UN interlingua for internet

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100316235821.htm

Interlingua is a language-independent contents representation. The United Nations' Universal Networking Language (UNL) is the only living, general-purpose Interlingua specified by standards, handbooks and governing organizations. UNL was created to break Internet language barriers. The VAI is the UNL support group for the Spanish language.

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http://www.it.iitb.ac.in/~damani/papers/LTC09/unlLTC09.pdf

Nice summary.

http://undl.org.br/wiki/index.php?title=Introduction_to_UNL

At first glance, the UNL seems to be an “interlingua”, a sort of pivot-language to which the source texts are converted before being translated into the target languages. It can, in fact, be used for such a purpose, but its primary objective is to serve as an infrastructure for handling knowledge rather than individual languages.

Indeed, it is important to note that at this point in time it would be foolish to state it possible to represent the “full” meaning of any word, sentence or text for any language. Subtleties of intention and interpretation make the “full meaning”, whatever concept we might have of it, too variable and subjective for any systematic treatment. The UNL avoids the pitfalls of trying to represent the “full meaning” of sentences or texts, targeting instead the “core” or “consensual” meaning that is most often attributed to them.

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D: it would be well-suited to a language that has a literal meaning at its core.
Sure, English can be literal.
However, try this experiment.
Avoid using euphemism and idiom for a day. Good luck with that.

My counterpart to that is try to avoid references to the supernatural/mystical for a day.
I just finished Sawyer's sci-fi trilogy on a Neanderthal alternate Earth.
They lack the God-delusion organ in their mind.
So their culture and language is different.
Instead of saying "it works like a charm", they instead say "it works like a well-established scientific principle".
You get the idea.

A second childhood language which is devoid of the nuanced complexity of a natural language, but one which is devoid of irrationality and sentimentality serves a number of functions. (This is also true for adult-second-language students.)
1) it removes anxiety - or prevents anxiety- about learning additional natural languages
2) it emphasizes communication devoid of cultural/contextual requirements for understanding
3) it might allow pared-down thought that does not contain idiom, allegory, or irrational elements

D: I was reading that Canada - Toronto in particular - can expect to be dominated demographically by visible minorities, particularly Asians, by 2030. The G&M had an article on that yesterday.
English has some serious problems for untalented adult second-language learners without a shared European linguistic background. A provocative government policy would be either a creoled sub-English, an Attempto-style controlled-English language, or a non-natural designed auxiliary language to teach them first.
Teaching EFL speakers a limited subset of English is likely as much effort as teaching them an aux-lang from scratch.
There is no particular reason why the UN - the new League of Nations - must be the focus of an introduced aux-lang. A different level of gov't could use it. A province, a city. A nation.
A non-gov't organization. A corporation. A group of multinational corporations.

pill may let teens learn language like kids

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100318141540.htm

"These findings suggest that intrinsic brain mechanisms alter learning during adolescence, but that mild stress may be one factor that can reverse this decline in learning proficiency during the teenage years," says Dr. Smith. "They also suggest that different strategies for learning and motivation may be helpful in middle school. And it is within the realm of possibility that a drug could be developed that would increase learning ability post-puberty, one that might be especially useful for adolescents with learning disabilities."

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D - Am thinking of tune from Aerosmith, "Dude looks like a lady" - but "Pube' learns like a 8-y". OK they cannot all be gems LOL.

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Critical period for language acquisition: the case of Genie:

Scientists believe that there may be a critical period for first language acquisition. This means that there is a time limit during which the baby must be exposed to language if he/she is to acquire language normally. A famous case study which lends support to the critical period theory is the case of Genie. Genie was a young girl who was locked in a small closet-like room at the age of 18 months by her schizophrenic father. Her mother was blind and was also abused by the father, so she was unable to help Genie. After her father died, Genie was finally freed from the closet. She was 13 years old.

When Genie was first locked in the closet, she was just beginning to acquire language. What kind of language skills would she have when released at the age of 13? Genie's tragic case provides evidence that language acquisition may be limited to a critical period. Although Genie is now an adult, her language development is quite immature. She produces mostly nouns, some verbs, but few adjectives or adverbs. Her utterances usually consist of no more than three words. After intensive language training and psychotherapy, Genie has not been able to acquire normal language skills.

Why is there a critical period for learning language? How long is that critical period? The critical period is thought to be related to brain plasticity and lateralization. Plasticity refers to how flexible the brain is in learning various functions. Lateralization refers to the specializations of the two sides, or hemispheres, of the brain. Scientists believe that the critical period for first language acquisition ends somewhere between the ages of 4 and 12. At this age, the brain appears to lose its plasticity for learning language. In addition, specialized language behaviors become controlled primarily by the left hemisphere of the brain. In theory, if a child is not exposed to language during the critical period, he/she will never be able to acquire it normally.
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D: I've observed before that a well-designed first language (Finnish), in terms of regular letter system and written orthography, allows additional time to learn more childhood languages.
It would be difficult to overstate the advantage that a well-designed first childhood language can give the child.

D.

evolution from hieroglyph to roman alphabet letters

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/how-nature-inspired-the-alphabet.php

32,000 years ago, ancient humans gathered in a cave in Lascaux, France, where, by firelight, they created the first hand-drawn forms--scenes depicting man's relationship with the natural world. The favorite subject in those first drawings was the ancient ox, so impressive in stature and strength, that it was deified by our earliest ancestors. This reverence for nature remained as civilizations formed, and with it, written language. It is no wonder then that subtly hidden within our alphabet today lie the remnants of these ancient forms--many of which reflect the earliest relationships between man and nature. To find them, you just have to look a little closer.

The precursor to many of the characters in our modern script are found in the pictogram hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt. The symbol for the letter 'A', in its earliest representation, depicted the image of the deified ox--which came to represent 'the great one' or 'the creator' in subsequent cultures. So it remained, as the symbol became adopted by the Greeks and Romans in a more rudimentary form, called 'Alpha'--still signifying a supreme position today.

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http://www.akhlah.com/aleph_bet/aleph-bet.php

D: Hmm, sounds familiar.

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http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~rfradkin/latin.html

D: this is an animation. It shows the evolution of letters from Phoenician onwards. (pic)

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D: look up the "Rx" pharmacy symbol, with reference to the Eye of Horus. Pretty cool trivia.

D: sorry. I don't have time to make my Esperanto entry today.
I'm juggling 2 jobs, and need to get my sleep cycle back on track.
This week sometime, then.

replacing Chomsky's SPE rule 43

D: My apologies for yesterday's entry! It was a mess. I was changing my thoughts on the fly.

I'll try again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_Pattern_of_English

D: SPE uses a simple number system to denote stress. By simple, I mean that the #s assigned to syllable stress can be nada, and 1,2,3 etc. 1 denotes the most stressed syllable. The higher the number, the less stressed the syllable.
Syllables that are not stressed at any stage may have their vowel reduced. Schwa is a common example of a reduced vowel.

"Relaxation" is a good example. We first examine the stem "relax" and find that the second syllable is stressed. There are rules for this, but they can be found in SPE, and are not relevant to my observation. So re-lax is initially stressed as 2 - 1. So the second syllable is stressed. Rules regarding the affix "-Ation" mean the affix is more stressed than the stem. "Ation" is considered a single entry. So we get re-lax-Ation as the three 'syllables'. Stress mid-way through the rule process is 3-2-1.

And then we encounter "Rule 43". It works, sure. It just doesn't feel elegant. I know that is a silly thing to be concerned about.
It feels like an afterthought, a stop-gap measure.
Basically, Rule 43 says there all other syllables other than the most stressed one are de-stressed an additional step. This means re-lax-ation becomes stressed as 4-3-1.
OK.

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My proposal.
I propose using an integer number system instead. This involves both positive and negative whole numbers. For example, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2.
In my proposal, a stress never changes once assigned. The higher positive value is the most stressed syllable.
The result of Rule 43 is instead applied as the very first step. For example, take "relaxation" and use it as to test my proposal.
We will use my revised system. The initial system resulted in inappropriate stress distance between syllables. It did not duplicate Rule 43.
The revised system takes note of the -Ation affix. The stem is assigned to the left of zero. NO syllable is assigned to zero. By this process, we create the distance of 2 stress levels away from the primary stressed syllable as per rule 43.

(My initial proposal involved looking at "relax" - the stem - in isolation initially. It assigned" re"- to -1 and "lax" to +1. But this does not recreate the result of Rule 43. It would result in "lax" only one stress away from the affix stress. I suppose we could assign a value to the affix of '2 more than the nearest stress', but this seems no more elegant than rule 43.)

My integer system NEVER changes a stress # assigned to a syllable. Ergo "-Ation" occupies the next higher unoccupied slot. In the revised system, this will be +1. In the original system, it would have been +2, since "-lax" would have been +1.
This permanent # assigned to a syllable reduces demands on working memory.
Because we always skip zero on the integer system, we duplicate the effects of Rule 43 in my revised system.

D: In my revised system, only values of -2 or lower can have the vowel reduced. In the initial system, that would have been true of any negative value.

OK, here is a caveat. I only started reading SPE a week ago, and am presently at page 60.
My proposal is only a tentative one, based on what I have read so far.
I'll likely tweak it.
For example. I don't quite grasp how stress 4 3 1 is different from 4 2 1 right now. I need to learn more.

D: sadly, this blog font screws up any attempt at regular spacing. I'm not sure I can access Courier Font for that.
I'll scan more examples and some pics of the rule steps tomorrow. I gotta work all day, starting in an hour.
Cheers.
D

Chomsky SPE rule 43

D: Sorry for the lousy pic quality. I don't have a better way to scan the pertinent diagram.
Just look at the columns of numbers. It shows how SPE changes the values of stressed syllables with each step.

D - I am finally reading Chomsky's "Sound Patterns of English". I'm finding the notation very confusing, and have just started to skip it, to deal with it later. There is a reason I nearly failed calculus. Failed stats. Stopped chemistry in grade 11 (what is a mole again?). I suspect symbolic logic will have the same problem...

Anyway, I'm in awe of how nuanced English syllable stress is.

SPE has convinced me of a few things.
1) a natural language can be vastly more complex and nuanced than an aux-lang (auxiliary language)
2) English is good as a first childhood language, in general
3) English is a terrible choice as an adult second language
4) an aux-lang can never be anywhere near the complexity of a natural language
5) an aux-lang can be ideal as an adult second language.

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Chomsky's SPE. The line of thought behind a revised syllable stress approach.

SPE contains examples of how to identify syllable stress.

Page 38 -the word used for example is " relaxation".
I'd like to apologize now. The blog interface made a terrible mess of my spacing.

D: rule 43: (page 34) - within a word, all non-main stresses are weakened by one
This "Stress Adjustment Rule" is at the very core of the SPE system.

D - Does SPE work? Sure. However, Rule 43 is not elegant. I know that sounds silly for me to say, LOL.

Rule 43 results in a syllable stress value for the word "relaxation" of 3-4-1. Please refer to SPE and my pic.

D: Now I propose an alternative approach. My system duplicates the result of Rule 43, but as the first step.

I'd also like to point out I had 2 different approaches. One did not get the syllable stress correct. It created a gap of 2 spaces instead of 1 syllable stress space at the wrong point.

Here is my suggestion for NO RULE 43.
Use of an integer # system, with a special rule, duplicates the result of Rule 43.
It does so because I do not allow a syllable stress to rest at the value of zero.
Syllables are moved to either a plus or minus number value.
Because zero is skipped, my integer # system automatically creates a gap of 2 spaces in the syllable stress system.
In this respect, it manages to duplicate the spacing created by Rule 43.
My integer system, I think, at least to me, is more clear.
It requires a very different visual layout.

I now compare Rule 43 to my proposed integer # system.

re lax a tion
re lax A tion
[re lax}a tion
.....+1 rule 47, case 48f (integer system)
.....+1 +2 note 29 (" ")
-1 +1 +2 note 29
(Note - you see this is my first attempt. It does not quite work. It does not create the same result as Rule 43)

Revised attempt:
The first step is to anticipate the "Ation" affix. We do so by placing the stem "relax" to the left of zero.
So re-lax has syllable stress values of -2 -1.
When we add the affix "Ation", which we must consider from the very beginning, we add it to the RIGHT of zero.
So re-lax-Ation has the stress values of -2 -1 - +1.

...-3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3...
..............relax--------- -begin at zero
..........re lax-------- -- -assign stress, with stressed + and unstressed -. no value can be zero or the same.
..........re lax--ation- -duplication of steps

Dammit, the blog interface is screwing up my spacing!

D: as you can see, skipping the value of zero in my integer # system duplicates Rule 43.

1) Without noting the initial stem stress, at each step we know we cannot reduce the vowel in "lax".
We know this because my system only can reduce a vowel at a value of -2 or less.
2) By 'stepping off of zero' as the initial step, we replicate the range of Rule 43, with a gap of 2 between the syllables
stressed 1 and 3 respectively.
3) the stress value of a syllable, once assigned, NEVER has to change.
Well, I like it.

To summarize my integer system:
Here is a proposed alternative system that is stronger in 2 ways:
1) it used Integer Numbers instead, with zero as the initial springboard, never using zero after the initial step
2) it more clearly indicates which syllables were stressed at various stages, removing the burden to recall the initial stem
syllable stress for the purpose of vowel reduction later.
3) a stress value is never changed once assigned to a syllable!
<:

D: I'll hash out a complete system, largely based on cross-mapping SPE's approach onto my integer system.
Of course, first I need to finish SPE! It is an amazing work, but slow going. I have no background in linguistics.
For that matter, my system if NOT a system. It is presently only an example involving a single word.

(If you liked that, check out my blog a few weeks ago on a 'propaganda-resistant' vocabulary basis! <:)

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Decimese, as you may know by now, is a work-in-progress. It is my idea of what an auxiliary language should be.
I have only nailed now nailed down the phonotactics after two years of work.
I have no background in linguistics, so am learning this stuff as I go!
I will work at this as the decades progress. It is my labour of love. I am pouring all my love into it.
I hope that will matter, one day.

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Decimese, long and short vowels, and likely English speaker instinctive consonant voicing.

I took a look at the "Italian vowels". AEIOU. "I" as in Machine (ee). "O" as in doughnut (oh).
An Anglo will try to shift consonant voicing to reflect this.
E..g compare potassium and gymnasium.
Poh- tahss... But gym nayZ.
So an Anglo would try to convert the letter order CVCV - C1V1C2V2, if V1 is O and C2 is S, into the phonetic version -OZ- not -OS, no matter what is written.

D: Decimese (the phonotactics are done- I just need to post the diphthongs) does not require the S/Z pair to be denoted.
The above system indicates the problem with
a) having both voiced and voiceless pairs of consonants in core vocabulary building,
b) having both long and short vowels,
c) and a mindless 'clockwork morphology'.
Honestly, one could even skip differentiating S/Z and any other consonant pair, and word boundaries, even without spacing, remain clear.

Cheers.
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Next blog: how will English speakers distort Esperanto? What sounds will get deformed?

face electrodes can read lips.stress system for Decimese

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8549454.stm

The prototype device could allow people to conduct silent phone conversations.
The technology measures the tiny electrical signals produced by muscles used when someone speaks.
The device can record these pulses even when a person does not audibly utter any words and use them to generate synthesised speech in another handset.

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D: This is a match made in heaven for Visemese!
( I stopped calling it Deafese, since one need not be deaf to benefit from it.)

I suspect it has some sort of military tactical value in covert ops.

We had a few signs used to tactical matters in the infantry.
Cross your forarms for obstacle. Thumbs down for enemy. And so on.

http://www.lefande.com/hands.html
SWAT tactical signs. Very nice.

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Decimese. Stress system.

I could never figure out what to call Decimese. Is it heavily prefixing or suffixing? Dunno.

Well I'm reading "Sound Patterns in English" by Chomsky. It was written around the time I was born, but is still a classic. It is called SPE almost universally.
Anyway, I gained insight into the English syllable stress system. Decimese is based on English stress. Well, Decimese only has, in its basic form, 'weak syllables'. That places the stress on the penultimate syllable.
So (syllable=S) S1S2...S4S5 would be stressed on S4. Presumably English means we'd stress S2 in a secondary fashion.
I'm not sure what impact a vowel diphthong will have. Does the presence of a 'long vowel' - denoting a complex syllable with even just one consonant after it- qualify as such in a diphthong? If not, nothing changes. If so, then the stress system would shift, according to English instincts. The stress would shift to the final syllable.
In the example S1S2S3S4S5, primary stress goes to S5, and presumably secondary (s?) to S1 and S3.

A good example of shifting stress in English is tele + graph.
Telegraph. Telegraphic. Telegraphy.

SPE also made me think about the impact of adding a mid-word compound noun -N noun ending to the first noun in a compound noun. If we have vowel Vv diphthongs acting as complex syllables, then the mid-word -N noun ending will change stress, IF Anglos consider a diphthong to include a long vowel. (Sorry for shifting between 2 sets of terminology.)
E.g. S1S2 + S3N.
If we have S1S2NS3N, then if S2 contains
1) CV construction (consonant-vowel) +N, we have a weak syllable.
2) CVv+N, we may have a strong syllable if the diphthong qualifies as a long vowel.
The shifting stress becomes useful as an additional aid to parse word boundaries, or in this case major parts of a compound noun. I may still consider mandatory explicit prepositions in compound nouns (and verbs et al) to be desirable.
The black board. The board that is/with/of black A black board would then default, by virtue of word order, to adjective + non-compounded noun. We must consider Mandarin, though.

D: Decimese should be a sensible compromise between English and Mandarin. When either language has exceptions that allow variable word order, for example, we have an opportunity to match up word order with the other language that has invariate order. And so on.


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SPE also made me think about the errors that I make in English.
They tend to be outside of a phrase. Obviously my mind is unable to retain information between in-bracket transformations for later use. My working memory just isn't anything to write home about.

For example, I often mistake primary subjects and screw up single/plural agreement.
A meandering description of noun contents seems to do it.

I also fail to get verbs to agree in long sentences.

And prepositions get swapped or go missing.

Spoken sentences are subject to how much air our lungs hold.
Well, my written sentences are every bit as subject to working memory.
A creole-style set-up reduces working memory demands. That man there. He has goats and sheeps. He my brother.

I wonder if placing the primary noun first is desirable.

The man's goats. The goats of the man.
The goats of the man, (they)...
Topicalizing with a switch to pronoun bears some passing resemblance to ASL.

a preview of text editor syllabary system. writing system types.

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D - I had originally designed this system for Decimese. Since syllables are very restricted, this was fairly simple.
The consonant-vowel CV construction is pretty much the foundation for Decimese.
V exists, but is simple enough. The M/N/NG word final nasal consonants are also fairly limited.
The consonant cluster -L/R/W are also fairly simple.
Vowel diphthongs are limited too.
Even if the syllabary system was limited to only bare-bones CV syllables, this would still represent the majority in the initial, basic Decimese system.

Decimese is fairly simple, at least for CV format syllables. I figured with 5 vowels we could just use the # or related consonants. We could default to small/plain for -A, capital for -E, italic bold underline for IOU...
However, using combinations of small/capital and bold/italic/underline allows much more nuance.
E.g. capital and bold and underlined but not italic would mean something specific.

A variant font with a morse-code-esque 2 part over or under diacritic would allow yet more meaning.

I don't imagine anybody would include this during typing. An automated process could pack and/or unpack this syllabary system back into a plain Roman alphabet system.

English proved another matter entirely. I tried my hand many years ago with a simplistic system. It immediately failed.
Who would want to learn, say, 1000s of symbols?
I tried this week for a newer system for an English syllabary. First of all, even English has fairly limited options for consonant clusters. However, English essentially has both (V) CV and VC as the basic syllable formats. For that matter, CVC is tricky - is it CV + C or C +VC?
The word STRENGTHS is a killer for a syllabary- CCCVCCC. In theory, I suppose CCCVvCCC with a diphthong is theoretically possible. Ack!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diacritic
D: many diacritics exist. However, I did wish to use existing ones.
Instead, I chose to start from scratch with a Morse Code style system.
I just needed ways to denote syllable initial and final consonant clusters.
Unlike Decimese, where the 12 paired consonants form the logical basis for the system to include #s, not so in English.
English is logically based on the vowel, the actual core of a syllable.
If I am unable to load enough info onto a single vowel, I may treat a vowel diphthong Vv as CV and vC - almost 2 syllables - to spread out the info onto 1 1/2 syllables, in effect.
Anyway, the morse code system would involve optionally both sub and supercritics. I.e. below and above.
I was thinking of a fairly rudimentary diacritic system of only dots and dashes. - and .
I figured we could have -. and .- and . . or ( ).( ).
The centred dot may serve another function.
English letters are not well designed. Many capital versions are identical in shape to small letters.
X x. C c. Not well thought out at all! Short of reforming the letters themselves, I figured I could use the high/low centred dot positions to denote this clearly.

.
x x
'

With this nuance, we can then use different font sizes without confusion.

Decimese has no use for C, Q, or X in the conventional sense.
However, the pressure to use standard fonts and QWERTY keyboards (as well as phone pads) means we must restrict ourselves to Roman letters.

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consonants in Ceqli:

C as in CHin

X as in SHoe

Q as in siNG

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D: I'm almost tempted to let H do most of these functions, if not all.
TH, TH, SH, CH, SH, ZH, (NG)...
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English has the additional problem that we have 5 vowels but many many more vowel sounds, not even including diphthongs!
It made my head swim.
There is a very good historical reason why cultures with complex syllables avoid a syllabary system, instead using an alphabet.

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OMNIGLOT.COM:

Abjads / Consonant Alphabets
Abjads, or consonant alphabets, represent consonants. Vowels can be indicated by using some of the consonant letters and/or with diacritics, but this is only done in specific contexts,

Alphabets
Alphabets, or phonemic alphabets, are sets of letters, usually arranged in a fixed order, each of which represents one or more phonemes, both consonants and vowels,

Syllabic Alphabets / Abugidas
Syllabic alphabets, alphasyllabaries or abugidas are writing systems in which the main element is the syllable. Syllables are built up of consonants, each of which has an inherent vowel, e.g. ka, kha, ga, gha. Other symbols are used to change or mute the inherent vowel, and separate vowel letters are used when vowels occur at the beginning of a syllable or on their own.
D - the colour-defined vowel part sure is handy!

Syllabaries
A syllabary is a phonetic writing system consisting of symbols representing syllables. A syllable is often made up of a consonant plus a vowel or a single vowel.
D - I imagine the Cree system is brutal for dyslexics. Rotated images and mirrored ones. Ack.

Semanto-phonetic writing systems
The symbols used in these semanto-phonetic writing systems often represent both sound and meaning. As a result, these scripts generally include a large number of symbols: anything from several hundred to tens of thousands.
These scripts could also be called logophonetic, morphophonemic, logographic or logosyllabic.

sine wave speech. gibberish before. speech after.

http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/sine-wave-speech/

Listening to the sine-wave speech sound again produces a very different percept of a fully intelligible spoken sentence. This dramatic change in perception is an example of "perceptual insight" or pop-out. We have argued that this form of pop-out is an example of a top-down perceptual process produced by higher-level knowledge and expectations concerning sounds that can potentially be heard as speech:
Davis, M.H., Johnsrude, I.S. (2007) "Hearing speech sounds: Top-down influences on the interface between audition and speech perception." Hearing Research, 229(1-2), 132-147

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D - Trippy! It sounds like R2D2 before.
Then you listen to a line from a story.
Then replay the 'noise' and you hear the words!

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http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/voice/auditory.htm

What is auditory processing?

Auditory processing is a term used to describe what happens when your brain recognizes and interprets the sounds around you. Humans hear when energy that we recognize as sound travels through the ear and is changed into electrical information that can be interpreted by the brain. The "disorder" part of auditory processing disorder means that something is adversely affecting the processing or interpretation of the information.

Children with APD often do not recognize subtle differences between sounds in words, even though the sounds themselves are loud and clear. For example, the request "Tell me how a chair and a couch are alike" may sound to a child with APD like "Tell me how a couch and a chair are alike." It can even be understood by the child as "Tell me how a cow and a hair are alike." These kinds of problems are more likely to occur when a person with APD is in a noisy environment or when he or she is listening to complex information.

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D - I heard the story the 2nd time in the 'static'.
However, despite having normal-range hearing, I cannot pick out speech worth a darn with background noise.
And.... I work in a bar! Great.
Accents slay me.

canuck national anthem: a gender controversy.

http://edmonton.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100304/edm_anthem_reax_100304/20100304/?hub=EdmontonHome

The speech promised to look into the wording of 'O Canada' to make it more gender neutral, suggesting the line, "all thy sons command" could be replaced.

"Our government will also ask Parliament to examine the original gender-neutral English wording," said Canada's Governor-General Michaelle Jean.

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D: why stop there? There are many lines that are similarly exclusive.

Official Lyrics of O Canada!

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

The History of the National Anthem

Summary

"O Canada" was proclaimed Canada's national anthem on July 1, 1980, 100 years after it was first sung on June 24, 1880.

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D: home and native. Not nice to immigrants.
True patriot love. Well that's patronizing- sorry to the matrons out there.
Sons... yup.
On guard for thee. Only for military personnel?

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Here we see a nice fringe benefit of an aux-lang.
A new language is a fresh start, devoid of cultural conservativeness.
Suddenly discussing gender implications becomes a mere linguistic exercise.
Besides, Decimese defaults to gender-neutral.
Some natural languages do too.

Maybe aux-langs are best understood as the chance for a fresh start.
And a chance to remove very justified anxiety about learning a natural language!

canuck national anthem: a gender controversy.