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Category: Artificial Languages
What are some examples of word-play in constructed languages such as Esperanto and Lojban?
Esperanto neurotically tried to avoid lexical ambiguity, but didn’t get there for compounding, and between that and soundalikes, it’s doing ok. Raymond Schwartz was the main punmaster of the language. Examples: the sundry aĝo “age” compounds in La Diversaj Aĝoj de l’ Homo, or the groanworthy “tumble dry” of Molière in El “Verdkata Testamento” (1926); […]
Do you know any ideographic conlang?
The most successful one has been Blissymbols; it was conceived of as an auxlang, but has it seen usage helping disabled children acquire language. The sample phrase on Wikipedia is: Person-1st Verb-feeling-fire Verb-legs house camera-move “I want to go to the cinema” Answered 2017-03-03 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/Do-you-know-any-ideographic-conlang/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
Is Classical Sanskrit the world’s first constructed language?
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-Sanskrit-and-Prakrit/answer/Neeraj-Mathur-13 There’s a spectrum between conventionalised and artificial, and Sanskrit is somewhere along that spectrum. Specialists other than myself can answer better than I as to how artificial Sanskrit is. We have no idea how old the Aboriginal initiate language Damin is, and therefore whether it is older than Sanskrit or not. It is clearly […]
Why isn’t Esperanto the global lingua franca?
As is so often the case here: there are some good answers (Vote #1 Andreu Massana’s answer; Vote #2 or #3 Laurie Chilvers’ answer), there are some bad answers, and this is my answer. The initial hope of Zamenhof, and indeed of most people in the auxiliary language movement, was that the global language would […]
What does your accent sound like in Esperanto?
http://vocaroo.com/ I have recorded a couple of passages I have read out in Esperanto, but why not a new one. Klingono, from Neciklopedio, the Esperanto version of Uncyclopedia. Vocaroo | Voice message Well, that was fun! My Esperanto has a mercilessly Greek accent, with no variation in vowel length or quality. In theory, that is […]
Could Esperanto seriously become the lingua franca?
A2A by Rahul. Ah, Rahul. This hurts. Nick Nicholas’ answer to What is it like to be a kabeinto? What was it like to leave Esperantujo? But, you asked. The lingua franca? Of course not, not any more. There might have been a brief window with the League of Nations, maybe even the UN, but […]
What does fluency mean in a conlang like Klingon?
https://www.quora.com/How-did-you-learn-Klingon/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5 Oh, it’s a very good question, ’erIq qaDye qaH and raHul chabra qaH. Although it’s a question I did prompt. Let me clarify the question I prompted, because it may not be as obvious from the wording. Klingon is a made up language. Noone has ever spoken it fluently. All the records we have […]
How did you learn Klingon?
It’s a someone idiosyncratic method, and while it worked for me in both Klingon and Lojban, I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for a natural language. I did lots of translating from English. Lots and lots of translating. With some experimenting, trying to work out what looked more fluent. (The question of what the hell fluency […]
How did those unworthy Terran petaQ manage to plagiarize Shakespeare so many years before first contact?
Lucky you, OP, because I wrote the introduction to The Klingon Hamlet, and translated the verse of the play (or rather, in-universe, I was editorially involved in the Terran edition of the play Tragedy of Khamlet, Son of the Emperor of Kronos, by Wil’yam Shex’pir, and translated the introduction). And the introduction pays glancing mention […]
What was Nick Nicholas’ process to translate Hamlet into Klingon?
I thank you for the question, ’erIq qaDye qaH! I’ll answer a bit more broadly than your details ask, but I may get a big vague; it was after all 20 years ago. I learned Klingon in 1994. I had enough arrogance and free time, that I knew I’d be the one to write the […]