D: thanks for that comment!
D: In summary, the features a language would need to match the primordial hardwiring of the brain would be
1) SOV word order. This is also optimized for a computer interlingua.
2) core CV syllable constructions, without too much deviation.
3) if it has stress, then either on the first syllable if suffixing, or penultimate if heavily prefixing.
4) vocabulary via consonants but grammatical meaning via vowels.
I compared this to my tentative Decimese.
I must confess I just tried to map my English biases onto Decimese. To make it easier for me to speak.
There IS a case for SVO word order, however. Both Chinese and English use it.
There is a commonality between English and Chinese word order, however. Both languages have the SVO order for the major sentence constituents, i.e., ...
www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/chinese/aspect/wordorder.html - 22k
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=20282&prog=zch
China Will Surpass U.S. Economically by 2035, Double by Midcentury
WASHINGTON, July 8—China’s economy will surpass that of the United States by 2035 and be twice its size by midcentury, a new report by Albert Keidel concludes. China’s rapid growth is driven by domestic demand—not exports—and will sustain high single-digit growth rates well into this century.
In China’s Economic Rise—Fact and Fiction, Keidel examines China’s likely economic trajectory and its implications for global commercial, institutional, and military leadership.
D: In a nutshell, here is my motivation to pre-empt Chinese becoming the new lingua franca.
That very term shows that the title of 'honorary world language' has already changed hands quite a few times.
We should not just assume English will somehow always remain dominant.
Since Chinese tone is so difficult for Anglophones I say meet them in the middle.
Once China eclipses the US, then the collective English-speaking world, our time for negotiating will be finished. Instead of discussing terms of surrender, the surrender will be unconditional.
A Chinese economy 2x that of the USA will be an atomic bombing.
So I say we don't wait. We find a happy middle ground for before that happens.
Starting now.
Ceqli is a wonderful little Lojban/Chinese derived language.
http://www.geocities.com/ceqli/Uploadexp.htmWORD SHAPE
For the purpose of determining word shape, 14 of the consonants are grouped and called ‘cwaba’ (leaders). Basically, they are the stops, fricatives, and affricates, plus the letter H. They do not include the semivowels, liquids and nasals.
Their names are beu, ceu, deu, etc. That is, the letter followed by eu.
(They are also sometimes used as pronouns. They refer back to the last word that begins with that letter.)
There are 12 faloba (followers). They include the vowels, semivowels, liquids, and nasals.
All Ceqli morphemes have the shape nCnF. This is the basis of Ceqli word-shape. Actually, morpheme-shape, because two or more morphemes can combine into a compound word.
That is, each morpheme consists of one or more cwaba followed by one or more faloba. Obviously, there's more to it than that. A morpheme can't begin with just any consonant cluster, and there are limits on possible liquid, nasal, and vowel clusters as well. But for the purpose of discerning the boundaries of a morpheme, the nCnF rule is all that's necessary.
D: his close adherence to Chinese syllable construction inspired me.
Look ma - no spaces!
Taking a random sentence:
gozidangozisadomtendutcer
First we encounter a cwaba, then a faloba, then another cwaba, so we know that the second cwaba begins a new morpheme. So we can go ahead and break it up this way:
go zi dan go zi sa dom ten du tcer.
We may not know what any of it means, but we know what the morphemes are, and where they begin and end.
D: I have also retained this.
D: I love his pronouns!
go - I [Latin ego]zi - you [German Sie]
gozi - We (including you) This is the first
compound word you encounter.
Here are some examples:
ga - big, is big, a big thing [Spanish GrAnde]D: not exactly a memory aid, unless you know every major world language.
More like a neutral grab-bag of sources to avoid imperialism or eurocloning. Plus allows shopping for ease of pronunciation.
So here are some contrasts between ajective-noun phrases and true compounds:
fawlgayr - Bird dog (a dog used to hunt birds)
fawl sa gayr - Bird dog (a dog somehow birdlike, or related to birds)
D: contrast with (a) white house and (the) White House (though the inflection varies).
can be past, present, or future.
And tense can certainly be left out if it's made clear by other words:
go ja padey. I went yesterday. [dey from English day]
go ja fudey. I`ll go tomorrow.
Ceqli follows the Spanish and Japanese patterns by having three position adverbs:
ci - here (near the speaker)
ca - there (near the person addressed)
cu - over there, yonder (remote from both the speaker and the person addressed) Derived from them with the addition of ba are the demonstrative pronouns:
D: I use in/out and near/far in tandem for this.
It is also used to generate pronouns, derived from terms for spatial qualities.
D: contrast this with the euroclone nature of Esperanto. It has no plural 'you'. Youz. Y'all.
Yup it's safe to say Ceqli is one of the most inspirational languages I've encountered.
Way to go, Rex!
Next stop: how to allow a dual analytic/synthetic language.
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