Update
11 November 2010
Unbelievably, there appears to be good news.
There may be hope after all. It looks like this whole project might be saved at the eleventh hour by Occidental. I have begun, successfully, translating literature into Occidental and it looks like it is going to deliver what Interlingua failed to deliver. It looks like it could be a competitor on par with Afrikaans and Indonesian as a truly practical off-the-shelf auxiliary language. Stay tuned. More news next year.
It is just remotely possible that I have not completely wasted my time. The problem with Occidental is its appalling lack of documentation, the complete and total lack of any literary works available in the language, and the lack of multi-lingual dictionaries; however these are problems which can be rectified and indeed some have already made efforts to partially rectify. Much of this existed in the past, it is just out of print and not available online. The point is three-fold:
(1) the language is quite possibly very fine indeed, it is just the documentation and the body of literature which is absent;
(2) the language is quite mature and quite stable and quite well-proven, it is just that is has been entombed for fifty years and is hidden under a layer of dust about six-feet thick;
(3) unlike the Big Three (Esperanto, Ido, and Interlingua) it has not already failed since it has had no real publicity yet in the internet age.
The only change I wish to make to written Occidental (other than the normal tasks of a writer in any new language, such as occasionally adding new words and coining idioms) is to always write all adjectives preceeding their noun, like English, so there is never any decision necessary about which adjectives go before and which go after the noun and so the language seems even more Germanic in its grammar and even more obviously not a Romance language. What de Wahl got right, critically and importantly, is that an auxlang does not have to have the grammar of a Romance language in order to make use of the international vocabulary which comes from Latin. But actually the grammar of Occidental allows adjectives to preceed nouns if one prefers, so my choice is still a valid form of Occidental.
With regard to spoken Occidental, however, I will be making quite a number of deliberate and intentional choices to pronounce it slightly differently from the manner recommended by its creator. The most important of these choices is that I will use a pronunciation of the letter R which is halfway between French and English and most definitely not a rolled or trilled R as found in Spanish, Italian, or Interlingua; this also emphasises that this is not a Romance language, it is a language in its own right. Similarly I will ignore any superfluous rules which a real community of speakers would probably ignore, such as supposedly having to voice difficult consonantal clusters as found in the word for science: scientie (which officially is supposed to be pronounced "s-tsien-tsie" but which I will pronounce "sien-tsie" thus simplifying the initial "s-ts" to a simple "s"). I might indeed often reduce the -ci- sound "tsi" to the sound "si" (since giving it its full, more difficult, pronunciation is unnecessary for comprehension and does not in any case differentiate between the spelling -ci- and -ti- for example). Likewise I might not always fully pronounce the final "-e" of some nouns in the singular, but might instead treat the "-e" as a sign to fix and fully pronounce the preceding consonant as in: generale Bonaparte. When preceded by a vowel I would pronounce the final "-e", as in scientie, for example because this often clearly identifies such a word as not being adjectival; anyway, the details don't matter, the point is that I will intentionally speak Occidental with what purists might consider to be a regional accent because doing so, in my opinion, greatly improves the language without significantly reducing comprehensibility. For precedent consider the different pronunciations of Brazilian Portuguese as spoken in the north and south of that country: many consonants, including R, are pronounced surprisingly differently yet the language remains totally mutually comprehensible and is clearly the same language, not disparate dialects. One must remember of course that it is absurd to claim that any pronunciation is correct or incorrect when almost nobody speaks a language. The etymologicial spelling of Occidental greatly assists international comprehension of the written language and is a good thing; there is however no need to complicate the spoken language by slavishly pronouncing every letter like a robot would. Occidental still remains easier than English, but similarly powerful, either way.
(1) the language is quite possibly very fine indeed, it is just the documentation and the body of literature which is absent;
(2) the language is quite mature and quite stable and quite well-proven, it is just that is has been entombed for fifty years and is hidden under a layer of dust about six-feet thick;
(3) unlike the Big Three (Esperanto, Ido, and Interlingua) it has not already failed since it has had no real publicity yet in the internet age.
The only change I wish to make to written Occidental (other than the normal tasks of a writer in any new language, such as occasionally adding new words and coining idioms) is to always write all adjectives preceeding their noun, like English, so there is never any decision necessary about which adjectives go before and which go after the noun and so the language seems even more Germanic in its grammar and even more obviously not a Romance language. What de Wahl got right, critically and importantly, is that an auxlang does not have to have the grammar of a Romance language in order to make use of the international vocabulary which comes from Latin. But actually the grammar of Occidental allows adjectives to preceed nouns if one prefers, so my choice is still a valid form of Occidental.
With regard to spoken Occidental, however, I will be making quite a number of deliberate and intentional choices to pronounce it slightly differently from the manner recommended by its creator. The most important of these choices is that I will use a pronunciation of the letter R which is halfway between French and English and most definitely not a rolled or trilled R as found in Spanish, Italian, or Interlingua; this also emphasises that this is not a Romance language, it is a language in its own right. Similarly I will ignore any superfluous rules which a real community of speakers would probably ignore, such as supposedly having to voice difficult consonantal clusters as found in the word for science: scientie (which officially is supposed to be pronounced "s-tsien-tsie" but which I will pronounce "sien-tsie" thus simplifying the initial "s-ts" to a simple "s"). I might indeed often reduce the -ci- sound "tsi" to the sound "si" (since giving it its full, more difficult, pronunciation is unnecessary for comprehension and does not in any case differentiate between the spelling -ci- and -ti- for example). Likewise I might not always fully pronounce the final "-e" of some nouns in the singular, but might instead treat the "-e" as a sign to fix and fully pronounce the preceding consonant as in: generale Bonaparte. When preceded by a vowel I would pronounce the final "-e", as in scientie, for example because this often clearly identifies such a word as not being adjectival; anyway, the details don't matter, the point is that I will intentionally speak Occidental with what purists might consider to be a regional accent because doing so, in my opinion, greatly improves the language without significantly reducing comprehensibility. For precedent consider the different pronunciations of Brazilian Portuguese as spoken in the north and south of that country: many consonants, including R, are pronounced surprisingly differently yet the language remains totally mutually comprehensible and is clearly the same language, not disparate dialects. One must remember of course that it is absurd to claim that any pronunciation is correct or incorrect when almost nobody speaks a language. The etymologicial spelling of Occidental greatly assists international comprehension of the written language and is a good thing; there is however no need to complicate the spoken language by slavishly pronouncing every letter like a robot would. Occidental still remains easier than English, but similarly powerful, either way.
For examples of literature translated into Occidental, please follow my blog in that language:
If you wish to support my efforts with Occidental, please join that blog as a follower. I want to see if I can get more followers with an Occidental blog than I could with an Interlingua blog; that would encourage me to continue and would encourage me to believe readers are interested in stories written in Occidental.
The jury is still out. This, too, could fail. I emphasise, however, that my goal is not to have an at-sight language which people can read without prior study as easily as they (if they already speak a Romance language) can read Interlingua; it is to have a truly excellent literary language capable of equal artistry as French or English, even if that means the reader has to do a little more work to learn the language before they can read a novel in it, but still being massively easier to learn than French or English and much more accessible to Asian readers than is Interlingua.
Well, time will tell...
--ooOOoo--
The original, more pessimistic text of this post follows below.
As I am writing my novel, I will not be active on this blog until January 2011. However I have come to a conclusion so important that I must record it here.
After investing nine months of my life in serious, highly motivated, dedicated study during which I tried to find any constructed language good enough for a writer to use for long stories or even a novel, I have reached my final verdict.
I wasted my time!
I should point out that the last few months of this journey have mostly consisted of me clutching desperately at straws, re-evaluating languages which I had already rejected, unwilling to face up to the fact that none were adequate. You see, to face up to the fact that no currently available constructed language is adequate would be to face up to the fact that I had wasted the past nine months of my life on a pointless, tragic and ridiculous quest. Actually, somewhere therein lies a very promising plot for an epic, comic, tragic and philosophical novel: perhaps a kind of linguistic Don Quixote is what I have been.
Let me be clear. I am not saying that constructed languages are a waste of time or that to construct a language is a pointless activity. Not at all. What I am saying is that none of the currently available constructed languages is worthwhile for the purpose of writing a large work of literature entirely in that language.
Furthermore, and this is the really sad part, none of the currently available constructed languages is worthwhile for practical international communication. Quite seriously, my advice if you need to communicate internationally during the next five years is to learn English. Right now it is the only practical choice. Surprisingly, my journey has led me to believe that English is actually a very good international auxiliary language and needs to be respected as such. This was not previously my opinion. It is a surprising outcome for me. English is very difficult but it is certainly the most useful and almost certainly the easiest of any of the major global international languages today (English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic; despite the easier spelling of some of these languages, their irregular verbs make them much harder than English overall). Of course if you need to communicate with countries that speak Spanish then you should definitely learn Spanish instead; but if you need communication between diverse countries which have no language in common, English is the best choice.
The above paragraph refers to basic practical communication such as for tourism or business. With regard to writing a novel for international readers, English doesn't help you much since you could not reasonably expect anyone to enjoy reading your novel without having first studied English for ten years. The complex, idiomatic expressions found in novels are much more difficult than the simple language used for basic practical communication. Therefore for this purpose I would recommend first Indonesian and, as a distant second, Afrikaans; these languages probably require several years less study than English for readers to be able to enjoy novels. I am currently learning Indonesian.
In fact, the existence of Indonesian and Afrikaans is really what for me sounded the death knell for the major constructed languages. Indonesian and Afrikaans are easier to learn than Esperanto, Ido and Interlingua: the Big Three constructed languages which capture most of the students who are willing (for whatever reason) to try a constructed language. Although at first glance these constructed languages might seem easier than Indonesian or Afrikaans, once you progress to the more advanced material and try to express complex concepts you realise that they are actually all more difficult. Ridiculously more difficult, in fact, when one takes into account the relative lack of literature and relative lack of documentation. Even worse, they are all relatively untested (for example, no government has used them to run a country) and therefore all still have major fundamental flaws which would have been ironed out by now if they had had larger populations of speakers. Putting this all together, these constructed languages cannot even remotely compete with Indonesian or Afrikaans.
Take Indonesian as an example. Indonesian is spoken by over 200 million people and is the official language of the fourth most populous country in the world. This is not a language to be dismissed, this is not a lesser language, an inferior language, or an experimental language; this is one of the great modern languages of the world. This is a language with a proven track record of having been successfully employed to run one of the largest countries on Earth. This is a language which is, taking into account the availability of literature, easier to learn than Esperanto, Ido or Interlingua. Indonesian is a language which is partly constructed and partly natural; accordingly it has a marvellously easy spelling and pronunciation (even easier than Spanish). What is more it does not have a primarily European vocabulary (although it does contain about 10,000 words from Dutch); while one could argue this makes it less practical than Interlingua for global use, since European languages currently dominate international communication, the ease of learning Indonesian in all respects other than its vocabulary clearly outweighs this. After all, most of the world's population speak languages other than European languages.
This last point is essential: if having a vocabulary easily recognisable to Europeans is not a criteria on which we judge a language, then Esperanto, Ido and Interlingua cannot even remotely compete with Indonesian. Indonesian is clearly easier and superior to all three, unless you wish to make having a European vocabulary an important consideration. The really telling point is this: my native language is English, a European language, yet I find Indonesian easier to learn than Esperanto, Ido or Interlingua. Therefore imagine the position of a student from Mongolia, Thailand or Bangladesh trying to learn an international auxiliary language: Indonesian will clearly be superior for them than would be Esperanto or Interlingua. Coming back to reality, of course the best current choice for those students would be to learn English. However, if such students wished to nominate a mutually-agreed lingua franca for their international communication with each other which is easier to learn than English then there is no contest: Indonesian would be superior to Esperanto, Ido and Interlingua.
And so, I realise I have wasted my time. When the purpose-built constructed international auxiliary languages are actually more difficult than a hugely successful, proven language such as Indonesian, something is badly wrong. In other words, the design of those constructed languages is badly flawed and the sooner we all admit that, the better.
So I have abandoned all study of constructed languages. Instead I am learning Indonesian. I may well also choose to learn Afrikaans in the future.
My advice to writers interested in constructed languages is:
Wait about five years and see if any of the newer constructed languages have become viable (due to better documentation, larger communities of users, or a process of evolution and change in the language itself) or if any new constructed languages have been invented and subsequently have become viable.
Do not learn any of the Big Three languages (Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua). They are not worth the large investment of time required as they are all badly flawed; the least flawed of the three is Interlingua (and it did manage to hold my enthusiasm for a while, very intermittently) but even it would require major reform before being a viable choice. Unfortunately I cannot in good conscience advise you to learn any other constructed language either, at this point in time; my advice to writers is to write some books in your native language and then around 2015 have another look at the constructed language scene and see if anything new has been developed or if existing languages have improved.
Should I be surprised at my final verdict?
No. It makes perfect sense. Why has the world not yet adopted any constructed international auxiliary language for major use? Because the currently available constructed languages, in their current forms, are inadequate for the task.
Consumers, and the market in general, has correctly rejected them.
So, I give up. I hereby stop wasting my time.
An Aside
Just for a bit of fun, and absolutely not as any kind of serious proposal for a language to be adopted by anyone, I have decided to playfully experiment with making a constructed international auxiliary language based on Indonesian grammar and orthography but with vocabulary chosen from ten languages: English, French, Spanish, Indonesian, Arabic, Russian, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese and Swahili. The name of the language is Bahasa Internasional.
This is a pointless undertaking on my part since it would be much better simply to learn and use standard Indonesian (which I am also doing) but it is a fun activity in which I can dabble without taking it too seriously. I especially like the idea of learning real-world vocabulary from ten languages as a by-product.
This, by the way, is the only manner in which, until about 2015, I suggest that any writer should bother with any constructed language: purely as a bit of fun (unless you have some small, specialised purpose such as foreign dialogue in a novel).
So, that's the end of my journey with constructed languages.
I want my nine months back!
Well, I guess you had not just *a bit* of fun during these 9 months, otherwise this blog would not be named "The Joy of languages". Your conclusion is very obvious, though, in practical sense. Here I should remark that the whole idea of international auxiliary language [in addition to its practical aspect] was quite idealistic, to introduce something neutral to anyone - in the time of creation Volapük, Esperanto, LsF and Ido, there was no one clearly dominating world language, and people were ready to kill each other - two world wars proved this very "successfully".
ReplyDeleteOne century later, people are still killing each other, but at least in Northern Hemisphere around Atlantic Ocean they found a common values, and have surrendered to domination of English. Now not only the language dominates the world, but also Anglo-American culture dominates the others. We can see this as an inevitable sign of globalization, but we can't deny this happening. Idea of neutral language is dead because people changed during last 100 years and they don't mind this cultural domination of English and other big languages anymore. And next 5 years will not change anything, even if some killer-featured language will enter the scene (I remember your enthusiasm about LdP, which really look very nice and polished auxlang). People will never understand why auxlangs exist. So it's just a pure fun not for the next 5 years, it's pure fun until Chinese communst party will sign an agreement with American president to use auxlang N.
Good luck with your Indonesian, have an ultimate joy of learning it, and please, share your discoveries in this blog the same way you did with Interlingua, Sambahsa, LdP and others. Your readers will greatly appreciate that. I'm sure there is a great interest in Indonesian around the world.
Sellamat Robert !
ReplyDeleteOf course, I'm sorry to hear that your "joy of languages" has been a waste of time. But I can assure you that it wasn't so for me since I could read there interesting posts !
By the way, (of course I take the example of Sambahsa...), I don't think that writing a novel completely in it would be a good idea. No editor would publish it and even if you would publish it on line, only the few ones able to decipher Sambahsa would have a look at it (on a far larger scale, this reasoning would apply to a book written in Esperanto too). On the contrary, I think that the best thing you can do for Auxlangs is to include some bits of them into your novel. People, if they like your writing, may get interested by this auxlang, and may want to know more about it. Furthermore, transposing your writing into a country where people speak a conlang may be an excellent idea to address universal thematics in your novel. For example, if you want to write about xenophoby, your message will be stronger if you can isolate the mecanism of hatred, rather than simply blaming a particular group of racists.
Was your reference to Don Quixote voluntary ? Because Don Quixote was indeed "linguistic". Cervantes himself stated that the biggest part of "his" Don Quixote was in fact a mere translation from an Arabic original by Cid Hamete Benegeli.
Though this theory is now given up, the Frenchwoman Dominique Aubier asserted in the 60s that Don Quixote could be read both "in Hebrew and Spanish". She contended that the scheme of this novel followed the path of the Jewish Kabbala. However, her theory had such an impact of the hitherto nazi-admirative Franco government that the Spanish authorities made up their minds, and recognized as citizens the Jews expelled in 1492 (who still speak a Spanish-like language).
In the "City of Glass" by Paul Auster (read it, if you haven't done it already), the main character, Quinn, is a successful writer under the pseudonym of William Wilson. He gets involved in an investigation on a mad professor who tried to discover the language before Babel. Near the end of the novel, Quinn meets Paul Auster himself who is working on an essay on Don Quixote. His own theory is that this novel was written first in Spanish, translated in Arabic and retranslated into Spanish.
The famous Argentinian author Borges wrote a novella where a certain Pierre Ménard rewrites Don Quixote to make it more authentic than the original version itself. Borges was fond of old languages and knew Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse; his gravestone at Geneva is carved with inscriptions in those two languages.
So, you see that writers like Auster and Borges have wasted their time with linguistic considerations too; this may be a consolation for you !
Good luck with Bahasa International !
Olivier
"What I am saying is that none of the currently available constructed languages is worthwhile for the purpose of writing a large work of literature entirely in that language."
ReplyDeleteYou are wrong. Look, this author has written and published a literature work in interlingua: http://www.pagef30.com/2008/11/two-new-books-in-interlingua-published.html
This fact proves that Interlingua is suitalbe for writing literature works.
You should take a look at Papiamentu, it's a natural language, no verb conjugation, use mostly Italic words (Spanish, Italian, etc)so it's already understandable to most Europeans just by reading and it's already used by 329,002 people in the Caribbean islands, Netherlands, Curaçao, and Aruba. It actually has culture so there's must and everything
ReplyDelete@Barcodex: Thanks for your interesting comment and for your very kind encouragement regarding my efforts to learn Indonesian. I will indeed share my experiences concerning Indonesian when I begin blogging here again in January 2011.
ReplyDelete@Arpgme: Thanks for your very kind recommendation that I look at Papiamentu. I will indeed do so, it's one language which I have not yet taken a proper look at and which really I should seriously investigate. Sometime next year I will try to write about it on this blog. I'm encouraged to hear that most Europeans can understand it when written.
@asymmetric: Thanks for your comment. Interlingua was the actually the final winner of my long search for a literary constructed language (there were other temporary winners along the way including first LFN and later LdP, two fine languages). However I simply had to abandon it because despite very serious study and working very hard, I was unable to properly read short stories and a novel written in Interlingua; the idioms remained ambiguous and confusing to me. The best I could manage was about 50% comprehension, not nearly good enough to really enjoy reading a novel. Most readers would not be as motivated as me to persist long enough to get even that far, I think. I think Interlingua in its current form is only good for those who already speak a Romance language. This is perhaps the reason why it has not prospered; very sadly even Onofrio Notarstefano's books no longer seem to be available. By the way, that author I believe speaks Italian and therefore would find it a lot easier than me to write in Interlingua.
Unfortunately I have failed. That is the bottom line: I tried really, really, really hard to learn to read literature in Interlingua and I failed. Whereas Indonesian or Afrikaans seem easier; something is wrong when natural languages seem easier to learn than a constructed one. For me, Interlingua was good but not quite good enough; it needs some kind of reform, in my humble opinion.
@cafaristeir: Thank you very much, Olivier. Your comment is, as always, simultaneously generous, kind, interesting, informative, and fascinating. One thing which has definitely not been a waste of time is the wonderful people I have been privileged to meet, who have kindly taken the time to respond to me on this blog. I thank you all very much for your kindness and your interest in this topic and for taking the time to write to me.
I look forward to learning more about Indonesian, Afrikaans, Papiamentu and indeed even to continuing with my (hopefully harmless) little experiment called Bahasa Internasional.
Hi Robert,
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit disappointed with this conclusion I must say. There is a new made up language constructed every week and we still didn't manage to beat anything existing? We are a bunch of linguistic losers. I'm glad to hear you did reach a conclusion though. After all, one can't keep searching forever.
Anyway, not only bad thing have come of these nine months. You seem to have enjoyed writing your blog and I enjoyed reading it (and I'll assume for the moment I'm not alone in that).
You're post about Austrakaans in particular inspired me to revisit and pick up my own "create a language" project again (just for fun of course, I don't think anyone will ever speak it), even though I've seem to have restranded in the mean time. The name of the project was Luga Manusi and the idea was to combine Indonesian/Malay, Afrikaans and Swahili. I thought that would lead me to using mostly Afrikaans grammar, but as you said, Indonesian turns out to be much easier and in the end my lack of knowledge of languages steered me into creating something that's not like either (and probably inferior to both in most aspects, ah well...).
But, back to your conclusion. What's the strategy now? We all cling to English for now and try to convince any possible future superpower that they should really pick indonesian over their own language for international communication? In case of China, Japan and especially India (officially English speaking, but almost nobody had enough education for that), that almost sounds doable. Someone should start an international movement for that. ;)
In the mean time, I'll stick to just speaking Dutch, English and fake Afrikaans, all those languages are just way to confusing...
@Jack Dawson: Hi Jack,
ReplyDeleteYes I am disappointed too. In a way I feel like I have let readers of this blog down by not, in the end, sticking with any constructed auxiliary language. But then I remind myself that the only possible value this blog has lies in its honesty; it is essential that I honestly report the events of my linguistic journey and the outcome of it. And the destination, at least at this point in time, has been that no constructed language has turned out to be worthwhile for my purposes right now in 2010. This is a very depressing outcome indeed.
On the plus side, I unexpectedly discovered that some natural languages like Afrikaans and Indonesian are easy to use. I even began to learn a little Estonian. So there have been unexpected benefits of this journey.
It will be interesting to see how I'm feeling in January 2011, how I will have progressed or not progressed with Indonesian by that time, and whether I will have changed my mind. Interlingua and Frenkisch are two languages which remain tempting... if only the former could be slightly simplified, perhaps with easier idioms, and if only the latter could develop a more mature grammar. Sambahsa also is very impressive of course but I feel it is better suited for Tolkein-like literary use rather than general auxiliary use. My intuitive feeling is that by 2015 perhaps some constructed language will have either evolved enough to have become practical or will have been newly invented.
I have come to realise that what is needed is a significant community willing to use one of these languages for some shared, common purpose and then it can evolve itself into a practical force in international communication. For example, if a community of model-railroad enthusiasts from Germanic countries, who for some reason did not speak any English, wished to communicate on a model-railroad forum using Frenkisch, which would also be fairly easily accessible to English speakers. The Frenkisch vocabulary would quickly become expanded by users with railroad terminology. Or the same kind of thing could occur in some kind of online role-playing community in an imaginary Germanic country. Or the same kind of thing could occur for some kind of specialised, real-world business purpose.
But, all that lies in the future I suppose, and probably would take a few years to catch on.
For now, back to Indonesian. And, English, of course, which for example this blog has found to be successful in communicating internationally, despite its difficulty.
A fitting conclusion to this misguided project, because it was obvious from the outset that choosing "the right language" is not and cannot be the primary factor in widening one's readership. Instead of this distraction, it would have been wise to spend your time writing, and let international popularity take care of itself if the works merit it. We do have translators for that.
ReplyDeletePlease understand that I'm all for people learning new languages, be they natural or auxlangs. The reason I'm scoffing at this is because your motivation was such an unbelievable ego trip. To go as far as trying to create a new language so that more people would read your works? Poppycock.
@Bogon: Thanks for your very intelligent and thought-provoking comment. I think in a way your comment crystallises the whole topic, the whole project in a nutshell, from one perspective at least.
ReplyDeleteWas the project misguided? Definitely. Just look at the results. I wasted my time.
On the other hand, progress comes from experimentation and observing the results of that experimentation. Some experiments fail. This one did. In other words, I failed. Not only that but, with typical and characteristic ineptitude, my blunders were made in public on this blog. Once again I have made a complete fool of myself in public. Nevertheless there is value in being willing to fail and even greater value in being willing to fail in public and to admit that failure openly.
Please bear in mind that I might have embarked on this whole journey privately and never have made a single blog post; instead I was willing to make an idiot of myself in public. To quote the great motivational speaker James Rohn, "What do you get if you take an idiot and motivate him?" Answer: "A motivated idiot." Well, my idiocy has been legendary but at least I had motivation.
Your advice that I should have avoided the distraction and instead spent my time writing is very sound.
On the other hand, as a writer it is still valid to seek out different canvases on which to paint in words, just as it is valid for a painter to seek out different canvases to paint in colours. There is a valid artistic journey in reaching out and trying new languages, and even in inventing them. I'm sorry if that sounds egotistical but really it isn't, except inasmuch as any artist or writer needs to have sufficient ego to believe that maybe, just maybe, they have something worthwhile to contribute or create.
However your point about an ego trip is a really, really good point and one which is worthy of a great deal of consideration and further thought. Just what is it that an individual is trying to do when he or she embarks upon creating a language? How much of it is just ego and how much of it is something hopefully more admirable?
I can honestly say the following:
(1) Nearly all the language inventors who have written to me have been exceedingly polite, considerate, gentle, tolerant, undestanding and helpful to me and to others. Quite honestly, if anything, I would say I have seen in those language creators considerable humility rather than arrogance in them, and a willingness to reach out and try to understand others (from different countries and cultures) rather than an egotistical self-centeredness. Actually I've been amazed by the kindness of these people towards me.
(2) Actually, I don't believe in just one "right language"; for practical reasons I've been trying to choose a winner (a new language for me personally to write in) but I always had the intention of eventually learning at least one other new language as well (not to mention French). But I was trying to choose one constructed language for 2010 and I failed.
(3) I wished to be able to reach more readers, yes, but not as part of some egotistical plan to gain worldwide popularity; it was more just about the hypothetical (and perhaps foolish and perhaps utopian) idea that writers all over the world might be able to share their work internationally, and communicate with readers internationally, more easily and with less study than is possible in English.
Is that poppycock? If it's driven by ego, then yes. If it's driven by practical concerns regarding effective communication between people from diverse cultures, or by a genuine and honest enthusiasm for creativity, then no. At worst, in that case, it's just a failed experiment and some wasted time.
Perhaps this whole blog is just a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Not sure about the sound and fury part, not sure about the signifying nothing part, but the first part is probably true.
Dear Robert,
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to hear that you have to abandon auxlangs. I would like to say "what a pity!" but I think you are the most disappointed among us. I hope you keep an eye on the world of auxlangs, and occasionally write some articles in auxlang, perhaps Occidental, which may be easy to write and may not waste too much time (just my personal wish, coz your blog in Occidental is beneficial for my study!).
You found that it is a waste of time to learn auxlangs at this moment, as none of the currently available constructed languages is worthwhile for practical international communication (read his post), and I AGREE. In my opinion, an auxlang is worth to learn when It is well developed (in grammar and vocabulary), and It gains sufficiently large communities with adequate reference materials. Are there any auxlangs achieved both of the criterias? I don't think so.
Learning a language with a micro, scatter and inactive community, with inadequate learning materials and almost-none literatures is a hard task. You may feel that when learning Interlingua, like what I encountered when learning Occidental.
Anyway I will keep an eye on your journey and I look forward to see your sharings :)
@Jasmin Chrysant: Dear Jasmin,
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your kind words.
Basically I am really depressed and extremely frustrated by the whole constructed international language scene. Last night my extreme frustration got the better of me and I wrote the following post about it in Interlingua:
http://joiadelinguages.blogspot.com/2010/11/forsan-ancora-alcun-sperantia-minuscule.html
Frustration is an interesting emotion: it means that deep down, inside ourselves, we know there is an opportunity to make the situation hugely better but that the opportunity is being wasted. This is the case with auxlangs.
Quite simply, we need a better auxlang; conservatism is killing the opportunity. Let's not even mention Esperanto: that popular but second-rate language is single-handedly killing any chance for the real success of any auxlang with the general public, since Esperanto has enough publicity to be the first language most people stumble across and it is just good enough to hold their interest for a while and just bad enough to ensure they give up in disgust and never learn a conlang again.
And then there are the auxlang wars, where rather than helping each other the proponents of the different languages attack the other languages; again, these days, it is mainly the Esperanto community which is guilty of this fundamental strategic mistake. This strategic mistake (to attack other auxlangs rather than supporting and encouraging them) ironically also ensures the failure of Esperanto since it undermines the general public's respect for any constructed language, Esperanto included.
By the way, to give honest criticism of a language is not to attack it; honest criticism helps a language. I do not mean to attack Esperanto by criticising it so strongly, I merely mean to honestly express my feelings about it; the frustration that it could and should be better. Things could and should improve. Criticism is a first step towards improvement and ultimately success.
Rather than speakers of Esperanto continuing to pretend that their flawed language is pretty close to perfect, and rather than speakers of Interlingua continuing to pretend that their flawed language is pretty close to perfect, what both groups (and all the other groups) should be doing is admitting that all these languages need major reform. Instead of desperately clinging on to their current forms and their current rules, they should be openly and enthusiastically encouraging reform by a process of relaxing the rules and encouraging freedom, liberty... the natural process by which even English evolves. Just look at how Enligh is spoken internationally as a second or third language: it is not the same as British English and that is okay, that is fine, such evolution is necessary for success.
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ReplyDeleteHere Occidental has a critical and major advantage: its community is (sometimes at least... they are not perfect either) 'relatively' tolerant of natural evolution and 'relatively' less strict and less obsessive about rules. Hence Occidental could actually evolve into something widely used quite naturally, without needing the cult-like propaganda campaign (similar to that of large network-marketing organisations) run by Esperanto to attract and maintain a community of speakers. Not the Occidental language exactly as it is now, but a more English-like language (but sticking to the common international vocabulary found in Occidental) evolved naturally from it by a community of users, could have at least some small success through natural evolution. In other words, Occidental could succeed as a sort of subset of English with simpler grammar and pronunciation than English... rather than as a sort of simplified Romance language. That difference is absolutely key to the secret of success, if indeed any success is ever possible.
I am so pleased to hear you will be creating Chinese-language documentation for Occidental. Please do not give up (unlike me); such a contribution would be very valuable. I continue to follow your journey with interest. If a few serious, committed Chinese-speaking users of Occidental emerge as a result of your work then I would once again consider learning it further. This is because I believe Occidental is fundamentally superior to Esperanto for literary purposes (although Esperanto can be used for literature it holds no interest for me in its current form due to its many and glaring flaws). Bridging the divide between East and West would make Occidental valuable, if it allowed Eastern readers to easily read Western literature and vice-versa. Unlike Esperanto, Occidental can retain much of the character and flavour of natural Western literature.
Disclaimer: Esperanto is the most wonderful language ever invented in the history of the world and we should all speak it over breakfast every day. The perfect expression of linguistic freedom would be to ban all other constructed languages. By the way, would you like to buy some household cleaning products? ;-)
Sorry, as you can see I am in a very bad mood...
Thanks again, Jasmin, please keep up your wonderful and interesting blog. I admire your work and your studies.
All the best,
Robert
Thanks Robert!
ReplyDeleteI am suprised that, when I'm able to understand texts in Occidental (slowly) without the aid of a dictionary, the same thing did not happen in your post in Interlingua. The small difference between the two language may lead to the wide gap of diffcultiness which is more obvious when proceeding the study, and Interlingua is just beyond the boundary and failed to attract people as a "simple, natual" auxiliary language.
I understand your feeling. Natural language is also opposed to change, making the process may take hundreds of years (like English, Romance languages) without an major event of reform (like the new cultural movement in China) or government support (like the reconstruction of Herbew and the construction of simplified Chinese characters). However, the situation in auxlang world is worse: without a strong common cultural background, they have no intention to unite and help to develop auxlangs together. I guess, there are more than a hundred or even a thousand auxlangers (people who are involved in auxlang) in the world (excluding esperanto), but probably most of them create their own auxlang and attacking each others to prove that their own version of auxlang is superb. Esperanto is successful among them and accumulated several millions of speakers, but some of them fall into conservatism and cultural hegemony. How can auxlangs succeed by soley attacking others subjectively and opposed to change?
I am glad that none of the Occidental users I knew yet is like those I mentioned above. Occidental is the major competitor of Esperanto once upon a time, with more than a million of speakers (from some sources) before WWII (Important: Occidental was created in 1922 and it adherents grew to >1M in less than 20 years!), but it lost its followers in WWII and finally executed in the cold war. While Esperanto and Interlingua is considered failed in your theory, Occidental still has the chance: if the community are willing to act.
In the moment I consider learning Occidental as a test (to see whether it aids the learning of English and other Romance), even an interest, a hobby. You may feel better if you don't make it serious: like you approach of creating Bahasa International. I knew you learnt auxlangs for your novel, maybe you should try learning it in an attitude of collecting stamps or building models, and then you will find it fun and happy? ;-)
Looking forward to your good works and your journey!
Jasmin
http://jasminchrysant.blogspot.com/
Good to see Occidental has saved the day, at least so far. Two things I wanted to note:
ReplyDeleteEnglish sometimes has the adjective after the noun: "Soldiers loyal to me, follow!" whereas "Loyal soldiers to me" isn't quite right. It's short for "soldiers who are loyal to me" but then again all adjectives that follow a noun could be written that way too. I do agree that it's really nice to be able to write the adjective before the noun though and that's one of the things that keeps Occidental from drifting into a Romance language.
Pronunciation: we talked about words like scientie before, and I suspect that Occidental in practice would become something like Italian where sc before i and e sounds like English sh. When I pronounce it it sounds kind of like that (on purpose) as I think a really forced s-tsien-tsie wouldn't sound quite right to the target audience, people who don't yet support auxlangs. So I slur it just a little bit on purpose, and don't give the e at the end much emphasis.
@Mithridates: Thanks. I really appreciate your encouragement, it keeps me going on this strange journey and perhaps I will reach a worthwhile destination after all. So far I am very happy with my initial translations of literature into Occidental and I am finding that using French literature as the starting point has the additional benefit of greatly improving my ability to comprehend French.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your excellent comments about pronunciation. I have expanded my update, above, to talk more about pronunciation as formerly I had neglected to mention some of the decisions I had made and your comment prompted me to remember to mention them. With these minor changes to pronunciation Occidental sounds like a very real, very natural language which might have evolved in some small region of France but influenced heavily by surrounding languages including the influences of Germanic languages and English but retaining mostly Latin vocabulary. The result is a language conceptually similar to English and similarly well suited to international literary use, but vastly more regular and vastly easier.
Had Occidental already had a large community of speakers, a large body of published fiction including translated novels, and excellent documentation, I never would have gone past it in the first place. Given a little investigation and experiment, it clearly and obviously would have beat all other available auxlangs (merely for, I must stress, the purpose of writing and reading unambiguous and beautiful literature in the Western tradition with maximum ease; for example if maximum ease is not a criteria then Sambahsa also competes and if you are not writing in the Western tradition then Indonesian also competes).
It is only the lack of documentation which made it impossible for me to learn Occidental before now, despite my best efforts; my failed attempts to learn countless other auxlangs allowed me to pick up enough general knowledge to come back to Occidental and to finally be able to decode and use Occidental properly, which previously was impossible for me.
I must thank you very sincerely for your English translation of the grammar; without that I would have had no chance whatsoever. Even so, it is only now that I have finally been able to fully understand that translated grammar; previously I read it but much of it went in one ear and out the other without really meaning much to me. Now I read it and it makes sense to me and I can see how to write in the language. Had Occidental had more documentation and a body of fiction available then I would have quickly learned and understood it the first time.
Even now I could still fail and might give up if I hit too many roadblocks, considering that I'm still flying by the seat of my pants and trailblazing in trying to write literature in Occidental with virtually no existing literature (other than some non-fiction articles and a few, rare literary fragments) to help me. Well, we'll see what happens anyway...
Sellamat Robert !
ReplyDeleteIt's funny for me to see that the pronounciation you recommend for Occ. follow the rules of Sambahsa:
- the "r" I recommend is between French and English (SW Germany)
- the final "e" is unpronounced (but can influence the proceding consonant)
- "sc" is [s] before e, i and y...
Olivier
@cafaristeir: Sellamat Olivier !
ReplyDeleteSambahsa sounds beautiful and very believable as what could be taken for a natural language which evolved in an area in which many Indo-European languages simultaneously influenced its speakers.
Indeed, I was going to remark that my preferred pronunciation of Occidental sounds rather like Sambahsa. Occidental when pronounced in this manner is also in my opinion similarly believable as a natural language which might have evolved in an area in which it was simultaneously influenced by several Indo-European languages, but in such a way that Latin vocabulary predominated; that is, the languages which hypthetically influenced it were not so diverse. Sambahsa, of course, has a richer sound due to its more deverse lexical heritage, but both languages are beautiful.
Maybe I am really starting to get somewhere here, after all...
Well I like Occidental a lot, but generally no natural or constructed language is perfect. Your project in this blog was and is very interesting for me.
ReplyDeleteBut allow me one point: Did you ever speak one constructed language in the real world with another real person? For me this is and was always a fascinating experience to communicate with a person in a neutral language. It is not important in which constructed language this is. But you will see, all of these languages CAN function in the sence of being able to understand and to communicate. And that is what is language about. A tool for communication and exchange of feelings, opinions etc.
I recommend you to visit an Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua or Occidental meeting. You will see, only very few people have perfect languages skills, but most of them are will be able to communicate with you. And that is what constructed languages can do.
Just to sit in front of the computer or a book and to read and to study is something else. It is extremely motivating and fascinating to see a constructed language been spoken and used! It is not important which constructed language it is. So try this!
@valodnieks: Very good point!
ReplyDeleteNo, I have never experienced speaking a constructed language in the real world. My plan is to become reasonably good at one first and then later seek the opportunity to converse in it. One day I will give it a try.
However, such face-to-face or conversational interaction is very low on my list of priorities. My main aim is a literary one: to write literature using one or more constructed languages, either alone or as part of a larger work employing also natural languages. It would be fantastic to write a good novel in a constructed language, for example, and indeed to be one of the first novelists in such a language. That would be nice, mostly because it represents unexplored territory... new horizons... and a global adventure.
This incidentally partly explains my dislike of Esperanto: I can see it is a practical language for conversation but it is not my personal cup of tea when it comes to literature. Occidental is far, far, far stronger in my opinion for writing literature in the Western tradition. However I am at the "baby steps" stage and nearly gave up forever, so I had better not count my chickens before they hatch.
Thanks again for your interesting comment and also for publishing your Occidental magazine; great to see Occidental become alive again after all these years of quiescence.
Quote: " so I had better not count my chickens before they hatch."
ReplyDeleteJust by chance, see the last video I posted yesterday (in fine): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVH8La6k3uQ
Olivier
Hi, I like your blog. I am an English Speaker (from Korea) who forget his native language (Korean) and wanted to learn a second language. I studied Spanish on and off for a few years and it never really clicked. I couldn't really pick up Korean at all, although I understand the gist of a conversation. I studied a bit of Interlingua and it seemed okay for a bit. But, little things irritated me about it. Trilling or rolling the rs. C sounding like ts. Double consonants. Accent marks. Etc.
ReplyDeleteFor a language that is to be a simple auxiliary language, that doesn't cut the mustard.
I tried Ido, but again, it didn't click. It was okay, but I couldn't get into it. Same with Glossa.
I then came upon something called Lingua Franca Nova. So far, it's the best auxlang I've found. It too has minor faults that I have trouble getting around.
My main concern is having an auxlang actually be useful in real life. Either to write or talk to people or understand another language like French.
Interlingua's international dictionary, really isn't as international as it seems.
Anywho, I thought you should take a gander at LFN and see if it's better for you than Interlingua or Occidental.
@Raven: Hi, Raven. Thanks for commenting. It is really interesting to hear about your experiences with Spanish, Korean, Interlingua, Ido, Glosa, and Lingua Franca Nova (LFN). Thanks for the recommendation about LFN; I agree it is a very impressive language when you first see it and first begin to study it. In fact it was my favourite international auxiliary language (IAL) for quite a while, fairly early in my journey.
ReplyDeleteThe problem I had with LFN is that at first it seemed fantastic but once I got past the basics and tried to express more complex concepts it all fell apart. My conclusion was that to use LFN really well, sufficiently to write short stories or even a novel, you would have to be absolutely an expert at the language in order to overcome its intrinsic ambiguity. Compared to, for example, Occidental or Interlingua, LFN is very vague; to express yourself clearly and unambiguously in LFN is very difficult, so much so that this difficulty outweighs the advantageous simplicity of its design. In other words, it just redistributes the difficulty: saying simple things is really, really easy but saying complicated, sophisticated things is really hard. Then there is the problem of readers understanding you; I doubt that many readers could understand, clearly and without ambiguity or confusion, a sophisticated short story written in LFN, unless they too were virtually experts at the language. This is why I ended up giving up on LFN.
So my personal journey went something like this, ignoring the dozens of languages I tried but could not get significant results with:
(1) LFN - became my initial favourite. Wrote very short poems and a few paragraphs of prose, then could not get any further. What stopped me was the language was too simple... too ambiguous.
(2) Lingwa de Planeta (LdP) - revisited this language, came to understand it more, and was soon able to write just as much as I could in LFN and, to my great surprise, quite a lot more. With great difficulty I could probably manage to write a two-page story in LdP whereas that would have been impossible for me with LFN. The great thing about LdP was it was far, far more precise than LFN. What stopped me with LdP is it turned out to have documentation problems, which I tried to rectify myself by writing tutorials, and it turned out to be a little over-engineered, with such a bewildering variety of powerful and specific grammatical words and particles that I couldn't follow it. However, it actually won my competition as the language in which I would write literature during 2010; subsequently it proved impossible for me to use, sadly. Is there a better, more effective compromise when it comes to languages with simple grammar? Maybe: Indonesian!
(3) In desperation I returned to Interlingua and struggled very, very hard to try to learn it. I got further than with LFN and LdP, and for the first time could actually write whole blog posts in an auxlang, and indeed later started an entire blog in Interlingua. I got much, much further with this language than with LFN or LdP; but its excessive irregularities, especially its bizarre and unpredictable "drift" towards the native Romance-languages of its various users, and its very difficult Romance-language idioms in the end also stopped me. At this point I abandoned constructed languages in disgust. Hence this post.
(4) Finally I secretly revisited Occidental and to my surprise found I could write better in it than in LFN, LdP, and Interlingua. It beat them all by a country mile. I also started a whole blog in Occidental. It is not a perfect language but it is usable, which is more than I can say for the others at this particular point in time, for me personally, with my personal strengths and weaknesses.
I wrote many blog posts about LFN. If you search this blog I hope you will find many helpful posts, from some months ago, which may help you learn LFN. I hope you have more success with it than me as many features of its design are indeed brilliant.
All the best,
Robert
Hi, Robert!
ReplyDeleteHere am I again, after a long break. I see you’ve lived a relationship of passion and hate with Interlingua. This makes me somehow amazed, as I experienced these phases too, when I started studying the language. But later I found out Interlingua offers many possibilities, so that you can use it according to your taste without creating a new language. Actually, every user writes and pronounces in their own fashion and everybody can understand each other quite well. That’s why I’m so fond of this multidialectal language.
As you, I consider Occidental friendlier than Interlingua. Even Interlingua adepts of Germanic origin sometimes complain it’s too Romance-biased. But I think we’ll only be aware of the potential of such invented languages when/if they come into effective use (you have written about this yourself, I guess). Apparently, both languages have a similar potential. In the 1920s and 1930s, when Occidental was used by a considerable community, it had as much activity as Interlingua does today. (In order to make this estimation, I took into consideration that international communications are much more straightforward nowadays, but the so-called civilized world is much larger. In the end, one thing balances the other.) Ideally, both languages could merge into an easier and more “pan-Western” language.
I’d like to send you some information, mainly a text I wrote on Occidental and Interlingua and the e-mail of a Polish Occidentalist that might supply you some useful materials and links. I’m also preparing an article about your blog and your research. So please contact me at almanacdeinterlingua@yahoo.com.br and let me know your e-mail.
I can’t help congratulating you for your achievements in Interlingua. I read your posts and, though you’re not satisfied with the language, you can already write very fluently and correctly in it.
@Cláudio Rinaldi:
ReplyDeleteHi Cláudio,
I have sent you my email address privately.
You can also find my email address by clicking "View my complete profile" on the right-hand side of the blog under "About Me"; my email address then appears under "Contact".
Thank you very much for your comment and your kind words.
I like your expression "to have lived a relationship of passion and hate with Interlingua". Actually I think that describes it very well. Love one day. Hate the next. And vice-versa. Also your description of Interlingua as a "multidialectal language" is indeed a good one; unfortunately that aspect of the language has made it rather diffcult for me.
To be honest, I have mostly concluded that Interlingua is a language suitable only for those who already speak a Romance language, whereas Occidental is accessible to those who do not speak a Romance language (at least it would be if it had better documentation). Also, to be honest, I now think of Interlingua more as an agreed vocabulary than an actual language; perhaps that is unfair of me but emotionally that is how I feel.
Occidental really feels like an actual language to me and not just an agreed vocabulary. It is surprising how much easier Occidental is: its slightly greater degree of regularity and slightly more synthetic (slightly less naturalistic) nature make it surprisingly very much easier while still being almost (but not quite) equally believable as possibly being a natural language. This is evidenced for example by my friend Jasmin, a Cantonese speaker, who tried to learn both languages:
http://jasminchrysant.blogspot.com/2010/11/future-of-auxlangs-and-occidental-in-my.html
She wrote: "I am suprised that when I'm able to understand texts in Occidental (slowly) without the aid of a dictionary, the same thing did not happen in Interlingua. It may due to my progress of learning Occidental, and/or the difference of difficulty between the two languages. In my opinion, the small difference between the two language may lead to the wide gap of diffcultiness which is more obvious when proceeding the study, and Interlingua is just beyond the passing line and failed to attract people as a "simple, natual" auxiliary language, at least for orientals like me.)"
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ReplyDeleteIn the end I really have found Occidental greatly more productive, for writing, and have now successfully translated Camus and Stendhal, as shown on my Occidental blog here:
http://joyadelinguages.blogspot.com/
Unfortunately I was not able to get quite so far with Interlingua due to its, for me, greater difficulty. I have therefore, at least for now, mostly discontinued by Interlingua blog here:
http://joiadelinguages.blogspot.com/
But, you are right, I did manage to get quite a long way with Interlingua, even writing a whole new blog in that language, and for that the language certaintly deserves some respect. However for me personally, at this particular point in time, I could not have done my Camus and Stendhal translations in Interlingua because I do not know enough about the Romance-language idioms which would be necessary to properly render those translations in Interlingua. Whereas using Occidental I did not require so much knowledge of Romance-language idioms.
Stylistically I feel Occidental is closer to French, with a slight influence from German, whereas Interlingua feels closer to Italian, with a heavy influence from Spanish. Therefore I can see an argument for using Interlingua to translate Italian literature and Occidental to translate French literature, and maybe I will do that in the future, but right now I feel more inclined to use Occidental for everything, especially considering its easier spelling and less "drift" into different dialects; I feel that a body of Occidental literature would be more globally accessible to readers who do not speak Romance languages, for example Chinese readers. I am planning to put this to the test by translating "Il fu Mattia Pascal" into Occidental and comparing it to Pian Boalt's existing Interlingua translation ("Le defuncte Mattia Pascal") which I find beautiful but almost impossibly difficult to read without a good knowledge of Italian; I will be interested to see if my Occidental translation will be easier to read while still retaining the beauty of the text... only time will tell.
Thanks again for your kind words.
All the best,
Robert
Learners often say Interlingua is excessively Italian. It really looks so at first sight, as the aspect of the words is Italian, may be Portuguese (but not Spanish at all). As you advance with its study, however, you realize its grammar is much more heavily influenced by English and French. It’s a pity it lacks the Germanic flavor Occidental provides – something that the users themselves could provide, if they wanted, without inventing a whole new language, as Interingua can accept loanwords and innovative syntactical arrangements very easily. I insist: the quality I most appreciate in both Interingua and English is their flexibility (which is not typical in Romance and Germanic languages in general, nor in conlangs such as Esperanto and Ido).
ReplyDeleteUsing Romance idioms is a bad habit of us who speak one or more of the ‘control languages’. They are not essential to write or speak in Interlingua. If the language were used “intercivilizationally”, I guess it would naturally tend towards a more stable vocabulary and sentence arrangement. In the end, it depends on the users, not on the rule-makers.
It’s always a pleasure to talk with you, Robert!