The Ultimate International Language

[Phalynx]

By the way for all the anally retentive gammar freaks out there, somebody tell me why in this modern age, in english we need capital letters? Capital letters means instead of 26 characters we need 52 for limited appreciable benefit. Again, proving my age telegrams used to be all in capitals, presumably for the same reasons.

We could all endup writing in text speak or or even l33t!... it could save Gigabytes!

MWahahahahaha!

[formerly known as hf]

Yes, Hindi has surely different dialects. But thats not the point. The problem is that India has many different languages which are really languages, not mere dialects. Some of them are no closer related than for example English and Turkish, as far as I understand.

And English has the same status in India as Hindi, so thats another country which wouldn´t have a great problem with accepting English as a world language.

The thing is though, that Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi, the big languages, are pretty much the same. If you can speak one of the two, you can learn the two others if you can pay for education. That said, most can't.

Hindi may be the national language, but each state in India has its own language - and that's language, not dialect.

Sanskrit and Tamil are the two classical languages of India.
The current constitution recognises 22 different official languages.
The scripts and languages are very different.
Most people will speak their local language. More educated people may also speak some English, and usually only those who use it for religious or official purposes speak fluent Hindi.

[Piscator]

GOOD SUGGESTION PHALYNX. LOOKS VERY IMPORTANT NOW, DON'T IT?

[UloDeTero]

Once again, can we please keep this on topic. This thread has barely even been on topic since it started, because people keep talking about what they think the thread's about, rather than what the thread is actually about. Please read before posting, people!

This thread is not about:
Esperanto
National languages
Business languages
Fictional scifi languages
Any existing language as a whole

It is about:
Creating a proposed new language
Internationality
Linguistical features (structure, grammar, etc)
Concepts and ideas
The Yahoo discussion group

Again, if you're not interested in this, don't bother posting unless you have something constructive to add. Also, I don't expect this to change the world (at least not overnight ). Right now it is simply a theoretical discussion group, but I do have a small hope that it might develop some popularity. Please note that the discussion group itself is a Yahoo group, not this thread. Therefore, if you are interested, the best thing would be to join the group and post there.

Any questions?

[Piscator]

OK, then I´ll try to write something more fitting to the topic.

A new international language should:

- Use only the most common phonemes.
- Have a close relation of letters and phonemes. One letter one phoneme.
- Have an easy grammar
(As far that sounds like Esperanto.)
- Have grammatical categories that are distinguished by more than a vowel change from each other.
- Use monosyllabic words as often as possible.

By the way, I don't think the matter can be discussed properly without comparisons with already existing languages. (As I already did).

[UloDeTero]

Thanks, Piscator

Comparisons with already existing languages, okay.

But statements like "Why don't we all just learn (insert language) instead?", or random statements about how many people speak (insert language), or prophecies that (insert language) will be the dominant language of the future, aren't relevant to the thread.

By the way, your list is exactly the kind of thing we're discussing in the group!

[Piscator]

The discussion of how many people speak a language was meant to determine on which vocabulary a new language should base. I think this is important, too. I would prefer English even if this is against the ideal of internationality. Esperanto tried to be international by taking words from about a dozen languages or more and you see where it is now.

[Schme]

This thread is not about.....

Actually, it looks to me like it is.

You're talking about what you want it to be about, rather than what it is about.

That's the thing.

I apologize that we had hijacked you're Esparanto thread. But bringing it up is going to get people talking about this.

I don't see the harm in it. You'll notice we've been keeping the thread at the top. The Esparanto enthusiasts haven't helped it much. If anything, we'll get more people to see you're initial thing about Esparanto, and get this thing back on track.

Bring up esparanto, people will talk about esparanto.

[wichita]

I checked out the yahoo group and it looks like something I would be potentially interested in, having already sat down to try and create my own language several times in the past. Now all I need is a metric timescale. 10 day weeks, 100 hour days.

I will probably sign up in the next month or so when I get around to it.

[UloDeTero]

No, Schme. I'm talking about what the thread was originally intended to be, rather than what it has become. Hence it now being off-topic. I have no problem with a little deviation, but when people seem to be getting the completely wrong idea about the thread something needs to be said!

*sighs* Anyone who's been paying attention should be able to tell what else is wrong with Schme's post, apart from the two spelling mistakes. Come on, it's not that difficult!

[Nothing personal, Schme. ]

[Piscator]

Errm, it isn´t a Esperanto thread, am I right?

By the way, I joined the group.

[UloDeTero]

Ding! Ding! Ding!
We have a winner!


PS - Thanks, wichita and Piscator

[Zanthos]

How about everyone just follows Tolkien's elvish?

I mean, it would probably relate to alot more people than esparanto would.

[Piscator]

Perhaps someone should write a bestseller with people talking Esperanto?

You're right, an international language must be a language people WANT or NEED to speak. Otherwise we'll get another Esperanto.
Why do people learn Klingon and Quenya? Because it's cool.

To sum it up, creating an international language is not necessarily a matter of grammar and vocabulary, but of good advertisement.

[UloDeTero]

Piscator - You make a good point. However, Klingon and Quenya have no international appeal, and are just as complicated as any other language (to my knowledge). Our language will be built from scratch, by ordinary people, to be as simple and as international as possible. Once it has some structure, it can be advertised.

By the way, a lot of books have been written in Esperanto, among other things.

In other news the 'Project' has relocated to a forum at:
http://ultintlang.conceptbb.com.
The old Yahoo group will be closed when all the members have transferred.