[note]for those of you whose native language is not english, I hope to clear up any potential confusion: Since english is both my first language, as well as the standard language of this site, I'm using the term "foreign languages" to refer to non-english languages, not non-native languages. I doubt this will be that big of an issue, but this disclaimer is here just in case.[/note]I was just talking to a friend of mine, who used to study Japanese and spanish, and is currently studying russian. I had namde a comment on how "the more foreign languages one learns, the more [messed] up english gets". We had a short talk about the various nuances of foreign languages, along with the occasional joke on how some of them should be integrated into english.
With that in mind, I came up with a wonderful idea: Why don't I create a constructed language that does just that-- adopting elements of foreign languages to make english less confusing?
Of course, realizing that I'm not exactly the best at linguistics, I decided to revise that idea: Why don't I try to get an intelligent community with an interest in seemingly pointless creations to work on such a language? I know! The CBG!
So, on that note, I present to you a project that hopefully will be lots of fun: New English. A more coherant version of the most complicated language on earth. To start thing out, a couple of ideas:
Second Person Pronouns
As is, english currently has only one second person pronoun ("you"), which can lead to potential confusion, as it refers to both singular second person, and plural second person ("You!" "Who, him?" "No, you!" "me?" "No! you!"). In america (and possibly other english speaking countries), there is a slang for plural second person ("y'all", short for "you all"), and old english made a dintinction between singular and plural second person ("thee" being singular, "ye" being plural). I suggest that New English might adopt some form of plural second person pronoun, with my personal preference being the "thee/ye" format.
"To Be To Be To Be, or To Be?"
Various languages have a various number of versions of the verb "to be". I know that Current English has three versions, one each for first person (am), second person (are), and third person (is). Other languages, however, have as few as one ("Desu", japanese). What is the point of this redundancy? I suggest that New English dismisses the words "are" and "is", leaving only one version of the verb "to be". For those of us accustomed to Current English, this will most likely come off as sounding uneducated, but it is actually just as functional, and more efficient, then our current redundancy.
So, in the spirit of New English, I pass this idea along to the entire community, with the note "I hope this am going to be fun for ye!"
I refuse to participate in this thread, as it violates my belief that languages are made by their nuances.
That said, i would like to submit the proposal that your language also develop a gender-neutral pronoun that refers only to people. 'It' doesn't work, as it has too many connotations with objects.
Quote from: Stargate525I refuse to participate in this thread, as it violates my belief that languages are made by their nuances.
That said, i would like to submit the proposal that your language also develop a gender-neutral pronoun that refers only to people. 'It' doesn't work, as it has too many connotations with objects.
Good idea, but short of creating an entirely new word, I'm not sure what could be used. As you said, "it" is too object-based, but the idea of gender-neutral-masculine is absurdly self-contradictory, and it just seems weird to use "they" for both singluar and plural-- especially after the whole second-person pronoun issue...
Edit- By the way, this is intended more as a communal thought project, it's not intended as any sort of serious replacement for english, as is. If any of this ever finds itself in english, then cool, but I don't expect that to happen anymore then I expect the Average Joe to use Klingon words.
Quote from: Sdragon1984but it is actually just as functional, and more efficient, then our current redundancy.
I propose that we, in America and other English-speaking countries, spend more time properly learning
our own language before creating an all new language. ;)
[/end snarky antagonism]
On a more productive note, I second Stargate's proposal for a gender-neutral pronoun other than "it" or "they" to refer to non-named individuals other than oneself.
Technically, "he" is the correct gender-neutral pronoun to refer to an unknown individual. Like Spanish, English defaults to the male pronoun in cases like this. It's fallen out of favor recently (perhaps deservedly so!), and people will object to such usage on grounds of sexist language (a good argument!) or grammatical incorrectness (not such a good argument.)
"He or she" or the awful and unpronounceable "s/he" are poor substitutes, and "they" (when used to indicate third person singular) is really weird (but gaining a lot of momentum.)
I'm sorry... what were we talking about again? I got distracted.
Why not simplify conjugations - make it simple past, future, and present participles. 'I run, ye run, she run, he run, (singular gender-neutral pronoun) run, we run, thee run, they run'. Also, standardising verb conjugation in terms of past, present, and future and getting rid of irregular verbs would be good, although it might make it a bit, uhr... yeah.
Also, replacing some of the more far-out irregular verbs with ones from languages such as french, german, and spanish, suitably anglicised, would make life easier.
QuoteOther languages, however, have as few as one ("Desu", japanese).
No, that's just the copula. Japanese also has "imasu" and "arimasu" which also mean "to be," for animate and inanimate objects respectively.
In my experience, "they" is used very often to refer to individuals or hypothetical persons of unknown gender, and I don't really see a problem with that. It's better for these modern times than "he."
And for the second person plural, what's wrong with using "y'all"? If we have a word for it already, why not use it?
I'm a language realist. Why coin a new word when the language already has serviceable ones already that are even now gaining traction?
Quote from: MithyAnd for the second person plural, what's wrong with using "y'all"? If we have a word for it already, why not use it?
Two points.
1) Ye and thee have been around a lot longer, so your argument kinda fails there. :P
2) Y'all is a distinctly american slang word. I've never heard a non-american use it. Therefore, it is dialectal, not language-spanning.
English currently is known as the best language for poetics, and changing the English language to a uniform and easier to learn language would only hinder us poets! Don't do it, whatever you do, don't do it!
Okay, martyring done.
The only thing I would like to see is a change in spelling. I forget the exact number (and I should really know this off the top of my head, being a future English major) but there are more consonant and vowel sounds in English than there are consonants and vowels.
Of what Japanese and Spanish I've studied, I like that once you know how to pronounce the letters (symbols), that's it. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. If all of these sounds in English were represented by their own letters, I'd be perfectly happy.
Quote from: Kap'n XeviatThe only thing I would like to see is a change in spelling. I forget the exact number (and I should really know this off the top of my head, being a future English major) but there are more consonant and vowel sounds in English than there are consonants and vowels.
Of what Japanese and Spanish I've studied, I like that once you know how to pronounce the letters (symbols), that's it. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. If all of these sounds in English were represented by their own letters, I'd be perfectly happy.
Yeah. Adding accents, or adding more letters.
Quote from: JharvissEnglish currently is known as the best language for poetics, and changing the English language to a uniform and easier to learn language would only hinder us poets!
From what I hear, English is also the international language of air traffic controllers because properly given instructions in English are more efficient than the equivalent phrases in any other major language.
What would I want in a New English?
Systematized pronouns (and other such uber-common words).
A singular system for making up new words (as per the Greek and Latin system of prefixes and suffixes, except that both would be integrated and naturalized into standard English conventions... no more pluralizing cactus as cacti or forums as fora or any of that nonsense).
Slang integrated fully into the system (ain't being a contraction for am not, y'all being a real word, etc.).
Phonetic spelling. No more "c." From now on use "k" or "s." No more "ch." In fact, "ch" should have its own letter, which would be a good use for "c." No more "x." Instead, use "ks." No more "sh." Instead use "x." And so on. A trule fonetik langwij wud be gratle convenyent. If okwurd at furst.
I agree with the use of Ch as its own letter. And phoneticised spelling.
Along the line of Ch being it's own letter, I'd love to bring back the old English (real Old English - Beowulf - not Elizabethan / Early Modern English) letter thorn, which looks like someone stuck a b and a p together, and is pronounced like the modern Th.
Also, there are some gender neutral pronouns that, while not popular: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutral_pronouns#Neologisms . A conicopia of pronouns exist!
Quote from: Wensleydale1) Ye and thee have been around a lot longer, so your argument kinda fails there. :P
2) Y'all is a distinctly american slang word. I've never heard a non-american use it. Therefore, it is dialectal, not language-spanning. [/quote]
Of course it's dialectical, but it's also the only word I've seen to fill that gap. Do the English have a better word to mean 2nd-plural that they use? If so, I'd love to hear it. If not, y'all remains the best alternative.
There needs to be a third second person pronoun for that weird vague sense of the word "you" that somehow manages to refer to EVERYONE. I guess technically "one" already exists, but... it just seems odd to say.
Quote from: MithyQuote from: Wensleydale1) Ye and thee have been around a lot longer, so your argument kinda fails there. :P
2) Y'all is a distinctly american slang word. I've never heard a non-american use it. Therefore, it is dialectal, not language-spanning.
As far as I can tell, the superiority-through-seniority argument is just as good as the relevance-through-contemporary-use argument, which means that, to me, this issue falls upon the fact that one is strictly dialectical, whereas the other (during it's use) wasn't.
On the gender-neutral pronoun, I suddenly had the idea of using "skwi" (or "squee", but if we're going to use a phonetic alphabet...). After this idea, I realized that the singular pronouns would be me, he, she, thee, and skwi. I kinda like how that works.
Thought on the phonetic alphabet: the letter C, as-is, has three current uses, two of which are obsolete due to other letters (
cat and ni
ce), and the third requires a second letter (CH). As long as we're no longer using C for the first two sounds, why not make it the official CH letter for New English? As for other two-letter sounds, we can represent them in parentheses until we find a letter for them. (th)is is an eksampul.
Quote from: Sdragon1984As far as I can tell, the superiority-through-seniority argument is just as good as the relevance-through-contemporary-use argument, which means that, to me, this issue falls upon the fact that one is strictly dialectical, whereas the other (during it's use) wasn't.
is[/i] currently in use, even if it's geographically restricted? We could go back to Old English, or Norman French, or Migration-era Germanic, or back to Proto-Indo-European if we like; any word is equally irrelevant since they're all equally dead. What makes "ye" any different than the P.I.E. word for the second person plural, whatever that might have been? Is it that "ye" is only the most recently dead?
In a general sense, I think that languages should be left to evolve by themselves, as they have for thousands of years. "They" is becoming a common third person singular when the gender is unknown; I don't see any particular reason to oppose that shift. "Y'all" probably won't become common - not because it is dialectical, but because the specific dialect it is associated with often has the connotation of low education or "hickness" in the States.
While I advocate the return of "thee" and "ye" (and thou, thy, etc.) this is scarily reminiscent of Newspeak.
QuoteAs far as I can tell, the superiority-through-seniority argument is just as good as the relevance-through-contemporary-use argument, which means that, to me, this issue falls upon the fact that one is strictly dialectical, whereas the other (during it's use) wasn't.
On the gender-neutral pronoun, I suddenly had the idea of using "skwi" (or "squee", but if we're going to use a phonetic alphabet...). After this idea, I realized that the singular pronouns would be me, he, she, thee, and skwi. I kinda like how that works.
Thought on the phonetic alphabet: the letter C, as-is, has three current uses, two of which are obsolete due to other letters (cat and nice), and the third requires a second letter (CH). As long as we're no longer using C for the first two sounds, why not make it the official CH letter for New English? As for other two-letter sounds, we can represent them in parentheses until we find a letter for them. (th)is is an eksampul.
Like I've said, sh can be handled by the now-obsolete x. It might also be wise at this point to clarify vowels ("ee" can currently be handled by "i" or by "e" or even by "y", whereas "eh" gets only "e", "ih" gets only "i" and just about any old vowel can make that blunt vowel sometimes represented by an upside-down "e"... closest approximation I can type is "uh"). Ph can be gotten rid of altogether, instead using "f", and th? I haven't a clue. Do we have any more obsolete letters lying around? I suppose "q" could be approximated by "kw."
For pronouns, we need one for each combination of three factors.
1)First/Second/Third Person
2)Male/Female/Neutral (assume neutral in the case of plural or first person pronouns... one implies mixed company, while the other is self-evident)
3)Singular/Plural
This will make a total of 18 pronouns, minus those four excluded.
So what are our fourteen pronouns?
Well, at present it'll be I, Me, Ye (or you, undecided), He, Him, She, Her, Skwi, Skwim? We, Us, Thou (or Y'all, undecided), They, Them.
Mithy, I agree that languages should evolve on their own (and Seraphine, I would agree with your comparison of newspeak), but this isn't intended to be taken seriously. I think of this as a sort of contructed language (a la Klingon or Elven), more then I do as an actual revision of an existing language (Newspeak). This is, to me, little more then a communal linguistic sandbox, where we can toy around with a language and not expect to have any impact on it.
BBB, we can also assume neutral for second person pronouns, for the same reason as assuming it for first person pronouns. Let's see what we have so far:
I, we, Thee, ye, he, she, skwi, they, and that's 8 that I can think of. Am I missing anything, and if so, what?
No, other than possibly (as I noted) an objective pronoun for 'skwi' (and maybe adopting 'you' as an objective pronoun for 'ye', I think that's where it comes from, though I might be drastically wrong). I, He, She, Us and They all have objective versions, but for some reason, 'you' does not.
I'm thinking "skwi" spelled phonetically would be more like "skwe" but I'm considering ditching vowels altogether.
How is THAT going to work?
Quote from: Stargate525How is THAT going to work?
Yes. And which vowels are you planning to drop, exactly? Does this include vowels in other major languages, such as Y and W, things that serve as nouns in many english words?
and what are you going to use for the first person singular pronoun?
Quote from: Stargate525and what are you going to use for the first person singular pronoun?
Haha. I never thought of that.
Not change a major language? Why not? God forbid we make it easier for us to communicate with each other.
As for getting rid of vowels: REALLY? We'd be grunting like neanderthals. And then what are horribly drunk people supposed to do? Talk WITH vowels?
Why don't we just make e "ee" and i "eye?" (replacing "x" with "th" sound) EX: xat way xings luk kind uv lik xis.
While we're at it, why not get rid of those pesky capital letters? replace them with...underline? line above? star in upper right corner? why create a whole new letter (I becomes "i " and R " r ")
Supposedly I know a bit about linguistics, so I'll take a quick stab at the original post...
Quote from: Old English 2nd Person Pronouns[tr][td][/td][td]Subjective[/td][td]Objective[/td][td]Possessive[/td][/tr][tr][td]Singluar[/td][td]Þu[/td][td]Þe[/td][td]Þin[/td][/tr][tr][td]Dual[/td][td]Git[/td][td]Inc[/td][td]Incer[/td][/tr][tr][td]Plural[/td][td]Ge[/td][td]Eow[/td][td]Eower[/td][/tr][/table]
The dual number represents exactly two people, while the plural number represents 3 or more people.
Þu is pronounced like <thoo>, þe is pronounced like <thay>, þin is pronounced like <thean>, git is pronounced like <yeat>, inc is pronounced like <inch>, incer is pronounced like <inchayr>, ge is pronounced like <yay>, eow is pronounced like <ayow>, and eower is pronounced like <ayowayr>.
[table=Modern English 2nd Person Pronouns]
[tr][td][/td][td]Subjective[/td][td]Objective[/td][td]Possessive[/td][/tr][tr][td]Standard* Singluar[/td][td]You[/td][td]You[/td][td]Your[/td][/tr][tr][td]Archaic Informal Singluar[/td][td]Thou[/td][td]Thee[/td][td]Thy[/td][/tr][tr][td]Standard Plural[/td][td]You[/td][td]You[/td][td]Your[/td][/tr][tr][td]Archaic Plural[/td][td]Ye[/td][td]You[/td][td]Your[/td][/tr][/table]
*Also the archaic formal singular.
Phonetic Representation of English
Don't. There is a written standard for English which can be used regardless of one's dialect.
Spoken English has from 24 to 26 consonants, depending on your dialect, and anywhere from 10 to 14 or more vowels. This means you need (10 or more) new letters in addition to what English has for the vowels, as well as to differentiate between cheap, jeep, bang, thin, then, she, measure, loch (differentiated from lock), and whine (differentiated from wine). The English I speak would have to have 24 consonants (lacking both a difference between wine and whine as well as between lock and loch) and 12 vowels (5 short and 7 long).
The easiest way would be to go with the already made International Phonetic Alphabet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet) (specifically a specific version for English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_for_English)). I personally speak the General American variety of English (but now live among speakers of Hawaii Creole English).
That's all for now...
Quote from: HaphazzardNot change a major language? Why not? God forbid we make it easier for us to communicate with each other.
As for getting rid of vowels: REALLY? We'd be grunting like neanderthals. And then what are horribly drunk people supposed to do? Talk WITH vowels?
Why don't we just make e "ee" and i "eye?" (replacing "x" with "th" sound) EX: xat way xings luk kind uv lik xis.
While we're at it, why not get rid of those pesky capital letters? replace them with...underline? line above? star in upper right corner? why create a whole new letter (I becomes "i " and R " r ")
Lolsarkywit. I think he means get rid of vowels in the WRITING, not in the speech, but I... don't... really... favour that approach. Vowels are kinda integral to reading to anyone raised speaking about 75%-90% of languages.
Dropping vowels isn't that crazy. Doing so, which makes the Latin alphabet into the "Latin abjad"), isn't unheard of. In fact, Arabic, aside from the Qur'an, is commonly written without any vowels, though 3 letters are an exception, with ïº being both the glottal stop and the long <a>, ï» being both <w> and the long <u>, and ï»± being both <y> and long <i>
English as an AbjadQuote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_AlphabetNtrntnl Phntc Lphbt[/url] (spcfclly n'spcfc vrsn fr Nglsh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_for_English)). K prsnlly spk th Gnrl Amrcn vrty f Nglsh (bt nw lv mng spkrs f Hw' Crl Nglsh).
ik[/i] for "I," as well as using n'~ coming from "an" for "a/an".
Hebrew is also written in that form, but for anyone not raised to read like that (most of America), that's just bloody difficult to decipher.
Quote from: HaphazzardNot change a major language? Why not? God forbid we make it easier for us to communicate with each other.
As for getting rid of vowels: REALLY? We'd be grunting like neanderthals. And then what are horribly drunk people supposed to do? Talk WITH vowels?
Why don't we just make e "ee" and i "eye?" (replacing "x" with "th" sound) EX: xat way xings luk kind uv lik xis.
While we're at it, why not get rid of those pesky capital letters? replace them with...underline? line above? star in upper right corner? why create a whole new letter (I becomes "i " and R " r ")
I was wondering how long it would take until you got in here...
So was Ancient Egyptian, in the most part, unless vowels were a distinct syllable (or something). So Ankh would be written... Nk, I think. Or something. I only vaguely remember studying it.
So remind me again why we're proposing going back to something really, really hard to decipher?
Ancient Egyptian was not a phonetic language, it was symbolic.
Quote from: Stargate525So remind me again why we're proposing going back to something really, really hard to decipher?
Ancient Egyptian was not a phonetic language, it was symbolic.
Yes. Why were we suggesting removing vowels in the first place? :P
Although you're right in some ways - most things were represented by separate symbols - names, and certain other things, were represented by letters, not symbols. That's how we know many of the names of the pharaohs - if they each had separate symbols, we would not be able to decipher the phonology of the name.
Quote from: Stargate525So remind me again why we're proposing going back to something really, really hard to decipher?
Yeah, isn't that kinda against the entire idea?
For the phonetics of vowels, why not use single-sound vowels like japanese/spanish/etc., and combine vowels for the remaining vowel sounds? For example, if I is a "ee" sound (as in kEY), and A is a "ah" (as in fAther), then AI would be an "eye" sound (as in hI).
Also, do we really need subjective/objective pronouns, or can that be confered from grammatical placement? English usually has a [object]-[predicate]-[subject] sentence structure, so despite the fact that "me" is subjective, the sentence "me am a human" is still perfectly understandable.
Even keeping the vowels, I think I'm in favor of ditching the word "A". The reason we have "an" as an alternative indefinate article is to prevent the word "dissapearing" into nouns that start with a vowel ("a owl", spoken, could easily be mistaken for just "owl"). If we make "an" the indefinate article, then that reason is obsolete.
Quote from: Sdragon1984Even keeping the vowels, I think I'm in favor of ditching the word "A". The reason we have "an" as an alternative indefinate article is to prevent the word "dissapearing" into nouns that start with a vowel ("a owl", spoken, could easily be mistaken for just "owl"). If we make "an" the indefinate article, then that reason is obsolete.
And the whole reason we have "a" is to prevent awkward combinations like "an nut."
Of all the rules to follow in English, a/an is just about the easiest one. It seems an odd choice for revision.
Quote from: MithyQuote from: Sdragon1984Even keeping the vowels, I think I'm in favor of ditching the word "A". The reason we have "an" as an alternative indefinate article is to prevent the word "dissapearing" into nouns that start with a vowel ("a owl", spoken, could easily be mistaken for just "owl"). If we make "an" the indefinate article, then that reason is obsolete.
And the whole reason we have "a" is to prevent awkward combinations like "an nut."
Of all the rules to follow in English, a/an is just about the easiest one. It seems an odd choice for revision.
"A nut" doesn't sound very much different then "an nut", and depending on your accent, it might not sound at all different. It might be the easiest rule to follow, but I'm still not convinced that it's neccessary.
Most semitic (Arabic, Hebrew) languages have a triconsonantal structure that makes writing them without vowels more tolerable-- certain groups of three consonants stand for a certain concept, and they tend to be unique. They also tend to have few short vowels, and long vowels are written with an associated consonant and be inferred from context.
English, on the other hand, comes from a Germanic stock and has a history of strong verbs, that is, verbs that inflect by changing a vowel (sing, sang, sung)... about the worst language for dropping the vowels!
It's sort of like how Malay used to be written in Arabic script, and Urdu still is, due to historic ties to Islam. These languages are much more vowel-rich, and the Arabic script is rather stretched to do things it's not supposed to. (Similar abuses of the Roman script can be seen by the Vietnamese)
Quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_and_anA and an[/url]
They (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they)
Y'all (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y'all)
I really like the article on They. It can apparently mean lots of things.
The wiki makes a good point - if the singular "they" was good enough for Shakespeare, why not us?
I've always used 'They'. *shrugs* I mean, I don't mind either way, but...
Bumpage, as well as the news that a wikipage for New English can be found here (http://www.thecbg.org/wiki/index.php?title=New_English:Main_Page). Enjoy!
The reason I decided on using skwi, is because I've always been amused by the fact that the singular pronouns "me", "he", and "she" rhymed, and so did the plural "we", so I decided to continue that trend. On top of that, I had been reading about Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, and figured Squee's name would work. All I needed was to make it spelt a bit more phonetically, hence "skwi".
I like the idea of X being the TH sound. We could even make C into the CH sound, as it has no unique sounds of it's own (being either S or K, depending on whether it's a hard or soft C). PH, obviously, would be eliminated altogether. If I'm not mistaken, though, it seems as if we can still a plate of ghoti in New English. Can this be fixed, too?
This is more bumpage, since it was mentioned by some odd member in the Tavern...
Edit- That "y'all" link just links to here....