LOL cat speak, LOL!

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/04/24/lol-kitteh-as-a-second-language-lksl-101-in-five-easy-steps/

That’s a really cute cat. And look, he has a bow on his head!”

Step two: “Engrish” it.

1) Mis-decline verbs, especially misuse the verb “to be”
2) Misuse gerunds
3) Overuse prepositional phrases
4) Blatant rearrangement of syntax
5) Incorrect plurals and past-tense verbs
6) “noun” your adjectives. (For instance, the adjective “blue” can become the noun “blueness”)
7) Improper pronouns
8 ) Drop the articles (”a”, “and”, “the”) in favor of adding “-age” to the end of a noun
9) Use “younger” words (”kitty” versus “cat”, “fuzzy” versus “furry”, etc.)
10) Use the word “with” inappropriately.
11) If you really can’t wrap your head around the concepts behind “Engrish”, try this: Go to babelfish.altavista.com, type your desired comment in, hit “english-to-Japanese”, then re-translate back to English. You have to be able to view special characters (the kanji). If you can’t get that to work, try translating to a different, european-text language, like German.

So, we get:

“That being the kitty very full of cuteness. And to be with looking! Him gots bowage on hims head!”

Step three: Misspell everything. There’s no wrong way to do this, just try not to accidentally correctly spell a completely different word (especially one that’s pronounced differently than your spelling intends). Some words (usually short words) should simply remain spelled correctly for continuity’s sake.

1) Think like a little kid / cat / dog / goldfish, and get hukd on foniks
2) I cannot stress this enough: Vowels are your friends! Do not neglect vowels!! We’re speaking LolKitteh here, not text messaging! (My advice: use alternate vowels, Y’s are particularly handy, but don’t overuse them.)
3) Extra W’s and H’s (”awl” instead of “all”)
4) Z’s instead of S’s are easy
5) Double-letters versus single letters are always fun
6) Don’t be afraid to further pluralize things, including your verbs
7) Remember that the word “THE” must always be spelled “TEH”

now, we have:

“Dat beesing teh kiti vary ful ov kutenis. An to bees lukingz! Hims gotz bowwagez on hims hed!!”

Step four: Add exclamations and extra words.

1) Use commonly accepted internet abbreviations. Misspell them if necessary. (LOL = lawlz! ROTFL = rofflz! OMG = omgwtfbbq!?! … etc … )
2) Imagine that you’re actually in a crowd of people and you want everyone to look at this particular picture. Extra exclamations are thus necessary.
3) Think Valley Girl. The words “like,” “totally,” etc can be added. Remember to misspell!
4) Some common statements have been severely abbreviated into one single multi-syllabic word. These are good to use. The best example is “Okay, thank you, good-bye!” Which has been shortened to “kthxbye” (or “kthxbai”)

And, we have:

“OMG wau!! Dat beesing a kiti vary ful ov tewtul kutenis!! Bees wif da lukingz! Omg him gotz da bowwagez on himz hed lyk WTF?!?”

Step five: Add additional information. This can be the desire to interact with the subject of the photo, personal information, empathetic or sympathetic statements, responses to other posts, etc. Again, nothing right or wrong here, just whatever comes to mind.
Finally:

“OMG wau!! Dat beesings a kiti vary ful ov tewtul kutenis!! Bees wif da lukingz!! Omg him gotz da bowwagez on himz hed lyk WTF?!? OMG I tewtul wuntz to grabz dat kiti and fuzziez himz awl ovar … him sooooooo mooshy an fullz ov win!! Don werry lil kiti, I no eetz u! I luvz kitiz! I can has bunchiz ov dem! Mah kitiz luvz bowwagez too! YETH!! GIMME!! Kthxbai!”
----
D: LOL!

This reminded me of Esperanto.
I try to literally translate stuff in Espo first, then try to figure out the English euphemism.
Take this sentence.

Can I have a cheeseburger?

I pretty much end up with...

Can I haz cheeseburger. LOL! Cat.

Mine translates from 'la mia' to 'the my'.

Other pet peeves this week:
-false friends / cognates.
E.g. precipe means principally. Why not prencipe?

- oddly deformed new sounds in old familiar words.
College is collegio. G not J sound. Why?

- inexplicably wordy versions of words that could be pared down. Volapuk lite would have been nice.
E.g. historio for history. Why not truncate it to histor-o?

- awkward modular construction requiring 2 unrelated words. Isn't that an opaque multiple word lexeme, a criticism often directed at Ogden's Basic English?
Tie is there. C^i (chi) is closeness. Near is ... C^i tie.

- troubling homages to natural language expressions.
E.g. koro is heart. Kora is cordial. Literally - hearty.

- the various query words continue to kick my butt.
You might think that kie would be somehow related to kiel, or that kiel would at least be a different category with that L. Nope.
Kie is what place? Kiel is what way? I.e. where and how respectively.
I'm dying here.

- continuing reliance on diacritics for 'closed class' function words.
C^ar for because.
Tacking some accents on obscure words or imported words would not be a big deal. This is. I can only imagine what a nightmare this must have been back in the day of typesetting. I find trying to type at any speed with the Ek! diacritic program on to be vexing.

- for that matter, a few more accents *might* have been welcome.
E.g. lingvo means language. Let us say that a word such as lingo could exist.
But how can we clarify pronunciation? Would it be lin-go? Or ling -o??
A diacritic such as lin^o for NG would have sufficed.
Fewer phonemes would have addressed it. I'd say this would decrease brevity, but the his-to-ri-o construction of many words pretty much tosses brevity out the window anyway.

D: My roomie has agreed to learn Espo to practise with me. He will undoubtedly run circles around me, being a talented polyglot.
This still leaves me with the opinion that Espo is only easy for folks that are able to easily learn a NATURAL language. I.e. a language by a linguist, for linguists.
Not exactly the purported target audience...
This might explain the 1 in 1000 stat, coinciding roughly with natural language whizzes.

D: aside: the spell check does not work in Explorer.
Nice interface. No, reeeaaaalllllyyy.

Complex punctuation rules, punctuation proposal, ranto on espo

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090320.wvulcan20/BNStory/Entertainment/home

"Mr. Nimoy is the only original cast member to appear in director J.J. Abrams latest addition to science-fiction lo..."

D: not quite wrong.


NOTE: Although names ending in s or an s sound are not required to have the second s added in possessive form, it is preferred.
Mr. Jones's golf clubs

http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/apostro.asp

D: So a natural language evolved itself into a corner.
Apostrophe-S for possessive.
Syllable rules permit ending in S.
Hissing out S repeatedly sounds like a snake with a stutter.

Abrams. Abrams's.
D: we cannot just place an apostrophe where it feels right.
Abram's.

D: the problem is singular nouns that are allowed to resemble plural forms. In this case, a proper name.

I think I know maybe a dozen people that understand plural and possessive.
The dogs' bone. The bone of the dogs.
-----
I was thinking about its and it's.
We need to get back to 'tis. Nobody but nobody can figure out the distinction.

--------
Esperanto.
I'm learning it again. Rapidly catching up through the first half of the chapters.
The old bugbears are still there.
Adjective/ noun agreement. Some tricky phoneme combinations.

Qiel and tiel for as...as in a metaphor.
Other examples of "closed class" words that get recycled excessively for double or even triple duty.

I'm having trouble keeping the correlatives straight. Who what where when why how.
Kie - where. Kiel - how.
I think this was touched upon in Ranto.
There is no rhyme or reason to the form of correlatives.
I can never seem to remember which is which. I end up relying on context.
Meaning I need to hold the whole sentence in my head to process the first word.
I have come up with some memory aids, but they are awkward.
Kiel. How the hELl are you?
Kie. WhEre.
NOT easy.

The words that seems to contain the most diacritic letters also seem to be the most common. They are disproportionately "closed class" words that cannot be avoided.
About (round) - cirkau. C^irkau8. (Two differnt accents.)
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Esperanto_prepositions

Nepo and Nevo (grandson and nephew) prevent a useful VERY brief one-letter root. Ne would be confused with them, were they to exist.
E.g. root P.
With about 20 consonants, we could use a single letter root for the most common concepts. E.g. State, verb action thing....

I've often lamented the lack of a truly basic "vocabulary of language" in English.
Preposition. Posit. -ion. pre-. Pre- with a soft E, though most pre- words use a long.
Conjunction. Conjoin, modified. -ion.
The words TO learn English are themselves not basic words!
Verb - adverb. But noun- NOT adnoun. Adjective.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O27-adjective.html
adjective
From: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology | Date: 1996 | Author: | © The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology 1996, originally published by Oxford University Press 1996. (Hide copyright information) Copyright information

adjective (gram.) designating an attribute. XIV. — (O)F. adjectif, -ive — late L. adjectīvus, -īva, f. adject-, pp. stem of adicere add, f. AD- + jacere throw; see -IVE.

D: I'd need to think about it some more.
But imagine a special vocabulary in Esp-o that looks like ba be bi bo bu, da de... et al.
OK so in Espo, -A designates an adjective. -O a noun, -E an adverb. -AS and friends are verb endings, but we will ignore them for now.
Nouns: bo do fo...
Hmm, 20 types of nouns.

http://www.yourdictionary.com/grammar-rules/Types-of-Nouns.html
D: proper, common, countable, uncountable, collective concrete abstract, pronouns.
E.g. there are enough left to include ALL the pronouns.
A Ceqli- style setup could work.
Go -I. Zi-you. We... go-zi.

D: stray thought. Apply a Hebrew style mystical numerology and cross-mate it with my prime # dimensional naming convetion.
I think the value of the letters in mother and father add up to 'child' or somesuch.
It provides the basis for a singular/ plural distinction amongst various singular/plural pronoun combinations. Pretty powerful stuff.

D: anyway, you'll continue to hear my Espo Ranto as I encounter learning difficulties.

I think Decimese is largely a reaction to perceived deficiencies in Esperanto.
I think I'm making a 'for dummies' version, LOL!

Tomorrow: similarities between LOLCAT speak and Espo! <:

paring down core vocabulary

D: rehashing my earlier blogs (yes this is a self-referring document) in summary:
1) English requires 1-2-3000 words for basic-medium-advanced literacy level writing
2) Chinese, 2-3-5000ish symbols.
3) Esperanto, 500-1-2000? They do have c. 10,000 roots now.

D: my Decimese.
Can I reduce basic-literacy core vocabulary to 250?
Yes.
The key here is the generation of a special core vocabulary PRIOR to closed class function words. In turn, the function words are then then derived as compound composites of a space/time/logic/ethic/math (acronym... SMELT? <:).


English has about 300 closed class function words. But if we look at them, and 'reduce them to their alchemical essential salts', there are fewer concepts.
Alchemy? Let me explain. Behind our English vocabulary is a few compounded concepts with variations. Overtly indicating this amounts to words that contain, and can be unpacked into, the actual definition for the word.
Take, for example, this/that, these/those. These are near/far referent, single/plural. Once we have nailed down these elemental aspects, they can be re-used for the rest of the closed class words also. For example, single/plural pronouns. I/we, you/youz, he/she/it and they.

Keep in mind that many core noun/adjective/adverbs are also derived in Decimese from these same elements. See the prime number naming convention, for example.
Indicated 'towards' and above and such from dimensional names is simple enough.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/eslprep3.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_prepositions
D: are prepositions that brief in English?

Single words

* aboard
* about
* above
* across
* after
* against
D: but then

Two words

* according to
* ahead of
* aside from
* because of
* close to
* due to

Three words

* as far as
* as well as
* by means of
* in accordance with
* in addition to

Not fully grammaticalised

* concerning
* considering
* regarding

[edit] Preposition-like modifiers of quantified noun phrases

* apart by
* but
* except
* plus
* save

[edit] Postpositions

* ago as in "five years ago", sometimes (wrongly) considered an adverb rather than a postposition
* apart as in "this apart", also used prepositionally ("apart from this")
* aside as in "such examples aside", also used prepositionally ("aside from such examples")
* away as in "five light years away", sometimes (wrongly) considered an adverb or an adjective rather than a postposition
* hence as in "five years hence", sometimes considered an adverb rather than a postposition
* notwithstanding also used prepositionally
* on as in "five years on", also used prepositionally
* through as in "the whole night through", also used prepositionally
* withal archaic as a postposition meaning with

D: yes I can. I can use 250 words to
1) define key SMELT concepts in Decimese
2) make the closed class function words, with options expand beyond the English selection
3) a decent repertoire of basic vocabulary.

And I can do so with palatable phoneme selection and syllable rules.
With FOUR indications to parse word boundaries.
Heavily compatible with lip-reading.
And do so with considerable brevity, via consonant clusters to create binary/trinary concept subsets.

Forget 'it works' and 'good enough'.
How about it works very well indeed. And it is so much more than just good enough...

a good aux-lang increases human 'mental lifespan'

D: refer to my earliest posts.
Finns learn their language a coupla years before the English.
Russians, a coupla years after English.
That's a spread of about 3-4 years.

Taken to an extreme, an aux-lang could exceed the best elements of a nat-lang.
Let's say a 'world language' allowed literacy FIVE years before a generic natural language.
Grade 8 is effectively grade 13.
Grade 13 is akin to a university education.
An undergrad of 3-4 years would be a PhD.
These folks then work and contribute to the economy for their entire adult lives.

Now let's say that a well-designed aux-lang, due to its powerful and concise vocabulary, allows thought at 1.25 or 1.5x the speed of a nat-lang.

Nat-langer: Done school at 20, work to 65. 45 'mental years'.
Aux 1.25: Done at 15, work to 65. Over 60 mental years.
Aux 1.5: 15, 65 ... 75 mental years.

D: imagine all that time we use to talk (or type) reduced.
Less need to clarify ambiguous statements.
Less need to flail for the right word.

Young adults immediately entering the workforce. I was in university until I was 25.

The language could result in somebody who is able to think more and more deeply through their lifetime. By retirement, their insights *could* amount to an elder.
Combine this with longer lifespans and perhaps we would end up with great sages.

I cannot recall the details, but I read something in Tao about how the mushroom that is burnt away by morning sun cannot know of the cycles of the moon.
Maybe mushrooms could start seeing wider, deeper, farther.

use of prime numbers in xyz co-ordinate measurements, decimese, deafese 'mathese'

D: I heard of a language that includes pronouns to denote compound nuances that English cannot.

The following passage is from a book called "Language Death" by David Crystal.

A book review by Danny Yee © 2000 http://dannyreviews.com/
In Language Death David Crystal looks at present and future threats to languages — and at what can be done to counter them. Crystal's relatively unemotional, reasonable, and balanced approach is unlikely to ever gain him the acclaim of more populist science writers, but he is always readable and informative and Language Death is no exception. A succinct overview with a good selection of examples and case studies, it has something for anyone involved with either linguistics or indigenous cultural survival.

(summarized)
Tok Pisin from New Guinea, an officially recognized creole, has the following nuances for pronouns.
mi - I
yumi- we (you and me, inclusive)
yu - you
mipela - we (we, not you, exclusive).

D: this ability to indicate multiple subjects with degrees of inclusive/exclusive is useful. It is handy to do so with brevity. To do so in a methodical fashion would be handy.

I was thinking about yesterday's discussion on describing size.
I was thinking how handy it would be to be able to describe 2 of the 3 Cartesian system co-ordinates in a single robust term.
My very first thought on this went nowhere.
"If we clarify the 1st, 2nd and 3rd dimensions, then add together those numbers, could we denote which 2 of 3 co-ordinates we are describing jointly in a single statement?"
D: of course, this doesn't work. 1 plus 2 is 3, which would be confused with the 3rd-only. Keep in mind that the default quality is assumed to be all three dimensions inclusively.
D: I then attempted to apply prime numbers in ascending order for 1D, 2D and 3D respectively.
This was inspired by some passage I read online years ago. If anybody knows the site, please tell me so I can give them credit. Imitation can be the highest form of flattery, and I wish to be considered an imitator but not a plagiarist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number
In mathematics, a prime number (or a prime) is a natural number which has exactly two distinct natural number divisors: 1 and itself. An infinitude of prime numbers exists, as demonstrated by Euclid around 300 BC. The first twenty-five prime numbers are:

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97

D: technically, since I use 1 also, this is not quite just prime numbers.
So 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13...
Now let us look at the implications of this.
We associate 1D (longness, length) with 1.
We associate 2D (wideness, width) with 2.
We associate 3D (deepness, depth) with 3.
Same problem. To revise, we do the following.
1D, 2D, 3D with 1, 3 and 5 respectively.
Let us look at the new addition totals.
1D only, 1. 2D, 2. Same problem at 3.
So we skip 2. Now we have the (near) primes of 1,3,5,7,11...
1D, 1. 2D, 3. 3D, 5.
1D and 2D - 1 plus 3 is 4. No overlap with the revised prime list so far.
1D and 3D - 1 plus 5 is 6. OK.
2D and 3D - 3 plus 5 is 8. OK.
Stacking our revised prime list (missing 2) and these 2-dimension totals, we get
1,2,3,4,5,6, 8.
That works pretty well!
Adding in time as a 'dimension' throws a monkey wrench into the works.
4D (time) is the prime 7.
OK, here we have problems. I am not sure how often this would come up, but if we attempt to describe length (1D) and time (4D), we get 1 plus 7 or 8.
And that is a problem - 8 is already taken by 2D plus 3D.
Hmm, back to the drawing board.
In desperation, I skipped 7 and went to prime 11 as the 4D dimension of time.
1D and 4D have the primes 1 plus 11 for total 12. OK.
And so on, with higher numbers.
Expressing all 4D at the same time would be 1,3,5, 11 added to make 20.
If the Decimese number naming convention can concisely handle 20, there are several benefits. There are sufficient benefits with even just 12.
1) the Imperial measurement system has 12 inches in a foot.
( I know a great but risque joke about this. Ask me. <:)
2) the 60-base ancient number system, still in use in time and angles/degrees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal
Sexagesimal (base-sixty) is a numeral system with sixty as the base. It originated with the ancient Sumerians in the 2000s BC, was transmitted to the Babylonians, and is still used—in modified form—for measuring time, angles, and geographic coordinates.

The number 60 has twelve factors, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, 60, of which 2, 3, and 5 are prime. With so many factors, many fractions of sexagesimal numbers are simple. For example, an hour can be divided evenly into segments of 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 15 minutes, etc. 60 is the smallest number divisible by every number from 1 to 6.

D: there is a fabulous book in the WPL on ancient number systems, which I read.
Author Bruno, Leonard C
Title Math and mathematicians : the history of math discoveries around the world / Leonard C. Bruno ; Lawrence W. Baker, editor
Imprint Detroit, MI : UXL, c1999
D: not sure, but I *think* it was this book.

So both 12 and 20 are useful multiples of 60, so have great utility.

Decimese is now misnamed. With SIX (not five) sets of voiced/voiceless consonants, it no longer has a 10-base. It can still express Metric just fine.
Assuming enough planning to use brief number names up to 12 or 20, we have the basis for a very concise shorthand system for describing space/time.
I suppose if some unified theory candidate out there changes the official number of dimensions that my prime system could be simply expanded to reflect this.
There is one claim that there are 9 space and TWO (!) time dimensions.
I suppose my system could handle this.
A out-of-my-butt number naming convention might be as follows:
Special Number Naming convention is heavily aspirated consonant + A + H.
E.g. consonant pairs of pb sz kg fv td ch/sh.
Ergo 1-12 would be pah bah et al.
Of course, this violates the syllable rules of Decimese. A Ygyde-style optional variant system for ease of speaking could also work.
E.g. pahan, haban, et al.
See the post on number naming conventions for why this is undesirable.
The naming convention, based as it is on the binary nature of voiced/voiceless consonant pairs, lends itself to the other binary concepts such as even/odd and the myriad other examples of duality in nature and our social world.

Example. Let us say that we wish to decribe a large piece of paper without denoting that the paper is thicker. Thus we have length, width but not depth.
Length is 1D, width is 2D. 1D is associated with prime 1. 2D with prime 3.
Thus (number 4) and the convention for naming dimensions.

Of course, this borrows heavily from my first language design called Deafese.
Haha, funny that when I quote myself, the plagiarism becomes flattery! [=

http://www.geocities.com/dinosnider667/deafese_lipread_4_math.html

For the benefit of English speakers raised on a certain chronological order in the alphabet, the consonant order is B,D,Ch,L,R,Th,V,W. These consonants are sometimes referred to a C1to8, representing the #s 2to9. The sounds for Ch and Th can be written with C and T, if one remembers the sound associated with them.

The #s 2-9 are expressed via C1to9+A. I.e. 2 ba, 3 da, 4, cha(or ca), 5 la, 6 ra, 7 tha(or ta), 8 va, and 9 wa.

CVC. Think of this as the #s CV plus C to clarify the numerical quality involved..
CVC1 or CVb can be the # of dimensions to a geometrical shape.

I can easily express 'dimension' as a concept via reserving CVC1. This in turn frees up all the V-CVC2to8 slots for additional meanings. Having said that, I think that expressing numerical qualities via a consonant added to the numbers themselves is elegant and transparent.

--------------
Please note that I plan to post interface rules for lip-readable visemes and the Decimese phonemes, selected for global (and Mandarin) appeal this week.
Sorry, work and career goals get in the way!
Thoughts?

Cheers.

I was unable to check spelling today. I am using a bud's computer and the script is disabled.

bushisms, now obamaisms. subject/object. esperanto and talking about the size

http://pbtranslations.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/the-most-memorable-bushisms/

“You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.”
Townsend, Tennessee, 21 February, 2001

D: Bush is also well known for inventing new words. But in Esperanto, nobody would notice- everybody would be doing it.


http://www.boohersrules.com/documents/TopTenGrammarGaffes_000.pdf
Top 10 gaffes. Lord knows I've done all of these!

Palin too.

It appears Sarah Palin’s aides were so busy prepping her on foreign affairs and national security that they didn’t have time to review grammar.

"The governor made many singular-plural mistakes, particularly when describing states and nations, which are singular. For example, in the Thursday interview, Palin told Charlie Gibson, “I don’t think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves and for their security.”
D: using "they" in political correctness to indicate he or she is bound to cause more confusion. God, we need a gender-neutral second person, singular noun. Oh wait- it.

D: and McCain.

“A lot of prisoners had it worse than I did,” he said. “I’d been mistreated before, but not as badly as others.”
...
Which brings us back to last night’s speech. McCain should’ve said, “I’d been mistreated before, but not so badly as others.”

D: And the "big O". (Seen the public approval ratings? Certainly the way they feel about him. <:)
"Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman, writing in the paper’s op-ed section today, point out that Obama often makes a common grammatical error, using the word “I” when he should properly use “me”—as in the phrase “a very personal decision for Michelle and I.”

D: the bad old days. Latin...
In Latin, all nouns are altered according to how they are used in a sentence; to use the word for “queen” as a subject, you would employ the nominative case and write regina, but to use it as a direct object, you would employ the accusative case and write reginam.
D: kinda reminds me of Esperanto.

To say a or an, as in "a town", just say the noun on its own, e.g. urbo (town, a town). There is no indefinite article ("a" or "an") in Esperanto.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Esperanto/Lesson_1
The word for the is la, e.g. la urbo (the city). La never changes for singular or plural.
D: looks pretty good so far, right? Read on.

In Esperanto, an adjective must "agree in number" with the noun it describes. This means that if the noun is singular, the adjective must also be. If the noun is plural, the adjective must also be, too. Some examples: la freŝa kuko (the fresh cake), la freŝaj kukoj (the fresh cakes); feliĉa homo (a happy person), feliĉaj homoj (happy people).

Grr.

Therefore, in Esperanto, subjects, verbs, and direct objects can be put in any order! All of the following sentences, which mean "the apple loves the banana" are grammatically correct in Esperanto.

* La pomo amas la bananon.
* La pomo la bananon amas.
* Amas la pomo la bananon.
* Amas la bananon la pomo.
* La bananon la pomo amas.
* La bananon amas la pomo.

D: an option to drop overt subject indicator would be nice.
E.g. default to Subject-Verb-Object word order a la English.
La pomo amas la banano.
Better yet, brevity can be had by a single 'definitizing' overt word particle.
?Lata? pomo amas banano.
While yer at it, why bother with a noun or verb suffix at all?
Pom am ban. SVO so Pom (noun pomo) am ....

The savings? 2-4 syllables, depending on the system.

D: Plural requires adjective-noun agreement also.
... (a) big banana. (OK getting dirty now.) ... granda banano, but subject so
grandaN bananoN. Technically grand-a-n banan-o-n.
D: are you reaching for the Tylenol yet. <:

I reiterate: word order instead.
2-4 syllables becomes 4+ attached affixes. Easily more.

D: now, the LangX site pays fairly close attention to syllable structure.
http://www.kupsala.net/risto/pandunia/english/pandunia-english.html

almari cabinet, cupboard
ameba ameba
ba (particle for suggestion/imperative)
baca language
badam almond
badan body
bagan garden

http://patwa.pbwiki.com/
Hello: Canti. (peace)
Good Bye: Canti / Cao
Thank you: Asante (thanks)
You're welcome: No mesti asante (no need thanks)
I'm sorry: Skusa
Don't worry: Oke / No susi (no worry)
Excuse me: Mafan
D: I used to be a busboy at a local bar. Tired of saying excuse me all night, I truncated it to "'scuze". Somebody (foolishly) once asked if I meant excuse me by that.
I stopped, looked at him, and asked "did you know that one of the definitions of didactic is tediously pedantic?". (yeah yeah - punctuation) <: Don't mess with this busboy.

At first blush, Espo does too.
Endings -a, -e. CV or VV construction. VV is not great but is OK.
Easily said -N ending. Grand-, granda, grande, grandaN.
Banano, bananon.
And then - wham! Not really.
Verb 'is' is estas. The -(vowel) plus S ending is NOT that palatable. Euroclone.
A less Eurocentric modification could have involved -N and -M endings.
Estas... estan, estam, estang.
Which would look a lot like... Decimese! [=

D: let us see how to express size for a banana.
Banano. Big. Grand-a. (Bigly, grand-e.)
Small is expressed with the wordy mal- prefix. Small is not-big. Mal-grand-a.
Don't forget a direct subject would requires -n or -Yn for plural.
So that would be mal-grand-a-y-n.
FOUR processes, just for an adjective.
Wait- it gets even better!
A truly large or small fruit requires an entirely new set of affixes.
-et- for tiny, -eg^- for huge.
Tiny banana. Banan-et-o. Subject/ tiny bananas. Banan-et-o-y-N. Yup- 4 steps to add affixes to the root/stem. And that is just mostly agreement!
Huge banana. Banan-eg^-o. I've never been to the tropics, but I don't think anybody grows giant mutant bananas. My friend-girl went to the tropics and informs me that huge bananas don't grow on trees.
So big/small is via adjective. BUT VERY big/small suddenly shifts to a noun affix!
Viro - man. Midget/dwarf/pygmy - vireto. Giant - vireg^o.

D: now we see why offloading work onto word order, without the need to indicate subject/object, or to require agreement between adjective/noun is desirable.
A relatively simple sentence requires a staggering number of steps!
The man has (a) banana. Le vir-o havas banan-o-n.
The man has a big banana. Le vir-o havas grand-a-n banan-o-n.
The man has big bananas. Le vir-o hav-as grand-a-y-n banan-o-y-n.
The giant has a banana. Le vir-eg^-o havas...
The small man has a truly huge banana. Le malgranda viro havas banan-eg^-o-n.
The big man has a tiny banana. Le granda viro havas banan-et-o-n.
And now you know how to talk about bananas in Esperanto. <:
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The same concepts in Decimese:

Decimese: adjectives use L/R and W/Y pairs, assisted by H-(vowel) to denote nuance.
Size is embedded in the core vocabulary, being based on space/time.
L/R can denote a bit/lots with the default syllable being somewhat.
Denoting scale and comparison can use a similar system.
Since the vocabulary is derived from a default assumption of a 3D universe/physic, Cartesian XYZ axes are implied in the default space stem.
As an adjective (recall -M noun, -N verb, -NG adjective/adverb), it should be terse.
I likely need shorthand words for an more complex space/time concepts.
Density (mass/volume), speed (distance/time) et al.
Any word beginning in L, R, W or Y is core vocabulary. Along with -M,N,NG endings, and the "H" workhorse letter, the word is even overtly indicated by part of speech and even taxonomic category.
English, big/small, wide/narrow, long/short, deep/shallow (3D).
Six words, not including a word for size. Hmm, size not size-ness, wideness-width...
Use of a supplemental concept for relative and absolute (quality, quantity) and we easily get more...most, too/not enough, all/none, one/infinity et al.
Notice how awkwardly English expresses what should be a simple and robust set of core concepts.
Using wide as a default 'positive/more' amounts to narrow being not-wide.
Espo would require a mal- indicator to show the opposite- wordy (syllable-y).
English requires an extra word to be learned.
Not wide enough and too narrow both denote the same concept, again with differt constructions.
Here is an interesting idea. I settled on default to 3D to make everyday words brief.
Otherwise I found myself needing to denote 1-2-3 plus the space concept.
It is still doable, but by reserving it we
1) can denote depth/shallowness (words, OMG) with a simple 3rd indicator.
2) of interest, we can denote 2 of 3 dimensions and neglect the other. This resembles the form some languages have for pronouns to denote we-not-you or we-not-I et al. I hope to incorporate a parallel system in the pronoun table.
3) this could be denoted positively via explicit naming
e.g. long and deep (but not wide) with 1 and 3 respectively.
4) or via negative subtraction.
e.g. size not 2d width.
5) I assume naming conventions will use the approach most brief. Naming one exception can be shorter than having to name 2+ elements.

Let us revisit the earlier conversation. Obviously I need to generate not only core vocabulary, but supplemental vocabulary as well. (This year for the core.) I will NOT be generating much supplemental vocabulary. As an open-source project, once I name the design principles I let the open-source community do the rest. Why? I'm either lazy or otherwise occupied. My mind does not revel in generating 1000-10,000 basic root/stems.
Big- granda- more -size. Small, less - not MALgranda (wordy!)
Size /more -R-. Size/less -L-.
Too/not enough - subjective/qualitative.
<: IMHO - In My Humble Opinion. So... -HO- <:
More/less, most/least. Not at all. Entirely. All basic math variants.
Since math is core vocabulary, we simply recycle math.
Pronouns and spatial/temporal prepositions behave similarly.

D: I'm intrigued by the fact that Somalians get by with 4 general-purpose prepositions.

http://somaliaholland.free.fr/somali_language.htm

Prepositions English prepositions can cause great difficulty for Somalis. Whereas English has a great variety of prepositions, Somali has only four, and they come before the verb rather than before the noun. Because they are so few, Somali prepositions have a wide range of meanings:

1. ka 'from, away from, out of' and 'about, concerning'
2. ku 'in, into, on, at' and 'with, by means of, using'
3. la 'with, together with, in the company of'
4. u 'to, towards' and 'for, on behalf of'


We make great use of of, with, by, for, and so on.
Wouldn't an optional explicit indicator of specific function be nice?
My compact dictionary contains six different meanings for "of".

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/of

Main Entry:
1of Listen to the pronunciation of 1of
Pronunciation:
\əv, before consonants also ə; ˈəv, ˈäv\
Function:
preposition
Etymology:
Middle English, off, of, from Old English, adverb & preposition; akin to Old High German aba off, away, Latin ab from, away, Greek apo
Date:
before 12th century

1—used as a function word to indicate a point of reckoning 2 a—used as a function word to indicate origin or derivation b—used as a function word to indicate the cause, motive, or reason c: by d: on the part of e: occurring in 3—used as a function word to indicate the component material, parts, or elements or the contents 4 a—used as a function word to indicate the whole that includes the part denoted by the preceding word b—used as a function word to indicate a whole or quantity from which a part is removed or expended 5 a: relating to : about b: in respect to 6 a—used as a function word to indicate belonging or a possessive relationship b—used as a function word to indicate relationship between a result determined by a function or operation and a basic entity (as an independent variable) 7—used as a function word to indicate something from which a person or thing is delivered or with respect to which someone or something is made destitute 8 a—used as a function word to indicate a particular example belonging to the class denoted by the preceding noun b—used as a function word to indicate apposition 9 a—used as a function word to indicate the object of an action denoted or implied by the preceding noun b—used as a function word to indicate the application of a verb or of an adjective 10—used as a function word to indicate a characteristic or distinctive quality or possession 11 a—used as a function word to indicate the position in time of an action or occurrence b: before 12archaic : on — Shakespeare>

D: I wish to use a similar system with punctuation. Typically, a symbol has 3-5 ways to use it. Keep it general if the meaning is clear. If not, use the overt subset specifier. (HIOX-ian spinoff project.)

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D: bwahahaha. You must accept 'agreement' to use this Esperanto site. ROTFL!

B.F. Fuller's Synergetics, accurate science basis in language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller#Use_of_language_and_neologisms

The words "down" and "up", according to Fuller, are awkward in that they refer to a planar concept of direction inconsistent with human experience. The words "in" and "out" should be used instead, he argued, because they better describe an object's relation to a gravitational center, the Earth. "I suggest to audiences that they say, "I'm going 'outstairs' and 'instairs.'" At first that sounds strange to them; They all laugh about it. But if they try saying in and out for a few days in fun, they find themselves beginning to realize that they are indeed going inward and outward in respect to the center of Earth, which is our Spaceship Earth. And for the first time they begin to feel real "reality." [38]

"World-around" is a term coined by Fuller to replace "worldwide". The general belief in a flat Earth died out in the Middle Ages, so using "wide" is an anachronism when referring to the surface of the Earth — a spheroidal surface has area and encloses a volume, but has no width. Fuller held that unthinking use of obsolete scientific ideas detracts from and misleads intuition. Other neologisms collectively coined by the Fuller family, according to Allegra Fuller Snyder, are the terms sunsight and sunclipse, replacing sunrise and sunset to overturn the geocentric bias of most pre-Copernican celestial mechanics. Fuller also coined the phrase Spaceship Earth.

D: his idea for basing co-ordinates on 60 degree, hexagonal concepts is also trippy.
Nature is undecided on the issue, having both cubic and hexagonal molecular lattices.

D: Fuller shows how ancient, primitive and superstitious concepts still pervade 'modern' English.
Maybe the only way to fully jettison this heavy baggage would be a modern language.
A new one.