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| One more thought about orthography | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Sep 1 2010, 09:44 AM (3,704 Views) | |
| IJzeren Jan | Sep 1 2010, 09:44 AM Post #1 |
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Jan van Steenbergen
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We have fought quite a few battles about this already. I've been working on the grammar pages yesterday, and I suddenly got a thought. We've managed to rid ourselves of those hated apostrophes quite nicely. Now that infinitives end in -ti, and we have školni instead of škoľni, we don't have many apostrophes left. Non-final apostrophes occur only in rare cases, like pet'deset', bor'ba, svad'ba and the like. The current solution (to write them only at the end of a word) seems a bit pointless for that reason. I would be better if we could get rid of apostrophes altogether, because let's face it, an apostrophe is not a letter character at all. It doesn't belong in the alphabet. However, we need it in the case of certain nouns, because it conveys information about the way it should be declined. And if those nouns have it, it would be inconsequent not to have it in nouns where it's not necessarily needed (like jednost'), in numerals (like pet'), in the imperative form bud', etc. But all in all, that's dictionary stuff. Because of Naučni Slovianski, I have learned a few things about our orthography. The whole idea of that side-project is that users are free to convey whatever additional information they want when writing, dependent on their means and purpose. That means they can write pęť měst instead of pet' mest, and the result won't be any less Slovianski (just like the result won't be "better" Slovianski by adding them). Neither is it so that once us user decides to use ě he is bound to adopt the entire system. That's what I call Slovianski Plus: the possibility to use elements some elements from Naučni Slovianski at will. For the apostrophes goes that they are in fact an asciification of ď/ť/ń/ľ/ŕ/ś/ź. Right now, the situation is that r' is the official orthography, but that people can write ŕ if they want to. Yet we also say that people should preferably write ž, because zs is an asciification; we don't want to have zs in the dictionary, for example. I think we can liberalise this system a bit, and make it more logical at the same time. To use myself as an example, I usually work on a Polish keyboard. It includes ż, which is allowed as a substitute for ž. So why should I write n', s' and z' if I can write ń, ś and ź? And why OTOH can't I write t', d', r' if I'm using ń, ś, ź? So this is what I was thinking about: - the grammar/dictionaries/"official texts" etc. write ń, ľ, ŕ etc. - those who can't write that or don't want to, can either substitute the acute with an apostrophe or simply omit it (the Slovianski Plus idea). - those who f.ex. don't have ń and ŕ but do have ň and ř can use that, too. After all, deń, deň and denj are all equally understandable. I'm aware that this is quite a different approach from the current one of four official orthographies. The difference is that instead of drawing a clear line between them, we allow people to decide for themselves how close they want to stay to the "original". For example: - "official": š, č, if you can't write those: sz, cz - "official": ž, if you can't write that ż, if you can't write that either zs - "official": ń, if you can't write that ň or nj, if you can't write that either n' or n A similar thing might be applied to Cyrillic as well. Say: - "official": ль, if you can't write that: љ - "official": ть, if you can't write that: тј, т' or just т. - "official": я, if you can't write that: ја (or the other way round) You might argue that this makes things more complicated, or that ń, ŕ etc. will scare people off. I'd say it does neither, because it only makes things easier for people. It's easy for us to say that peť should be represented in Serbian Cyrillic as петј, but the truth is that I don't think any Serbian user is going to do that anyway. Having three or four versions of the same dictionary isn't exactly a simple solution either, and the same thing can be said for having parallel texts in Russian and Serbian Cyrillic. Mind, it's not an entirely new system I'm propose here, it's just another way to "codify" current practice. As for scaring off people, well, ď ť ľ look so similar to a vowel with an apostrophe that one will barely notice the difference, while ń ŕ ś ź are not so frequent that they would dominate any text. When I learnt Ancient Greek at school, I was taught to neglect the accents. So we learned Greek without them, and even though they were of course in every textbook, they didn't disturb us in the least. |
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Človeku, ktoromu je trudno s soboju samim, verojetno tož bude trudno s vsim inim. Slovianski - Словянски - Словјански [čćч] | |
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| Gabriel Svoboda | Sep 1 2010, 10:09 AM Post #2 |
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I'm not against at all!
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| IJzeren Jan | Sep 1 2010, 11:39 AM Post #3 |
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Jan van Steenbergen
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Great. Then, here's another thought. What would happen if it apply the same system also before a vowel? I didn't even think of that when I wrote my previous post, but look: official: ľ; if you can't write that, use: lj, lj, l' or l. official: ń; if you can't write that, use: ň, nj, nj, n' or n. The advantage is that we no longer distinguish between lj sequences syllable-finally and before a consonant. Thus, pisatel' has the genitive pisateľa, koń has the genitive końa and moŕe has the genitive moŕa, making inflection more regular than it is now. It also means ľubiti, which can be written as l'ubiti, ljubiti, ljubiti or lubiti. And of course, końa can be written as konja, koňa, konja, kon'a or kona. There there is no rule that says that if somebody wants to use mora he'll also have to use kona. In most cases I'm sure people will instinctively know the best solution. Because soft consonant + vowel sequences are not that frequent in Slovianski (not since we eliminated ę > ja), it won't significantly change texts anyway. Besides, if people are aware that L can be hard and soft (just like E can represent e, ě and ę), they'll probably understand a rare of occurrence of kona as well. I'm not sure about this solution myself, but it does have a few advantages: - govoreni/govorjeni: both are correct representations of govoŕeni - treti/tretji/tret'i: same thing (treťi) - nego/njego/n'ego: same thing (ńego) - no problem anymore that jednosť + -i should actually give jednostji. (another solution to the tretji/treti problem would be to introduce y - something we probably would have done four years ago if we had known what kind of direction Slovianski is going to take - but I doubt anybody wants to go there) EDIT: Aha, and there's no risk that delanje would be rendered as delane or something, since the dictionary will simply say "delanje". [čćч] Edited by IJzeren Jan, Sep 1 2010, 11:54 AM.
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Človeku, ktoromu je trudno s soboju samim, verojetno tož bude trudno s vsim inim. Slovianski - Словянски - Словјански [čćч] | |
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| Moraczewski | Sep 1 2010, 11:51 AM Post #4 |
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First idea I love very much. This was how I imagined the things before - and what I have been actually using in some my forum postings and translations - of course, if CZ layout was installed on the computer that I was using. I support it! I have still doubts about the second idea. Frankly, I would continue to write ljubiti and konja - I got used to this orthography after reading many BCSM and Slovene texts. While lubiti would be OK because this is what Poles surely will prefer... but mora and kona, although this is OK for Southern Slavs, is weird and kind of unclear for Russians. Anyway, if everybody will agree with the idea, my voice is not the voice against. |
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"I nenít pochyby, že kdokoli chce a umí, může sobě stworiti jazyk krásný, bohatý, libozwučný a wšemožně dokonalý: ale jazyk takowý nebudě wíce národnim, alebrž osobním jazykem toho kdo jej sobě udělal". František Palacký. Posudek o českém jazyku spisovném, 1831. [čćч] | |
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| IJzeren Jan | Sep 1 2010, 11:59 AM Post #5 |
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Jan van Steenbergen
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As for mora, kona and puta, yes, it would be weird and unclear for Russians, and not only for Russians. I actually thought of that too. Remember that people won't be told to write like that, it's just that they won't be forbidden to write like that. We'll surely have to warn them that at least in before a, o and u they'd better write j, because otherwise the effect will be unclear for a lot of people. That would do the trick, I think. In other words: more and morje, both ok; mora, not impossible but better use morja. |
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Človeku, ktoromu je trudno s soboju samim, verojetno tož bude trudno s vsim inim. Slovianski - Словянски - Словјански [čćч] | |
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| pedza | Sep 1 2010, 01:04 PM Post #6 |
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I've thought about this as well and I agree with Jan. |
| »V velikomu narodam geniju se gnezdo tkaje« -- Vladika Petar II Petrovič Njegoš | |
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| IJzeren Jan | Sep 1 2010, 02:38 PM Post #7 |
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Jan van Steenbergen
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Now that I think of it, we might even take this one step further. We might even tell them that before a, o and u it's better to write j, and that before e and i it's better to write nothing. Then we get: - better "more" than "morje", but better "morja" than "mora" - better "ljudi" than "ljudji", but better "ljudjami" than "ljudami" (or "ludami") This does only affect alveolars, though. In the case of "kormiti" and "ljubiti" we'd still get "kormjeni" and "ljubjeni" (or "lubjeni"). |
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Človeku, ktoromu je trudno s soboju samim, verojetno tož bude trudno s vsim inim. Slovianski - Словянски - Словјански [čćч] | |
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| Gabriel Svoboda | Sep 1 2010, 06:34 PM Post #8 |
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The second idea is problematic for those Slovianskiists who don't distinguish hard/soft e and hard/soft i. We had once already been writing l'a, the switch to lja came in 2008 - so today we would just switch back to l'a, now written ľa, which would not be a problem at all. But before 2008 we also consistently had more, pole and govoreni, no-one ever distinguished 'e/e and i/'i unless in clearly special cases. But current Slovianski is infected by this Pandora's box, so I don't know whether the proposed orthography would yield more, pole, govoreni or moŕe, poľe, govoŕeni, and if the latter, whether also ďevčinka or ťeľefon would be correct.
Edited by Gabriel Svoboda, Sep 1 2010, 06:37 PM.
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| Moraczewski | Sep 1 2010, 07:56 PM Post #9 |
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Gabriel, moŕe and ďevčinka are two different cases, one is jat and other is not. So it is completely regular to have ě => e and ьje => je. For me, a speaker of Russian where we don't actually distinguish hard and soft e, memorizing more + pole and using simple rule with i-stem verbs makes not a single problem. So I believe most Russians who want to learn Slovianski will have no problems writing moŕe, govoŕeni, but devčinka and telefon. |
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"I nenít pochyby, že kdokoli chce a umí, může sobě stworiti jazyk krásný, bohatý, libozwučný a wšemožně dokonalý: ale jazyk takowý nebudě wíce národnim, alebrž osobním jazykem toho kdo jej sobě udělal". František Palacký. Posudek o českém jazyku spisovném, 1831. [čćч] | |
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| IJzeren Jan | Sep 1 2010, 10:16 PM Post #10 |
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Jan van Steenbergen
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That's right. One of the things I've come to understand is that Slovianski is a highly flexible language. Which IMO is a great quality. If you go back to the archives from the early days, you'll find us bickering over more vs. morje vs. mor'e almost constantly. Everybody was writing in his own type of Slovianski. Does that mean that one way was correct and all the other ways were false? Of course not! They were just different variations on the same theme. It's nowhere written that Slovianski MUST have a one and only way of writing and that all other ways are WRONG. Having SX instead of Š doesn't make it a different language, it's just a different way of representing the same thing. The same goes for Ŕ, R' and RJ. Because from the beginning the grammar has said that apostrophes may be omitted in writing, you may also add R to the possible representations of Ŕ. Mind, virtually all Slavs write M-O-R-E (with or without diacritics), it's just that they pronounce it differently. Isn't that basically what Slovianski is all about? One of the things I've never been able to understand is why the "inventors" of Serbo-Croatian didn't introduce ě, for example. Because reka, rijeka en rika are all the very same thing, only pronounced differently. Believe me, there are similar (and even bigger) differences in pronunciation between people in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Groningen, but somehow a unified Dutch orthography manages to serve them all. What I am actually proposing here is not an orthography change at all, it's rather a different way of formulating the status quo. The status quo is that not everybody writes in the same way. I still believe that it must be possible to write Slovianski on any Slavic keyboard, it's just that I've come to understand that having four official orthographies is not the way to achieve that purpose. Four official orthographies means that we'll have to write every text four times if we want to play it fair, and we'll need four dictionaries as well. And while we're at it, why not four grammars as well? Only because we don't want to be unfair to those who don't have Š on their keyboard? The same effect can also be achieved in a different way, by saying f.ex.: Ŕ is the real thing, make of it whatever you want. Personally, I dislike MOR'E, but I can't objectively say it's less understandable than MOŘE, MOŔE or MORJE. The Pandora's box you're talking about wasn't opened recently, it has always been there, lurking, it's just that we never noticed it. In the highly simplified language we were experimenting with in the beginning that wasn't much of a problem, but the more Slovianski grew naturalistic, the more it became one. The mistake we made is that we decided to eliminate Y, but have a whole range of soft consonants at the same time. What we failed to observe is that those Slavic languages that eliminated Y either have a lot of JE/JI (BCSM, Slovene) or hardly distinguish between hard and soft consonants anymore (Bulgarian). The reason we didn't include Y (despite a clear majority in votes) was mostly that it would generate grammatical irregularities, but that effect was pretty much undone by the o/e rule (something that clearly does not belong in an auxlang - that's why I've been fighting it in the beginning). The whole irregularities problem caused by Y could have been solved easily with a parallel Y/I rule. [čćч] |
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Človeku, ktoromu je trudno s soboju samim, verojetno tož bude trudno s vsim inim. Slovianski - Словянски - Словјански [čćч] | |
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| Moraczewski | Sep 2 2010, 05:50 AM Post #11 |
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I thought the reason for that was that South Slavs would have major problems learning words with Y and words with I - similar problems like CZ and SK are experiencing in school. |
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"I nenít pochyby, že kdokoli chce a umí, může sobě stworiti jazyk krásný, bohatý, libozwučný a wšemožně dokonalý: ale jazyk takowý nebudě wíce národnim, alebrž osobním jazykem toho kdo jej sobě udělal". František Palacký. Posudek o českém jazyku spisovném, 1831. [čćч] | |
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| IJzeren Jan | Sep 2 2010, 07:03 AM Post #12 |
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Jan van Steenbergen
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True also. But that would be a rather random simplification, then. In the same period, we also picked ę > ja, which is equally troublesome for South Slavs. If we really wanted to make it easy for South Slavs, we shouldn't have done that, neither should we have included most of the soft consonants. A Bulgarian-like phonology would probably have been the best solution. |
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Človeku, ktoromu je trudno s soboju samim, verojetno tož bude trudno s vsim inim. Slovianski - Словянски - Словјански [čćч] | |
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| Moraczewski | Sep 2 2010, 07:26 AM Post #13 |
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But now we have "ę > e" because we realized that "ja" was kind of mistake (we didn't have Southern Slavic designers before to tell us that). Now it is all correct: we don't have y/i and ę/e distinctions that makes Slovianski more attractive for Southern Slavs, I believe. Most soft consonants, as I understand, were included to allow correct inflection, and this is the case of BCSM+Slovene also, they treat some hard consonants as soft when declining. So there is nothing bad or complicated in having jednosť and meď, just Southern Slavs may omit the apostrophe, but not forget that the words are feminine. Edited by Moraczewski, Sep 2 2010, 07:27 AM.
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"I nenít pochyby, že kdokoli chce a umí, může sobě stworiti jazyk krásný, bohatý, libozwučný a wšemožně dokonalý: ale jazyk takowý nebudě wíce národnim, alebrž osobním jazykem toho kdo jej sobě udělal". František Palacký. Posudek o českém jazyku spisovném, 1831. [čćч] | |
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| IJzeren Jan | Sep 2 2010, 08:55 AM Post #14 |
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Jan van Steenbergen
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That was based on the assumption that no irregularity was allowed whatsoever. In most cases gender would have taken care of it: jednost (f.) already implies jednosti. The problem would only exist for masculine words with a soft consonant, but in those cases we might simply have adopted lj and nj: pisatelj and konj, but in the remaining cases satisfy ourselves with put-a, mor-a etc. That would still mean pisatelji and konji, though (vs. voli and zakoni). The mistake we made, I admit now, is that we adopted individual features from languages, without adopting the consequences. It's as simple as that: with Y around, we could have said that I is inherently palatalising. That's precisely what happens in North Slavic, and that's also why North Slavs feel tretji, srednji and ljudji look bad: и/i is to ы/y what я/ja is to а/a, so treti is in fact treť-y. The worst is that Y wouldn't have been that hard for South Slavs at all. They'd have to know that it is used: - in personal pronouns - the verb byti - in the adjective ending -y - in nominative plurals and the genitive singular of -a verbs - after k and g - it can never be used syllable-initially or after a soft consonant Of course, there are more words with Y, but I'm quite sure the list above covers at least 95% of the cases. In the remaining cases, it would be harder, but it's not like it would be a grave mistake to write "pokriti" instead of "pokryti". In other words, the simplification created by kicking out Y isn't that tremendous at all, and nothing compared to -T' etc. (which isn't predictable at all). Besides, the trouble we created by combining it with a rich consonant system makes things a lot harder for everybody. [ć] |
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Človeku, ktoromu je trudno s soboju samim, verojetno tož bude trudno s vsim inim. Slovianski - Словянски - Словјански [čćч] | |
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| iopq | Sep 2 2010, 10:47 AM Post #15 |
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Administrator
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well I've been using pisatel'a/kormjeni two years ago as my preferred ascii solution glad you've finally returned to the status quo haha |
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Bo v c'omu žytti pomiž baletom i svobodoju zavždy potribno vybyraty svobodu, navit' jakščo ce čehoslovac'kyj general. Sergij Žadan "Anarchy in the Ukr" | |
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2:14 PM Jul 11