Zompist Bboard Again

Hey Bryan. Good to see old members popping in. [you haven't lost your postcount! It's just... been misplaced... on another board...] I'm afraid though I prefer the sort of anonymity that doesn't involve registering my name and date of birth on file - and I'm not sure I could find my microphone in an...

And of course 'default' is a vague concept anyway, conflating many different concepts that individual languages can treat differently, such as: - an unmarked gender for nouns where one gender is marked - an unmarked gender for adjective agreement where one gender is marked - an unmarked gender for v...

I'd also note the irony in your examples! The idea that "boy" and "girl" (gender-specificied words for people who are young) are inherently 'unrelated' and 'should be completely different' to indicate gender seems almost as archaic, and certainly as arbitrary, as saying the same...

But the divide's existence in the first place was probably motivated by what would be called sexism by modern standards. Depends what you mean by 'motivated' and 'sexism'. On the one hand, the existence of gender is not inherently sexist - it's a technique primarily to allow easy disambiguation. Mo...

I have /l/ in balk (but not in walk , talk etc.), dolphin and Salman (which I seem to have as /'salman/, with both vowels strong). I don't have /l/ in folk , salmon or almond . The latter two have different vowels: /ˈsamən/ but /ˈɑːmənd/; I don't know why. Probably because "salmon" has ne...

Of course not - but there's not really any necessity to go any particular direction on which gender should be considered default, and the simplest approach imo is to simply not distinguish gender except for a small set of highly specific nouns, where the words should be completely different. E.g. &...

I'm curious about the pronounciation of 'almond' with a short 'a', though. How did that happen? [and I'd never heard before of the spelling pronunciation of 'salmon'! Nor the l-less dolphin!] Probably the way that spelling-pronounced falcon ended up with /æl/ despite having not /al/ but rather the ...

I have /l/ in balk (but not in walk , talk etc.), dolphin and Salman (which I seem to have as /'salman/, with both vowels strong). I don't have /l/ in folk , salmon or almond . The latter two have different vowels: /ˈsamən/ but /ˈɑːmənd/; I don't know why. Probably because "salmon" has ne...

It's one of the worst conlangs I have ever seen, worse even than Volapük. I feel here we have to qualify what makes something good or bad. Volapük fails as an IAL because it doesn't meet criteria that we could reasonably set out to be what an IAL should be (Justin Rye's attack on Esperanto does thi...

That said, David's conlangs are far better than Klingon - which is actually a good demonstration how not to create a conlang. It's one of the worst conlangs I have ever seen, worse even than Volapük. Wow, I disagree on both counts. Too bad Jay Shorten isn't here anymore to defend Volapük. It's kind...

I think most introductions into IE historic linguistics that go into syntax will tell you that subordinating conjunctions are a recent development in all known families. (Enclitic coordinating conjuctions like *-k w e "and", *-we "or" are normally reconstructed for PIE.) Before ...

Ahhh, Reaper Man ! Love that one. I understand why some people might not like it, but I don't feel that way at all. I think it's marvelous. Death is such a great character. Indeed. IMO, the Death novella in that book is possibly the best thing Pratchett wrote. But the Fresh Start Club stuff is a ni...

I meant within a book. Wyrd Sisters drops an awful lot of hints that Verence is who he is by talking about his parents in very throwaway lines that look like nattering. [/quote] Oh yes, nothing happens in these books without being carefully planned and prepared for... When I've finished or given up...

I read probably up until about The Last Continent and then stopped when I was a teenager so the ones after that After The Last Continent? Yeah, that's entirely understandable. I love the Faculty parts of that novel, but the Rincewind parts are maybe the worst thing Pratchett ever wrote... , other t...

I recently read the titanic, the spectalar, the awe-inspiring, the criminally-forgotten Ash: A Secret History (by Mary Gentle). It's... wow. On the one hand, it's in the vein of, and arguably better than, Martin and Hobb (certainly better than Martin, maybe Hobb). On the other hand, its cheerful, an...

I'm taking a break from reading the Discworld series to take a break from reading the Song of Fire and Ice books by reading the Lord of the Rings . I'll work my way back up eventually. SOFAI: Enjoyable but arduous. Excellently paced chapters and good characterisation, so far, but I gather it gets a...

National Geographic: A widely celebrated test believed to be able to determine if tropical marine aquarium fish were caught illegally using cyanide may be based on problematic data, a new study says.

(underline to point out the problem)

I'm referring to the Kura-Araxes culture. Nevermind what I said about the culture being Armenian; the area of origin is more important to this discussion than the language/ethnicity of its originators. Then your comment becomes more complexing. The introduction of the Aryan substrate in Mitanni doe...

What's wrong with hačeks? Although they should be restricted to just the palatalised consonants. Plus I really dislike using <c č> 1. Diacritics look messy and should be minimised 2. Haceks are ugly 3. Rogue haceks cause many display problems, as demonstrated in this thread 4. Haceks in most cases ...

You could use -h for either length or stress. It would also be sensible to get rid of those hacek letters.