense, and with all due respect, you came across to me at least as a very weak auxlanger. I've never come across one that had any interest in seeking advice or input on their creation, let alone actually trying to improve upon their language! Every True Believer I've ever met has literally been of the attitude that all the rest of the language invention world that immediately jump on their band waggon were a load of short-sighted, uneducated, closed-minded idiots who are unable to comprehend the lofty heights of linguistic perfection revealed through them by the very gods of glossopoesy.

Makes me wonder: maybe deep down some part of you is really chafing against the whole auxlang idea? I'd be willing to bet that if you had come here and presented your language as a straight-up artlang, you would have received much more positive feedback. I certainly think Rodinian is worth keeping around for other purposes, perhaps. Maybe you'll revisit is as a proper artlang some time?

In any event, whether your next project is an auxlang or an artlang or an engelang or whatever, please do come back and keep us updated! I can say in all honesty that I respect the amount of work you put into this project and truly appreciate that your invented language is well thought out, well documented and nicely presented! And I definitely plan on reading your grammar much more closely. In my opinion, you gave us a great old stew pot of meat and potatoes to chaw down on! Hopefully you won't hold our (perhaps overly) brusque attitude against us! Really: that response was entirely a reaction to your original packaging, not to the actual contents of that package!
User avatar
Lao Kou
mongolian
mongolian
Posts: 5089
Joined: 25 Nov 2012 10:39
Location: 蘇州/苏州

Re: New international language, Rodinian, after 11 years of

Post by Lao Kou »

I am quite disheartened to hear that you're abandoning this project, because it fully deserves watering, sunlight, and attention, but I think you're still missing the point, because your project is not a failure at all.

Selling an IAL is not like selling a Corvette. Candy-apple red, perfectly aerodynamically streamlined, 0 to 100 in five seconds...

Logic? Accuracy? Phoneme count? Who, the hell, cares?! If you're in a huggy-bear mode, you could get to an advanced beginner level in Esperanto in the span of an afternoon, and the success among like-mindeds, while limited, is impressive. How could you possibly improve? Some lexical tidbits thrown at various language families?

As has been pointed out, language learning requires an investment, no matter how "easy", "logical", or "accurate" it is. And to get a plantain vendor in Havana or a rocket scientist in Riga to engage requires more than "language design". Get Caroline Kennedy to speak it -- or Avril Lavigne.

Committee work on an IAL? Oh my Lord :roll: Walk away -- walk far, far, away.
道可道,非常道
名可名,非常名
Post Reply