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[Bob]

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So sorry, everybody! It occured to me that there's still work to be done on Pakuni. So I've decided to move this post elsewhere. I made a copy of everyone's responses and will try to reply in the next few days.

Early 2020's Work on Movie and TV Famous Pakuni and Atlantean Conlangs
https://www.verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=636

It's notably easier to delete posts and replies on facebook. And some (few?) admins are even quite gracious about the same and sympathetic. I run several of facebook's largest groups about foreign language study, ancient languages, and conlanging, for 5 years now. I have always treated my admins and members the way I would want to be treated and received all appeals.

[Bob]

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[Vilike]

I am intrigued, what is that Atlantean word based on a Hmong language?

Since about New Year's Day, I've had been working on a big series of projects involving the Pakuni or Paku language from the big hit American 1970s kids sci fi tv show "Land of the Lost". I'm the first language scientist to do decipherment work on the language and make it available publically.

I dunno if it was already mentioned in another Pakuni thread, but have you read Alexander's Victoria Fromkin's Reform-Pakuni of 1995?

[Bob]

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[Bob]

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[Bob]

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[Bob]

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[dewrad]

Are you ok man?

[Bob]

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[masako]

chill dude

[KathTheDragon]

This is hilarious

[elemtilas]

This is hilarious

It is that!

I do have to respect Bob / Epigraphist's persistence on this project, however, for one of America's most forgotten, or perhaps most forgettable, television programmes, cringeworthy at best. It's true that a linguist was hired to make an invented language for the show, but to say that either linguist or language are so extraordinarily famous and influential is just bollocks.

His posts are, as always, self-aggrandisingly entertaining.

But at least somewhere in all the fluff, he has done some work with Pakuni. I'll just be a matter of sorting out what that exactly consists of!

Keep at it Bob!

[alynnidalar]

If he really knew what he was doing, he would have listened to me more. But a lot of academics are not open-minded like that

hmm

[Bob]

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[Bob]

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[Vardelm]

I can't believe I'm going to wade into this, but....

"Self-aggrandizingly entertaining." Yet have I ever said such things about your posts? I think you also go on for pages and pages about your conlangs and projects. And I've been one of the only people to give you an encouraging and thoughtful response. And then this is what I get from you now. Or maybe I have you confused with someone else. Zompist Bboard is a blast from the past in a lot of ways: The bizaare anonymous names, the delightful anonymous personalities. Can't you folks give me more welcome when I visit "the old ivory tower" ? Could you at least humor me that I think languages like Okrand's Atlantean, Okrand's Klingon, and Fromkin's Pakuni are worth studying and making extensive translations into? What is wrong with a language scientist studying New Age beliefs and urban legends, astronomy, ancient political intrigue and human oppression, paleontology, and hominids?

Nothing is wrong with your interests, although I suspect that few people here have much interest in such projects. They tend to be more interested in what they are creating and what other board members are creating rather than what other people - who are not members of this board - have created in the past. With that said:

elemtilas goes on for pages and pages about the conlangs that (s)he has worked on.

elemtilas does NOT go on for pages and pages about his/her bonifides, degrees, "amazing discoveries", dedication, aggrievement by and superiority to other academics, leadership and celebrity on Facebook groups, size and scope of projects, scholarly value of those projects, and most especially not those projects' "glory and benefit to humanity".

Be like elemtilas.

[bradrn]

Let me add slightly to what Vardelm said:

"Self-aggrandizingly entertaining." Yet have I ever said such things about your posts? I think you also go on for pages and pages about your conlangs and projects. And I've been one of the only people to give you an encouraging and thoughtful response. And then this is what I get from you now. Or maybe I have you confused with someone else. Zompist Bboard is a blast from the past in a lot of ways: The bizaare anonymous names, the delightful anonymous personalities. Can't you folks give me more welcome when I visit "the old ivory tower" ? Could you at least humor me that I think languages like Okrand's Atlantean, Okrand's Klingon, and Fromkin's Pakuni are worth studying and making extensive translations into? What is wrong with a language scientist studying New Age beliefs and urban legends, astronomy, ancient political intrigue and human oppression, paleontology, and hominids?

When I come on Zompist Bboard, I try to see what everyone else has been doing and not roundly mock it all or nit-pick with how its presenters set forth their masterpieces. I make comments that show that sensitivity for people of scholarly achievement, sensitivity for people of different cultures.

Bob, I don’t think anyone is criticising you for your work on Pakuni and other similar conlangs. Sure, they’re criticising Pakuni and Land of the Lost in their own right, but I haven’t seen anyone criticise your work, and I certainly haven’t seen anyone saying that you shouldn’t work on them. (Indeed, elemtilas actually said ‘I do … respect Bob / Epigraphist's persistence on this project’, which sounds like praise to me.) When people talk about ‘Self-aggrandizingly entertaining’, I think that the only thing they’re talking about is the amount of criticism you have for other people; sure, maybe there’s a couple of people you dislike, but just one or two lines will do — you don’t have to spend whole posts talking about it. (Similarly you don’t have to talk about how expert you are all the time — given the amount of stuff you’ve written about these areas, it’s easy to see that you know a lot about this!) And in addition to these, one more piece of advice: you spend a lot of posts talking about your current work on Pakuni etc., but you never actually show us this work. Which is a great pity, since your posts have made me interested in them now! So: instead of posts merely detailing what you’re working on at the moment in these areas, please could you share some actual examples of the work in question? (If everyone on the board were making posts like ‘I’m making a very interesting conlang right now’ all the time, this would be a very boring place; luckily most people are willing to share their work, which is the whole point of the ZBB after all.)

[Vardelm]

you spend a lot of posts talking about your current work on Pakuni etc., but you never actually show us this work. Which is a great pity, since your posts have made me interested in them now! So: instead of posts merely detailing what you’re working on at the moment in these areas, please could you share some actual examples of the work in question? (If everyone on the board were making posts like ‘I’m making a very interesting conlang right now’ all the time, this would be a very boring place; luckily most people are willing to share their work, which is the whole point of the ZBB after all.)

This.

Personally, from what little I've seen/read about Pakuni, I don't think it holds much interest for me. BUT, if it does pull a bunch of ideas from IE, then I could easily see those who are into IE might find it quite interesting. Post details about the language instead of about the study of the language, and you stand a better chance to find those folks.

[elemtilas]

Bob, I don’t think anyone is criticising you for your work on Pakuni and other similar conlangs. Sure, they’re criticising Pakuni and Land of the Lost in their own right, but I haven’t seen anyone criticise your work, and I certainly haven’t seen anyone saying that you shouldn’t work on them. (Indeed, elemtilas actually said ‘I do … respect Bob / Epigraphist's persistence on this project’, which sounds like praise to me.) When people talk about ‘Self-aggrandizingly entertaining’, I think that the only thing they’re talking about is the amount of criticism you have for other people; sure, maybe there’s a couple of people you dislike, but just one or two lines will do — you don’t have to spend whole posts talking about it. (Similarly you don’t have to talk about how expert you are all the time — given the amount of stuff you’ve written about these areas, it’s easy to see that you know a lot about this!) And in addition to these, one more piece of advice: you spend a lot of posts talking about your current work on Pakuni etc., but you never actually show us this work. Which is a great pity, since your posts have made me interested in them now! So: instead of posts merely detailing what you’re working on at the moment in these areas, please could you share some actual examples of the work in question? (If everyone on the board were making posts like ‘I’m making a very interesting conlang right now’ all the time, this would be a very boring place; luckily most people are willing to share their work, which is the whole point of the ZBB after all.)

This.

When I met Bob years and years ago on Conlang-L where he was writing as George Mann, I asked him then to get his stuff together and put it up online! I'd already written the article on Pakuni for Frathwiki, and would have loved to link to or feature some of his work on the language.

I'd still like for that to happen! Though, for preference, without the "entertainingly self-aggrandising" vandalism we had to deal with before. Admittedly, it was classic: The great Pakuni lone pioneer, alone braving the desolate years, has gathered 3 sources likely from Fromkin herself giving tantalizing hints, and indeed its Rosetta Stones, as to the full and secret nature of Pakuni : a 1975 "TV Guide" article from Sept. 11th in year before the Bicentennial, a recent "PuffnStuff and Stuff" book section, and a Linguistics exam exercise from Fromkin.

[Bob]

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