On http://www.langmaker.com/db/User:Gabriel_Svoboda/Slovianski-P/Vocabulary , I tried to make some sample vocabulary. Of course, Slovio-ists will probably not forget to mention that Slovio, with its 6-year time advantage, has already got 40 000 words. I won't prevent them to do so, if they insist on quantity rather than on quality (zxen, tuman, ...).
Hi Gabriel. Its nice to see that you didnt waste your time.
My critique/notes:
System of votes. Russian doesnt have any privileges at all? 8-[ Im enraged.
Proto-Slavic -or-/-ol-. Russian has both -oro-/-olo- and -ra/la- reflexes of these sounds: golova (head) glava (chief, chapter); gorod (city) graždanin (citizen). South Slavic languages seem to have -ra-/-la- forms everywhere. Consider it.
-zija>-zijni; -sija>-sijni; -cija>-cioni Are you sure you cant use the same adjective suffixes for all the three cases? We Russians use televizioni, diskusioni, tradicioni forms. And for us Russians it doesnt make sense why -ion is preserved for -cija words, but is slavonized for -zija and -sija words.
Suffix -telni. I dont feel that it makes possibility meaning. These words seem to me mean something like created for producing the action (videtelno okno a window made to watch through it; veritelno pismo a letter that was made to make somebody believe in something). In Russian we use Western -abelni suffix: eta kniga nečitabel'na this book cant be read.
Letter spacing instead italic. Your letter-spaced passages are very difficult to read. Letter spacing may be used to emphasize one or two words, but not whole paragraph.
More > Mora. Word mora looks completely unfamiliar to me. Maybe you should use forms like morie instead (plural moria)? Or morje morja?
María Isabel López Rodríguez (Maria Isabel Lopez Rodrigez) Spanish language doesnt have /z/ sound. So, it should be Maria Isabel Lopes Rodriges.
Palatalization. I dont understand the way you mark the palataization in words. Sometimes you mark it with j (Poljak, dlja), sometimes with i (slovianski). Consider removing j from words like dlja I dont think it gives useful information.
Adjective suffixes -ski and -ni. Personally I aint gonna use your strict adjective derivation rules I would prefer to more natural forms.
matka > matčin. I dont consider that possessive as new word but as a form of an original name. Every language user should be able to form possessive of a noun without thinking about palatalization and other phonetic laws. (You may use as difficult as you like rules for word-derivation while creating words for the dictionary, but dont expect it from regular users.) And I dont feel that matčin is more natural than matkin.
ja (I) mne (me) me (me). You should rather translate dative forms of pronouns as to me, to thee.
Does your language have add n- after a preposition rule? (jego, but od nego) How youre gonna decide which case should be used with prepositions?
Correspondence between accusative and possessive pronouns in the third person. Here is what you have:
acc.
poss.
m., n.
jego
jego
f.
ju
jej
pl.
ih
ih
The only discorrespondence is in feminine. Maybe you should use jej for accusative? For my Russian eye it looks more understandable anyway.
žadni - "no". It means greedy in Russian. Personally, I would use nijaki in this function. Other option is nijedin. Also, I like the idea of having koj instead kotori, which could have okay negative form nikoj.
etot vs. tamten. In masculine, you use Russian-Bulgarian ending for the former and West Slavic for the latter. Is it okay? I think these words should correspond to each other. Also, I would allow to use more common t@-ta-to-te forms for cases when it doesnt matter whether it means this or that. (V tamten dom žit jedna devica. Ta devica ne znat slovianski jezik).
pri - near; vozle - next to. I dont quite understand whats the difference between next to, and near. At least it seems to me that Russian vozle means rather near than next to. Anyway, the difference is too little to justify using of word that hardly would be understood by non-East Slavs.
dali - if, whether. Please write it as two words da li; so I wouldnt confuse it with past tense of verb dat (it doesnt matter whether you have this verb; the confusion still exists).
dva (masculine), dve (feminine, neuter) - two. In Russian the neuter form is dva.
The dictionary. As much as I appreciate your titanic work Well, you gave us too much information. This dictionary: a) hardly can be used (difficult to browse), b) difficult for new words to be added (you have to consult too many dictionaries, even when the choice is obvious). I guess you should split the dictionary entries into the entries section and the etymology section. For nouns their gender should be specified.
chin podbrodak. In many words we have correspondence -ok (East Slavic), -ek (West Slavic), -ak (Yugoslavian), -k (Bulgarian). You should decide on common way how to treat this suffix.
money peneze. Most Slavic languages seem to have a name of some coin in plural here. It doesnt sound like a good idea that youd re-recognized its -e ending as one of neuter singular. I think that a good choice here would be a plural of some popular coin: e.g. groši, or simple moneti.
question pitanie.Pitanije means feeding, nutrition in Russian, from pitat', to feed.
roof kriv. I can understand what Bulgarian pokriv means, because it comes from verb pokrivat, I can understand Sebo-Croatian krov, cause it reminds me Russian word krovl'a (roofing) and is used in expression lišit's'a krova (to be left without a roof over one's head). But I dont understand word kriv. (Sure, I understand that you tried to avoid confusion with word for blood but still.)
rose roža.Roža means something like ugly face in Russian. I guess it should be roza because it is correct (European) pronunciation.
ship korabel. In Russian we have archaic (but still widely known) word ladja (now it is used mostly used in sense rook (a chess piece)).
soap milo. Maybe you should use West Slavic midlo to avoid confusion with adjective mili (lovely).
tiger tigar. Most languages seem not to have anything between g and r. And as far as I know, the vowel a is dropped in plural of Serbo-Croatian and Macedonian tigar.
time vreme. We discussed word for name already. Its better to be vremeno because it has better plural form (vremena), and is more suitable for word-derivation (vremenni).
tower veža. Polish also has baszta that reminds Russian bašn'a; and Russian has stolp (rather archaic) that is also witnessed by Slovenian. If you understand word stolp too, then its better choice than veža.
village ves. Youve said that ves is irregular masculine form for vsa/vso/vse. The best choice is selo I guess; Russian has it too. (In Russian, selo is a derevn'a with a church )
-zija>-zijni; -sija>-sijni; -cija>-cioni Are you sure you cant use the same adjective suffixes for all the three cases? We Russians use televizioni, diskusioni, tradicioni forms. And for us Russians it doesnt make sense why -ion is preserved for -cija words, but is slavonized for -zija and -sija words.
OK, I'll change it to -zioni, -sioni, -cioni.
Suffix -telni. I dont feel that it makes possibility meaning. These words seem to me mean something like created for producing the action (videtelno okno a window made to watch through it; veritelno pismo a letter that was made to make somebody believe in something). In Russian we use Western -abelni suffix: eta kniga neitabel'na this book cant be read.
Aha, so "-telni" probably varies its meaning across Slavic languages. We can have -bilni instead, or just always adopt the most natural Slavic form with no special suffix.
Mara Isabel Lpez Rodrguez (Maria Isabel Lopez Rodrigez) Spanish language doesnt have /z/ sound. So, it should be Maria Isabel Lopes Rodriges.
Yes, it was my mistake.
Adjective suffixes -ski and -ni. Personally I aint gonna use your strict adjective derivation rules I would prefer to more natural forms.
The -ski/-ni system products natural Slavic forms quite often, I think, but you are right that there can be some "irregular" adjectives, too.
And I dont feel that matin is more natural than matkin.
If so, let's apply no palatalisation there.
ja (I) mne (me) me (me). You should rather translate dative forms of pronouns as to me, to thee.
Thanks for your advice, I will fix it.
Maybe you should use jej for accusative?
OK, I'll change it to jej.
adni - "no". It means greedy in Russian.
If so, I agree with nijaki.
etot vs. tamten. In masculine, you use Russian-Bulgarian ending for the former and West Slavic for the latter. Is it okay? I think these words should correspond to each other.
OK, I agree that they should. So what to have? Russian "tot", Ukrainian "toj", west Slavic "ten", Serbo-Croatian "taj", Bulgarian "to@". I'd prefer west Slavic "ten" here (eten, tamten), if a better understandable word is not found.
pri - near; vozle - next to. I dont quite understand whats the difference between next to, and near. At least it seems to me that Russian vozle means rather near than next to. Anyway, the difference is too little to justify using of word that hardly would be understood by non-East Slavs.
OK, let's abandon "vozle".
dali - if, whether. Please write it as two words da li; so I wouldnt confuse it with past tense of verb dat (it doesnt matter whether you have this verb; the confusion still exists).
OK, you are right.
dva (masculine), dve (feminine, neuter) - two. In Russian the neuter form is dva.
Hm, a disagreement between Slavic langauges ... So let's have dva for all genders.
The dictionary. As much as I appreciate your titanic work Well, you gave us too much information. This dictionary: a) hardly can be used (difficult to browse), b) difficult for new words to be added (you have to consult too many dictionaries, even when the choice is obvious). I guess you should split the dictionary entries into the entries section and the etymology section. For nouns their gender should be specified.
Yes, I am aware of the fact that the look of the dictionary needs to be changed. I'll do it as soon as I have time.
chin podbrodak. In many words we have correspondence -ok (East Slavic), -ek (West Slavic), -ak (Yugoslavian), -k (Bulgarian). You should decide on common way how to treat this suffix.
OK. So if we consider sand ("pes@k") to be a typical example, we have -ok in east Slavic, Slovak and Macedonian, "-ek" in Polish and Czech and "-ak" in Serbo-Croatian. The first one is the most common, so I will change it to podbrodok.
money peneze. Most Slavic languages seem to have a name of some coin in plural here. It doesnt sound like a good idea that youd re-recognized its -e ending as one of neuter singular. I think that a good choice here would be a plural of some popular coin: e.g. groi, or simple moneti.
Well, "money" were one of the most difficult words and "peneze" was the only gleam of some agreement between Slavic langauges ... But if we found a sufficiently popular coin, it would be great. To me as a Czech, groszi or denari would be understandable. What do others think?
question pitanie. Pitanije means feeding, nutrition in Russian, from pitat', to feed.
OK, so let's have vopros.
roof kriv. I can understand what Bulgarian pokriv means, because it comes from verb pokrivat, I can understand Sebo-Croatian krov, cause it reminds me Russian word krovl'a (roofing) and is used in expression liit's'a krova (to be left without a roof over one's head). But I dont understand word kriv. (Sure, I understand that you tried to avoid confusion with word for blood but still.)
OK, let's have pokriv.
rose roa. Roa means something like ugly face in Russian. I guess it should be roza because it is correct (European) pronunciation.
OK, let's have roza.
ship korabel. In Russian we have archaic (but still widely known) word ladja (now it is used mostly used in sense rook (a chess piece)).
Good, so ladja can be more common.
soap milo. Maybe you should use West Slavic midlo to avoid confusion with adjective mili (lovely).
Yes, and also with mili (they washed), so let's have midlo.
tiger tigar. Most languages seem not to have anything between g and r. And as far as I know, the vowel a is dropped in plural of Serbo-Croatian and Macedonian tigar.
I didn't want to be accused of creating unpronounceable consonant clusters, but you are right that tigr is the most common.
time vreme. We discussed word for name already. Its better to be vremeno because it has better plural form (vremena), and is more suitable for word-derivation (vremenni).
OK ... so if there is "-ja" in east Slavic and "-e" in south Slavic, Slovianski should have -eno, right?
village ves. Youve said that ves is irregular masculine form for vsa/vso/vse. The best choice is selo I guess; Russian has it too. (In Russian, selo is a derevn'a with a church )
OK, let's have selo.
---
I'll do the rest (disagreed & to be further discussed) tomorrow, too tired now.
All russian -ra reflexes are LOANS from South Slavic
All words that are not loans have ONLY -oro
I was considering the r' phoneme and only a minority of the languages support having it
If we are going to have a soft r we should restrict it to r'a and r'u combinations like in Bulgarian (r'o is also possible, I think)
I think a lot of question words should start with k
like kak, kto, kogdi, etc.
along with cxto, cxej, cxem, etc. as the second class of words
so nekaki not nejaki
As far as ladja and korabl'
Why not have both? Big boat - korabl', small boat - lodka. I never knew ladja meant boat because I automatically assume it's the chess piece.
Maybe for Slovianski-P you could take the plural form and derive the singular from it
Note that nejaki and vsejaki sound much more close to Russian nekij and vs'akij than nekaki and vsekaki do. Of course the question words should have k sound, but it should be just onek sound. (The same concerns the word for when: gda is better, because creates more natural words vsegda and tagda.)
I think that the good "regular" table of question words should look like this:
who
kto
nekto
nikto
vsekto*
(to)
who
ktori
nektori
niktori*
vsektori*
(to)
what
čo
nečo
ničo
vsečo
(to)
how
jak
nejak
nijak
vsejak
tak
which
jaki
nejaki
nijaki
vsejaki
taki
where
gde
negde
nigde
vsegde
tagde*
when
gda
negda
nigda
vsegda
tagda
(With asterisks the "unicornian" forms are marked, i.e. the ones that look regular but unnatural.)
Words gda and gde may be replaced with kda and kde, to have more k's.
All russian -ra reflexes are LOANS from South Slavic
So what? The point is Russians know them very well. Or you meant that they aren't presented in Ukrainian?
But -ro- doesn't sound so bad too.
As far as ladja and korabl'
First of all, it should be lodja, because we already accepted lodka. Lodja and lodka seem to be a good pair of words to have. (I wonder whether the name of Polish city Lódź comes from it.) I asked several people around and they new "Ladja the vessel" (and my mom even said that it's spelled ladja when it's a chess piece, and lodja when it's a boat though I guess she's wrong).
And the word korabl' is a LOAN from Greek (το καραβι in the Modern Greek).
About groši. As far as I know it's a German coin (Groschen), and since it's very well known to me it should also be known to all West and East Slavs. The trouble is doesn't form a good adjective (groševyj means rather 'cheap' in Russian, than is an adjective for 'money'); of course we always could have finansovi...
About vopros vs. pitanije. The question is what is the verb for 'to ask'. In Russian pitat' means 'to feed' and pytat' means 'to torture (to get information or consent)', so it wouldn't be a good choice. We could use something like voprosit but I'm not sure if it will be understood by non-Russians.
About groi. As far as I know it's a German coin (Groschen), and since it's very well known to me it should also be known to all West and East Slavs. The trouble is doesn't form a good adjective (groevyj means rather 'cheap' in Russian, than is an adjective for 'money'); of course we always could have finansovi...
Or just regular groszni.
About vopros vs. pitanije. The question is what is the verb for 'to ask'. In Russian pitat' means 'to feed' and pytat' means 'to torture (to get information or consent)', so it wouldn't be a good choice. We could use something like voprosit but I'm not sure if it will be understood by non-Russians.
It wouldn't be understood by me, but we probably have no other choice than vopros(it).
I never knew ladja meant boat because I automatically assume it's the chess piece.
(To be brough away by the words from the point discussed:) The chess piece seems to be called "tura" in east Slavic (and Russian also has "lad'ja" on top of that), "vezza" (tower) in west Slavic and "top" in south Slavic (except for Slovenian "trdnjava").
Proto-Slavic -or-/-ol-. Russian has both -oro-/-olo- and -ra/la- reflexes of these sounds: golova (head) glava (chief, chapter); gorod (city) gradanin (citizen). South Slavic languages seem to have -ra-/-la- forms everywhere. Consider it.
As iopq has already said, the Russian -ra-/-la- word are borrowings from south Slavic. However, such words are not very numerous: if you look at Jan's survey on http://www.slovianski.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=106 (the Sun May 28, 2006 2:54 pm post), he found (in one Russian wordlist) 38 -oro- words and 30 -olo- words, but only 6 -ra- words and 5 -la- words. So Russian -ra-/-la- are quite exceptional. That's why I prefer -ro-/-lo- in Slovianski.
tower vea. Polish also has baszta that reminds Russian ban'a; and Russian has stolp (rather archaic) that is also witnessed by Slovenian. If you understand word stolp too, then its better choice than vea.
I don't think a Czech would understand "stolp" ... So vezza still seems to be the most common.
Also, I would allow to use more common t@-ta-to-te forms for cases when it doesnt matter whether it means this or that. (V tamten dom it jedna devica. Ta devica ne znat slovianski jezik).
I am afraid that the t@-ta-to-te would be difficult to translate back to the many natural languages that have only two-level distinction ... Should t@-ta-to-te then be translated as this-these or as that-those?
But I would agree with to as an equivalent of English "it" when it means "the previously mentioned affair" rather than "the previously mentioned thing".
explanations:
Palatalization. I dont understand the way you mark the palataization in words. Sometimes you mark it with j (Poljak, dlja), sometimes with i (slovianski). Consider removing j from words like dlja I dont think it gives useful information.
As you know, we are in a huge disagreement with iopq about palatalisation ... And because I would consider the introducing of the soft/hard e distinction really horrible, I at least try to satisfy iopq everywhere else, so I don't uselessly abandon palatalisation at the vowels a, o, u.
The palatalisation is normally done by j. The word Slovianski doesn't have to obey rules, it is a proper name. This helps us to distinguish Slovianski (a name of the language) as opposed to slovjanski (an ordinary adjective meaning "Slavic").
Does your language have add n- after a preposition rule? (jego, but od nego) How youre gonna decide which case should be used with prepositions?
The dative form is used after a preposition, the accussative form is used as a direct object. That's why the dative forms are already n-ised (nemu, nej, nim vs. accusative jego, jej, ih).
to be further discussed:
More > Mora. Word mora looks completely unfamiliar to me. Maybe you should use forms like morie instead (plural moria)? Or morje morja?
As you know, I don't like "consonant + -je-", but here we might make an easy to remember exception that neuter words actually end in -je rather than in "-e" ... So morje > morja. What do others think?
Letter spacing instead italic. Your letter-spaced passages are very difficult to read. Letter spacing may be used to emphasize one or two words, but not whole paragraph.
Well ... but what other possibility do we have?
italics - I have already mentioned its disadvantages, the shapes of the letters are not uniform.
oblique - A geomatrically transformed normal font. It looks similar to italics, but it doesn't so drastically change the shape of the letter. However, the browsers usually tend to substitute it with italics, so it won't help us ...
half-bold - Could work, but again, most browsers tend to substitute it with bold.
larger font size - It looks ugly when the letters of one line are not of the same size.
underlining - Reserved for hypertext on the web.
different color - Actually stronger than bold, and the italics (which we try to substitute) is and should be less strong than bold.
letter spacing - For all the above mentioned reasons, I decided for this ... So what to do?
System of votes. Russian doesnt have any privileges at all? 8-[ Im enraged.
Well, number of speakers can change during time, number of languages can vary according to the current political situation, but the division of Slavic langauges into sections is quite stable, I think ... What do others think?
Of course, when some words have the same number of votes, the one with more speakers behind it wins.
- corrected the things we agreed on,
- added underived adverbs,
- added a note about compound words,
- added a note that prepositions can be used as prefixes.
The only -ra reflexes in Ukrainian are loans from Russian anyway. Which themselves are loans from Old Bulgarian.
Also, what about "zadat pitan'e"? More understandable? At least the noun form in Russian is pytka so it can't be confused. Vopros is kind of common, but not common enough.
My case-less language with genders is actually easier for Slavs than your gender-less one with cases, because all Slavic languages have gender, but not all of them have cases.
ložko (bed). I doubt Russians wouldn't understand this word. And it has plural form ložka, which coincide with Russian word for "spoon". In Russian we have word postel' with the same meaning, and would understand words like ležak or ležanka.
od strane (by). What is the "offcial status" of word strane? If it's the second half of the "compound preposition", maybe it should be written with a hyphen (od-strane)? If it's a noun, shouldn't it have a second od after it? How did you decide on vowel a within strane, shouldn't it be strone? How did you decide on the ending -e for it? (In Russian we would have "ot storony (+Gen.)" or "so storony (+Gen.)" here.)
lice. It means both "face" and "cheek" in yours, is it okay? (In Russian lico means "face" only.)
ugal (coal). Vowel a in ugal is a "default" vowel typical for "Yugoslavian" languages, i.e. the one they use when the vowel "drops" (corresponding to Czech e or Russian o or e). The case is similar to the one of podbrodak — you should decide on more-or-less common way how to treat such words. But here the situation is more complicated 'cause you also have to distinguish this word from the word for "angle".
med (copper) (masc.). It should be feminine.
život (life). Does it bother you that it means "belly" in Russian? Maybe it would be better to have something like žitie? (Russians know the "life" meaning of this word, but it's archaic. I did read translations of "Zdrovie" text, and it was really funny to see expressions like "Zdorova dieta [...] prodolzxit vasx zxivot" — i.e. "A healthy diet will make your stomach longer".)
usta (mouth) (fem.). It isn't feminine, it's plural neuter (the singular is ustje in Russian, but the singular form never is used in this meaning — ustje is rather a mouth of a river).
noč (night) (masc.). It should be feminine.
bol (pain) (masc.). It's feminine in Russian.
za-imeno. What's use of the hyphen here? It looks pretty understandable without it.
sufix (suffix). Are you sure you need to bring letter x in? (You don't have it in sintaksis.)
lebed (swan) (fem.). In Russian it's "officially" masculine, but in fact it can be both feminine and masculine (especially in fairy tales).
eten (this). You did ask me before whether I understand word ten... no, I don't A regular form would be ti, and I think that Ukraino--Serbo-Croatian taj/toj reminds it more than tot or ten. Between toj and taj I like the former better 'cause I "dislike" South Slavic a. Also, to have words like etoj and temtoj looks to be more 'politically correct' (because both West Slavic and Russian words look equally Frankenstein-like ).
- med (copper) (masc.). It should be feminine.
- no (night) (masc.). It should be feminine.
- sufix (suffix). Are you sure you need to bring letter x in? (You don't have it in sintaksis.)
These were my typing or thinkig errors.
I agree with most of the rest, too, but I will answer it later.
loko (bed). I doubt Russians wouldn't understand this word. And it has plural form loka, which coincide with Russian word for "spoon". In Russian we have word postel' with the same meaning, and would understand words like leak or leanka.
What about lezzko? It preserves the vowel from the verb lezzat/lezzet and the most common Slavic ending -ko for this word. Other roots ("postel" or "krovat") are not common enough.
od strane (by). What is the "offcial status" of word strane? If it's the second half of the "compound preposition", maybe it should be written with a hyphen (od-strane)? If it's a noun, shouldn't it have a second od after it? How did you decide on vowel a within strane, shouldn't it be strone? How did you decide on the ending -e for it? (In Russian we would have "ot storony (+Gen.)" or "so storony (+Gen.)" here.)
You are right, I took this from Serbian without change. To be in accordance with Slovianski-N declension and with Slovianski ethymology, it should probably be od stroni. And a second "od"? I don't think it would be necessary ... in my eyes, "od stroni + agent" is the same case as czasa vino or pisanie pismo that are also understandable without the "od", although it should logically be there.
lice. It means both "face" and "cheek" in yours, is it okay? (In Russian lico means "face" only.)
Let's analyse it: "lice"/"lico" is used for "face" in Bulgarian, Croatian and Russian, but for "cheek" in Slovenian; "obraz" is used for "face" in Bulgarian and Slovenian, but for "cheek" in Croatian (and means "picture" in Czech ); Polish "tvar" means "face" in Polish, but both "face" and "cheek" in Czech and the basic meaning is the latter. Polish "policzek" ("cheek") means "cuff" in Czech.
So the only remaining non-confusing words are obliczej (Czech, Slovak, Slovenian) for "face" and east Slavic szczeka for "cheek" (if we don't count Slovenian-only "czeljust" and Bulgarian-only "buza").
ugal (coal). Vowel a in ugal is a "default" vowel typical for "Yugoslavian" languages, i.e. the one they use when the vowel "drops" (corresponding to Czech e or Russian o or e). The case is similar to the one of podbrodak you should decide on more-or-less common way how to treat such words. But here the situation is more complicated 'cause you also have to distinguish this word from the word for "angle".
OK ... but here you guessed right that I had wanted to avoid the confusion with "angle".
ivot (life). Does it bother you that it means "belly" in Russian? Maybe it would be better to have something like itie? (Russians know the "life" meaning of this word, but it's archaic. I did read translations of "Zdrovie" text, and it was really funny to see expressions like "Zdorova dieta [...] prodolzxit vasx zxivot" i.e. "A healthy diet will make your stomach longer".)
OK, let's have zzitie.
usta (mouth) (fem.). It isn't feminine, it's plural neuter (the singular is ustje in Russian, but the singular form never is used in this meaning ustje is rather a mouth of a river).
Yes, you are right.
bol (pain) (masc.). It's feminine in Russian.
It's masculine in Czech ... What does the situation look like in other languages?
za-imeno. What's use of the hyphen here? It looks pretty understandable without it.
I think prefixes should be written with a hyphen to improve the understandability and to distinguish "cz" vs. "c + z", "sz" vs. "s + z" etc. Yes, here it isn't a classical prefix, but if we had "zaimeno", it would have to be changed to "zajmeno" (because unlike Slovio, in Slavic languages "i" almost never follows a vowel) ... and I would be accused of big Czech chauvinism because Czech has got "jmeno" (name) and "zajmeno" (pronoun).
lebed (swan) (fem.). In Russian it's "officially" masculine, but in fact it can be both feminine and masculine (especially in fairy tales).
Czech "labut'" is feminine only, but there is a question if these two words are to be considered of the same origin ... What do other languages have?
eten (this). You did ask me before whether I understand word ten... no, I don't
A regular form would be ti, and I think that Ukraino--Serbo-Croatian taj/toj reminds it more than tot or ten. Between toj and taj I like the former better 'cause I "dislike" South Slavic a. Also, to have words like etoj and temtoj looks to be more 'politically correct' (because both West Slavic and Russian words look equally Frankenstein-like ).
Thanks, I think it could be a good solution!
letie (year). Interesting solution.
In fact, the word "summer" instead of "year" should be used in plural (because Slavic languages sometimes do this, too) because I think that everybody will understand that "how many summers old are you?" concerns not only the summers but also the time periods between them. But this wouldn't work in singular and in the adjective, so we have to have some unambiguous words, such as letie and anualni.
I think we should use populations when things are unclear like we have 3 votes for one word and 3 votes for another word we should just use the word that has more people understanding it
This suffix is "-ie" in Polish and Slovak, "-je" in Serbian and Macedonian, "-ja" in Ukrainian, "-i" in Czech and "-e" in Bulgarian. As far as Russians are concerned, they'd be familiar with "-ie" according to spelling, but with "-ije" according to pronunciation, so let me count both:
i e /2 (half of Russian)
ije /2 (half of Russian)
ja (Ukrainian)
i e (Polish)
i /2 (Czech)
i e /2 (Slovak)
je (Serbian)
e /2 (Bulgarian)
je /2 (Macedonian)
the first letter: i = 3 votes, nothing = 3 votes ... i wins because it represents a bigger population
the second letter: nothing = 3 votes, j = 3 votes ... nothing would win according to population, but here it's a question whether spelling or pronunciation is more important ... iopq is known to favour pronunciation, I am known to favour spelling
the third letter: e = 4,5 votes, a = 1 vote, nothing = 0,5 votes ... e wins
Therefore either -ie or -i(j)e are winners, but not "-'e" or "-je".
ugol - angle
ugol' or ugol'e - coal
So what about ugol and ugoli(j)e?
jme, (gen.) jmene imja, (gen.) imeni
Do you want every noun to have its special genitive form? Have you fallen in love with Latin?
I don't know how comfortable you are with jC- words
In Czech, the "j" is written, but often pronounced silent.
I guess I'll just use a i > j at morpheme boundaries after a vowel rule
Yes, it could work!
I think we should use populations when things are unclear like we have 3 votes for one word and 3 votes for another word we should just use the word that has more people understanding it
Familiarity due to spelling isn't worth crap, go ahead and make a Pan-Germanic language based on English spelling, k? Oh wait, that would make no sense because English spelling makes no sense.
Remember that languages are for talking, NOT writing on the Internet. What, are you going to explain while TALKING to a Russian that he'd recognise the word if it was written down? The other way around, if it's not familiar in writing you can at least SOUND IT OUT so it won't be a problem. You can't WRITE IT OUT while talking if you don't know the orthography! Which is why a logical orthography is best, because one can intuitively read it.
Russian - ije
Ukrainian has -'a because it has a preceding consonant
Polish - 'e due to spelling rules (i is used as a softener, not as a vowel, not pronounced)
Czech - i
Slovak - je (non-syllabic i)
Serbian - 'e NOT je you have to look at cyrillic to know for sure (which is why Serbian cyrillic is better) of course not for this word, but in general since they don't use any form like it'e
Bulgarian - живеене, e
Macedonian - живеење therefore 'e
let's see:
first vowel - Russian, Czech - i; Ukrainian, Polish, Slovak, Serbian, Bulgarian, Macedonian - none
preceding consonant - Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Macedonian - soft; Bulgarian - hard
second vowel - Russian, Polish, Slovak, Serbian, Bulgarian, Macedonian - e; Ukrainian - a
has a j - Russian, Slovak - yes; Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Serbian, Bulgarian, Macedonian - no
therefore:
no first vowel, preceding consonant soft, second vowel e, no j
'e is the end result
and why not someting like the South Slavic живенье?
here is another reason why you can't go on orthography: Serbian has je in Latin and 'e in Cyrillic (Cyrillic is the correct one) which has been identified as a flaw by linguists (that's why you can't transliterate correctly from Latin to Cyrillic - because Cyrillic has more information)
PIRVAYO, YA'NIS, STOPAI PISHI'NIA SA KAPITA'LNAYA BU'KVI; ANI GLIDI HARASHO NA RAMA'NSKAYA KALONA, NA ANI OCHIN SLOJNAYA SHTOP CHITAI IS KAMPYU'TARSKAYA IKRAN.
FTARAYO, KADA TI PISHI VA IZIK DRUGA'YI NI PANIMAI, DAI NAS PIRIVOD, HARASHO?
First, Ioanes, stop writing with capital letters, they look well on a Roman column, but they are very difficult to read from computer screen.
Second, when you write in a language others don't understand, give us a translation, okay?
What about lezzko? No, I don't understand it. I could suggest something like lože... but I think you won't like it, right?
About bol and lebed. You know, you have a rule: "an exception is accepted when it's a universal exception". Maybe it can be applied here? I mean, by default all the zero-ending nouns are masculine, but they can be feminine when they are universally feminine. Though I'm not sure whether I like the idea. Or you could just make a note that the words can be both masculine and feminine.
za-imeno. Though it would be more natural to write it zajmeno, I think this way it would be more confusing for a Russian eye. But, za-imeno looks strange because it indicates that za and i are different syllables twice: once with the hyphen, and then with using of i insted j. Anyway, I don't have any troubles with Czech chauvinism here, because the word looks like the most adequate translation of the Latin term pronomen.
ugol (angle) vs. ugol' (coal). First of all it's almost useless for Gabriel, 'cause he tends not to use palatalization at the end of words; then, such distinction would be helpful for Russians only (right?). Bulgarians (and Poles?) would prefer to distinguish them with initial v- (ugol/vugol), Czechs with lengthening of the vowel etc... But such kinds of distinction mean nothing to others. What about ugol vs. (v)ugolia or (v)uglišča (both pluralia tantum)? Bulgarians have an ever-plural word for coal (văglišta), and ugolja is a correct Russian word.
imja, imjeni, etc. Of course it can't be used in Gabriel's language, 'cause it isn't a universal feature. We have Czech word jmeno.
Familiarity due to spelling isn't worth crap, go ahead and make a Pan-Germanic language based on English spelling, k? Oh wait, that would make no sense because English spelling makes no sense. Go ahead and base the Pan-Germanic language on English pronunciation. THAT is what makes no sense. Personally, I can understand more or less Slavic texts, but I can't understand speech in any Slavic language other than Russian. (Except Bulgarian and Serbian maybe; they sounds "more clear" for me, though I don't have much practice).
Remember that languages are for talking, NOT writing on the Internet. Actually, I thought about a language for "book sellers"; or in contemporary terms, for Pan-Slavic Wikipedia.
Bulgarian - живеене. Actually, Bulgarian also has word житие. Anyway Igor, how do you think we Russians are supposed to pronounce /'e/? We will soften any consonant before e (e.g. m in imeno). Don't tell me that we shouldn't soften the previous consonant, because when we are trying to avoid palatalization we terribly corrupt the e sound (and get something like a in English man).
Anyway I don't like the idea of using apostrophe to mark palatalization, because: - Non-Slavs don't know what to do with it. - I don't think we should palatalize the word-final consonant (there is no way Bulgarians or Slovenians are able to pronounce it), and in all the other cases it may be written (and pronounced) with either i or j sounds/letters. - I would like to preserve the apostrophe as alternative variant of marking of "crowned" letters (the way Ioanes does it: z'itie). - A language with words broken by apostrophes looks... immature.
Go ahead and base the Pan-Germanic language on English pronunciation. THAT is what makes no sense. Personally, I can understand more or less Slavic texts, but I can't understand speech in any Slavic language other than Russian.
I thought I would have to write a long reply to iopq's post, but these two sentences exactly express my opinion, too. Languages are both for talking and for writing on the Internet, none of these two is more important.
What about lezzko? No, I don't understand it. I could suggest something like lože... but I think you won't like it, right?
Yes, here it is probably not possible to satisfy you ... Most languages with this word have it in a form that is a little bit diffrent from "lozze".
About bol and lebed. You know, you have a rule: "an exception is accepted when it's a universal exception". Maybe it can be applied here? I mean, by default all the zero-ending nouns are masculine, but they can be feminine when they are universally feminine. Though I'm not sure whether I like the idea.
I think I like this idea.
Anyway Igor, how do you think we Russians are supposed to pronounce /'e/? We will soften any consonant before e (e.g. m in imeno). Don't tell me that we shouldn't soften the previous consonant, because when we are trying to avoid palatalization we terribly corrupt the e sound (and get something like a in English man).
He'll answer you that you should pronounce e hard unless specialy marked as soft. :-\ :-/
By the way, what was decided on more/morje/morie?
Most languages spell it more (except for Polish "morze", Czech "mor'e" and Slovenian "morje"; iopq would also add that it's "morje" and not "more" in Russian). But what do the plurals look like in most languages? This is what we should consider, too. In Czech, the plural form is identical to the singular one.
ugol (angle) vs. ugol' (coal). First of all it's almost useless for Gabriel, 'cause he tends not to use palatalization at the end of words; then, such distinction would be helpful for Russians only (right?). Bulgarians (and Poles?) would prefer to distinguish them with initial v- (ugol/vugol), Czechs with lengthening of the vowel etc... But such kinds of distinction mean nothing to others. What about ugol vs. (v)ugolia or (v)uglišča (both pluralia tantum)? Bulgarians have an ever-plural word for coal (văglišta), and ugolja is a correct Russian word.
Czech "uhli" is singulare tantum, but never mind. I think something like vugolja (maybe initial "v" could be preferred to distinguish it even more from "angle") could work.
za-imeno. Though it would be more natural to write it zajmeno, I think this way it would be more confusing for a Russian eye. But, za-imeno looks strange because it indicates that za and i are different syllables twice: once with the hyphen, and then with using of i insted j. Anyway, I don't have any troubles with Czech chauvinism here, because the word looks like the most adequate translation of the Latin term pronomen.
OK, so zaimeno as a compromise?
Anyway I don't like the idea of using apostrophe to mark palatalization
Yes, I agree, as you know. But if I were made to make compromises, the apostrophe palatalisation at the end of the word or before a, o, u would be more acceptable for me than the je/e distinction in the middle of the word.
But otel' is a foreign word, in the same way as the list of Russian words with hard e you published on our forum. Yes, it could certainly be technically possible for a Russian to pronounce native words with hard e. But why to make him/her to do so? The listener will hear it correctly anyway, as we showed at the (non-)inserting of j.
True, but languages usually have a lot more phonetic detail than I prescribe.
We haven't discussed velarized L vs. normal L, sandhi, euphony, etc.
Also, it would be helpful to get away from speaking Russian
I encourage all Russian speakers to use -m ending first person verb forms like "Ja piem", "Ja idem", "Ja igram" etc. as well as pronouncing all the e hard unless specified.
In fact the ideal pronounciation for i would be the same as Ukrainian и and Czech/Slovak y (short) since it would be the language spoken in Pannonia
And for the languages that have -m first person verb forms I would encourage them to use -(j)u forms, "Ja piu", "Ja idu", "Ja igraju" etc.
True, but languages usually have a lot more phonetic detail than I prescribe.
We haven't discussed velarized L vs. normal L, sandhi, euphony, etc.
In fact the ideal pronounciation for i would be the same as Ukrainian и and Czech/Slovak y (short) since it would be the language spoken in Pannonia
Of course, we can define some ideal pronunciation (for those who are perfectly comfortable with more than one possibility) but it doesn't have to be mandatory.
I encourage all Russian speakers to use -m ending first person verb forms like "Ja pi?em", "Ja idem", "Ja igram" etc.
And for the languages that have -m first person verb forms I would encourage them to use -(j)u forms, "Ja pi?u", "Ja idu", "Ja igraju" etc.
I hope that you encourage them to speak this way in Slovianski only, not in their native languages. It would, however, be ideal to have only one possibility for first person singular conjugation ending:
Basically, the situation looks this way:
east Slavic (2 votes) - -ju
south Slavic, Slovak (2,5 votes) - -m
Polish, Czech (1,5 votes) - both
Problems:
-m is first person plural and not first person singular in Russian and Belorussian -ju is third person plural and not first person singular in Slovak and Serbo-Croatian
According to these facts, it was decided that Slovianski-N will have both. However, let me give some additional facts:
- the -ju ending isn't as confusing for Slovaks and Serbo-Croatians as somebody might imagine because Slovaks and Serbo-Croatians pronounce -ju with a long vowel, while Slovianski -ju in first person singular would be pronounced short - so the confusion remains to be written only
- Serbo-Croatian also has got the -(j)u ending at two verbs - (ho)ću, mogu
And the following three points are not to be considered very seriously, but let me still mention them:
- Slovaks know the -ju ending from Czech
- Slovenians and Macedonians may know the -(j)u ending from the two above mentioned Serbo-Croatian verbs
- Bulgarians, as well as other older Slavs, might remember the -ju ending from one hated compulsory school subject
So what about not having the Emkavian variant of Slovianski-N?
bolet' - bolejem in Russian so singular would be bolem
rugat' - rugajem in Russian so singular would be rugam
but for -it', -ut' verbs there is a problem
kurit' - kurim in Russian so singular kurim would be the same as plural
pl'unut' - we would have to have a form like pl'unem for singular which would be exactly like the Russian plural unless you want a Latin-sounding pl'unum ("E Pluribus Plunum?")
What about a radical solution: to collide singular and plural forms together? I.e. "kurim" would mean both "I smoke" and "We smoke".
Well ... you know it, this solution feels too radical. But it could be one of the acceptable ones.
I also thought about using -t in first person singular and natural endings everywhere else: ja kurit, ti kurisz, on kuri, mi kurimo, vi kurite, oni kurijut.
About plunum. I guess if Gabriel would invent a language with conjugation, he would use a form like this.
1) all verbs ending in -ovat' and all frequentatives on -ivat' have a present-tense root -uj-: diakovat' > ja diakujem, prigotovivat' > ja prigotovujem
2) all verbs ending in -nut' have a present-tense root -n-: kradnut' > ja kradnem, dvignut' > ja dvignem
3) many verbs of one syllable only have a present-tense root on -j-: čut' > ja čujem, žit' > ja žijem
4) in the remaining cases, the present-tense root is a minor modification of the infinitive root: pisat' > ja pišem, plakat' > ja plačem
5) in rare cases, the present-tense root is quite different from the infinitive root: bat' se > ja bojim se, stat' > ja stojim
If Slovianski-P had conjugation, I'd have no problem with accepting the first, second and third points, because they describe predictable, easy-to-apply changes. In terms of completely irregular forms in the fourth and fifth points, I wouldn't want to make the learner to memorise hundreds of irregular verbs as in English. Maybe I would limit the irregular change to a closed group of the most common verbs. At less common verbs, both regular form and irregular form taken from Slovianski-N (if these two languages manage to agree on the palatalisation and will therefore be one language with two dialects of grammmar) might be acceptable.
well, you have to consider that Slovianski-N as described by Jan is not written in stone
bat' se is NOT familiar to me but bojat' se IS
so while it is irregular in one language, doesn't mean it's irregular in another
the same way, stojat' is a regular verb in Russian
a possible system is: the infinitive is the first person form like in Bulgarian/Macedonian
Bulgarian and Macedonian don't have a special infinitive like other Slavic languages they just use -m for both first person and invitive
Is there a rule that decides when we have a verb like hočem or piem and when the consonants change and when they don't?
Seems to me only native verbs do this
bat' se is NOT familiar to me but bojat' se IS
so while it is irregular in one language, doesn't mean it's irregular in another
the same way, stojat' is a regular verb in Russian
Good! So we can have these regular verbs.
a possible system is: the infinitive is the first person form like in Bulgarian/Macedonian
Bulgarian and Macedonian don't have a special infinitive like other Slavic languages they just use -m for both first person and invitive
The infinitive root is needed anyway (for the past tense etc.). And I think that most Slavs would be very confused by the absence of infinitive.
Is there a rule that decides when we have a verb like hočem or pi?em and when the consonants change and when they don't?
I don't think that there is any rule ... To me personally, the regular forms pisaju/pisam, pisasz, pisa, pisamo, pisate, pisajut are perfectly understandable, but Slovianski-N is probably not going to have them.
But pi- forms exists in every Slavic language AFAIK. I thought you were going to have features universal to all Slavic languages!
Plus, in Russian two verbs are pisat' - to write and to piss. Piet is he writes and pisajet is he pisses.
Also, a lot of Russian verbs with a verb root ending in t and -et' verb ending have a č in other forms. And a lot don't...
True, so let me find them for you or just write them
East Slavic:
пишеш, пишеш, пішаш
West Slavic:
piszesz, pe, pe (I believe they are the same in Czech and Slovak, correct me if I'm wrong)
South Slavic:
pie, пишеш/pie, пишеш, пишеш
In fact, I don't think Bulgarian/Macedonian have the pis- forms even if you look it up in the dictionary it gives the пиш- form (but nouns like pisatel have the pis- root)
Yes, but for example Russians are accustomed to changed stems like "proszu" or "vizzu" that other languages don't have ... That's why we have to be careful. I'd propose to consider the irregular present tense changes only at the most common verbs, for example the 18 verbs of Basic English (come, get, give, go, keep, let, make, put, seem, take, be, do, have, say, see, send, may, will) and leave other verbs regular in Slovianski-P.
In fact, I don't think Bulgarian/Macedonian have the pis- forms even if you look it up in the dictionary it gives the пиш- form (but nouns like pisatel have the pis- root)
Actually Bulgarian verb пиша has past tense form писах.
oh, I didn't look at the past tense forms
good catch!
The only reason Czech doesn't have these changes in the root is because of the declension patterns
you said it's "oni vidi"
but a lot of languages have a -(j)ut here
so because Czech doesn't use the same forms like -ju for the first person and -jut for the third person plural doesn't mean it wouldn't have the same forms if it did
Anyway, I would have to concede we need to create ONE rule:
It's hard even for native speakers to remember which words change and which don't. I asked my mother how to say "I sit" in Ukrainian and she said "сидю", but then I reminded her it was "сиджу". I searched on google for the ungrammatical "вижут" and found tons of people making this mistake in Russian! This instead of "видят".
So, we either have EVERY verb with dj combination become or we have it become d'.
The only reason Czech doesn't have these changes in the root is because of the declension patterns
you said it's "oni vidi"
but a lot of languages have a -(j)ut here
so because Czech doesn't use the same forms like -ju for the first person and -jut for the third person plural doesn't mean it wouldn't have the same forms if it did
Yes, but this changes nothing about the fact that West Slavs and Serbo-Croatians wouldn't understand "vizz-".
