Padraic Brown wrote:
>>1. Are the words easy to pronounce? Are there any consonant clusters?
> Consonant clusters are not hard to pronounce. Ease of communication is
> a key, but words that are easy to pronounce is not the best means of
> achieving that goal. Also, who decides what constitutes "easy"?
If the auxlang is used as an auxiliary language, we can estimate the
ease of pronunciation from natural languages. If a phoneme (sound) is
rare in natural languages, it is probably difficult to pronounce.
>>5. Are there any mnemonic links between morphemes that make it easier
>>to memorize the morphemes? Are there any other ideas that minimize the
>>burden of memorizing the vocabulary?
> Too specific. The phenomenon is only applicable to a language that has
> menmonic links between morphemes that make it easier to memorise the
> morphemes. I'm presuming that Ygyde has them. Therefore, in your
> estimation, it is a superior auxlang.
Morphemes are the building blocks of compound words. To the best of my
knowledge all auxlangs have compound words, so all auxlangs have
morphemes. aUI language has only 31 morphemes. Ygyde has 180 morphemes
and about 400 of other predefined words. Lojban has 1350 morphemes.
Most mature auxlangs have thousands of morphemes. Short morphemes make
short compound words, but they are hard to memorize because they are
similar. This means that memorizing the morphemes is a huge burden
regardless of their number. The mnemonic links between the morphemes
ease this burden. Ygyde has lots of mnemonic links. Sona has fewer
links (and lots of obvious errors). Ygyde colors follow a few simple
rules that make it easy to guess the color you do not know.
>>8. Is it terse?
> This contradicts point 6. Which is it? Terse or longwinded?
Terseness means terseness of words. Point 8 does not contradict point
6, but it may contradict point 1. If the words easy to pronounce, they
are probably made of small number of phonemes (sounds, letters). Small
number of phonemes may result in long words.
> I think it's a pointless exercise to create a wholly new and alien
> language and expect people to start using it -- that _detracts_ from
> communication rather than sup****ts it; especially given that there
> already exists a supreme and worldwide auxlang. A lingua franca that
> could be used by speakers of similar languages is a much smarter idea,
> but also is not terribly useful for a speaker of a very different
> language.
I generally agree. This is the reason why euroclones are the most
popular artificial auxlangs (conIALs), and the reason why nearly all
users of euroclones live in Europe. The natural languages used all
over the world have only a few percent of common words. I have found
it out with a simple test; I picked up randomly 10 English words from
the Unabridged Webster's dictionary, and I looked for translation of
these words into 5 languages. English = E, Russian = R, Hungarian = H,
Arabic = A, Hindi = I (like India), Mandarin = M
E = cell, R = kletka,
E = burnable,
E = chowder,
E = convincing,
E = expenditure,
E = grimy,
E = isolator, R = izoljator,
E = measure,
E = our,
E = priest,
Even within the european languages the common words are not very
common. "Taksi" is _monit_ in Hebrew, "bus" is _linjaauto_ in Finnish,
"phone" is _fernsprecher_ in German, "mathematics" is _riyaDiyah_ in
Arabic. This means that a completely abstract auxlang, like Ygyde may
succeed if it is well designed and well marketed.
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