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Mini – The Minimal Language

minilanguage.com

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Re: Mini – The Minimal Language

#51

Post by eru »

abeppu wrote: post #3

I think the concept of "simplest naturalistic language" may be intrinsically broken -- a "naturalistic language" is not simple. Natural languages balance between regular rules (e.g. in English, we often add -ed to make the past tense of a verb) and exceptions especially for common cases ("went", "was", "had", "made", "did" because going, being, having, making, doing are all so common). This tension is partly about ho…

> Natural languages balance between regular rules (e.g. in English, we often add -ed to make the past tense of a verb) and exceptions especially for common cases ("went", "was", "had", "made", "did" because going, being, having, making, doing are all so common).

Yes, but different natural languages resolve this tension differently.

For example, Turkish is much more regular in its verbs (and in general) than English or German.

Re: Mini – The Minimal Language

#52

Post by eru »

masukomi wrote: post #33
abeppu wrote: post #3

I think the concept of "simplest naturalistic language" may be intrinsically broken -- a "naturalistic language" is not simple. Natural languages balance between regular rules (e.g. in English, we often add -ed to make the past tense of a verb) and exceptions especially for common cases ("went", "was", "had", "made", "did" because going, being, having, making, doing are all so common). This tension is partly about ho…

not saying those papers are wrong, but 136 years and millions of speakers from _most_ countries and Esperanto's speakers seem just fine without adding irregular verbs.

Turkish might be a better example: it's a real, natural language and highly regular.

Re: Mini – The Minimal Language

#53

Post by Aeolun »

int_19h wrote: post #37
roetlich wrote: post #21

> The vowels are pronounced like they are in Spanish, Italian, German, and many other languages ... ok, this is annoying. Can't speak for Italian and Spanish, but in German vowels are pronounced differently depending on context. Later, it says the 'o' is meant to be pronounced like in "moment". Moment is pronounced differently in American and UK English. And neither are like Italian "momento" or like German "Moment".…

In pretty much any language there's no single point on the vowel chart that actually identifies a vowel - it's a spectrum with numerous allophones. Conlangs like this one are generally constructed in such a way as to allow maximally wide spectrum that is still distinctive. So if you pronounce it the way you speak English, that's still fine. If you want more precision, generally speaking, the value of the character in…

You are going to get a lot of weirdness mixing a, e end i up.

Re: Mini – The Minimal Language

#54

Post by msla »

roetlich wrote: post #21

> The vowels are pronounced like they are in Spanish, Italian, German, and many other languages ... ok, this is annoying. Can't speak for Italian and Spanish, but in German vowels are pronounced differently depending on context. Later, it says the 'o' is meant to be pronounced like in "moment". Moment is pronounced differently in American and UK English. And neither are like Italian "momento" or like German "Moment".…

> All of the consonants (b d f g j k l m n p r s t v) are pronounced exactly the same as they are in English. Phew!

"T" as in "Trent" is the same as "T" as in "butter" for this person?

"S" as in "pass" is the same as "S" as in "passion" too?

"G" as in "go" is the same as "G" as in "gel" as well?

There's a reason humans invented the IPA.

Re: Mini – The Minimal Language

#55

Post by roetlich »

msla wrote: post #54
roetlich wrote: post #21

> The vowels are pronounced like they are in Spanish, Italian, German, and many other languages ... ok, this is annoying. Can't speak for Italian and Spanish, but in German vowels are pronounced differently depending on context. Later, it says the 'o' is meant to be pronounced like in "moment". Moment is pronounced differently in American and UK English. And neither are like Italian "momento" or like German "Moment".…

> All of the consonants (b d f g j k l m n p r s t v) are pronounced exactly the same as they are in English. Phew! "T" as in "Trent" is the same as "T" as in "butter" for this person? "S" as in "pass" is the same as "S" as in "passion" too? "G" as in "go" is the same as "G" as in "gel" as well? There's a reason humans invented the IPA.

"G" as in ".gif", of course! And why not "T" as in "potion". :)

Re: Mini – The Minimal Language

#60

Post by Dylan16807 »

Conlectus wrote: post #5

I note that with a vocabulary of 1,000 words it is roughly 10x the size of Toki Pona, a conlang which also aims for minimalism. That said, Toki Pona's goal is to help clarify thought, whereas this seems to intend to prioritize communication more highly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toki_Pona

Help clarify thought? While being actively hostile to numbers?
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