h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How can you miss out Ido - the successor to Esperanto - which removed many of the ridiculous idiosyncracies of Esperanto (them choosing to keep verb inflections, for example) and is actually a very easy language to learn - me povas parolar Ido! - and actually remarkably pretty!

We used a phonetic language at work along the lines:-
Izza trite europe huff? Know weigh!
Easy to learn,but you have to talk english to read it.

Er... Exactly what does that mean?

Whatever. Just wanted to comment, tnuctipun isn't impossible to pronounce at all. it's just (t)nuck-tih-pun, the only hard part is the suggested "t" at the beggining, which anyone can say with a little practice. Either that or I'm a freak.

Jazz's office seems to speak fluent Strine, the only phrase of which I can remember is "Emma Chizzit" for "How much is it?" Also (try an Irish accent) "Wheel oil beef hooked"

Wandrin'star's got it - you have to say it quickly out loud.

Izza Trite - is that right --europe huff - you're a puff
know weigh - no way

The favourite was 'star kintarps'

Hi!
You all seem fairly knowledgeable about created languages....wondering if you might be able to tell me something about real languages. Is it possible to decipher a language family, learn the rules so that you know the languages virtually alll at once?

I have a colleague who claims to have taught himself all the Slavic languages in one go. He has a doctorate in comparative linguistics (I think) and has written a book on the roots of English words.

We'll all be f**ked.

Or, "well, I'll be f**ked". Kinda hard to tell actually, could be either.

Well, to a certain extent. For instance, if you know some Latin and have learned French, then picking up Spanish is pretty trivial. And thence Italian. But there's a lot more to a language that just the grammer. Phonetics, lexemes, and idiom are all really important; and idiom is probably the hardest. Take, for example, English, spoken in many many places around the world. You'd think that English would be pretty universal, and in many ways it is. But it's still easy for, say, an American to go to India and have no idea what people are saying to him. Or for me (British) to go to Glasgow, and be completely baffeled.

This is one of things that frustrates me about derived languages. Yes, they are helpful in a scientific sense -- in helping to learn about how we process language -- but they're a lot less useful in terms of actual communication. Sign language is perhaps one of best examples of a created language, but as fluent signers will tell you, you can always tell the difference between someone who 'learnt' signing, and someone who acquired it as a natural language learning exercise. The point being that you can't create a language and expect it to be actually useful. Rather, the language has to evolve, has to have it's rough edges smoothed off and patches darned in like a well-work coat, and *then* you have something useful.

Where's the fun in that?

Wheel oil beef hucked!

More Strine:
Jessie Howies Parking? Aorta beer Laura gains tit. Diesel get clemt, fissure!

Jazz day to office/
Weaken may kit F. wheat rye.
Jazz day to office/
U.N. die.

Izza trite?

Alloe dare Gee Robber Toe.
Use peak mile ingo.
Weaken may kit - hewin die.
Nigh stew meatier.

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In short, no. If you could, then they'd be dialects of the same language. However, some languages are easily understood with a little training and knowledge of another language.

Here's an example. Southern dialects of Russian are so similar to Ukrainian that they're mutually intelligible with a few weeks' study. And it's possible to parse Spanish if you know Portugese, and vice versa. (I've heard a story about someone who was fluent in Spanish visiting Brazil. He spoke Spanish, and everyone around him spoke Portuguese, and they understood each other.)

On the other hand, German is part of the Germanic branch of Indo-European, as is English, but they're far from mutual intelligibility. And if you look a bit further, Russian is an Indo-European language, as is English, but there's no amount of training you can get that will let you understand both English and Russian; you'd have to learn each separately.

Gareis:
Not a linguist, just a conlanger.

You heard a story about someone who spoke Spanish being understood by Portuguese speakers? My goodness, even I have found Spanish handy when confronted with Portuguese speakers, and I don't even speak Spanish!