Lidepla-ney un-ney Golde Medal

1000 Words of Lingwa de Planeta - Best Literary Language of 2011 Kamis, 08 Desember 2011 I have reached a major, happy milestone.

My translation of the French novel, La Chartreuse de Parme, into Lingwa de Planeta (LdP) has now reached over 1000 words in length.

You can find the translation over at The Joy of Literature. It consists of the opening scenes of the fourth chapter of the novel (mainly because I had grown tired of repeatedly translating the opening of the first chapter into several other languages).

This makes LdP one of only two constructed languages in which I have made a literary translation longer than 1000 words. The other language is Occidental, into which I translated over 5000 words of the same novel. Recently I gave up on the corresponding Interlingua translation after about 900 words. With other constructed languages I never made it past a few hundred words. Which means that LdP has survived my practical, hands-on test. It is in fact the only constructed language in which I am currently still interested in producing literary translations; I was not happy with Occidental, despite creating a long translation, and therefore abandoned it.

I am happy with LdP. It hits the sweet spot between being easy enough to learn and use despite my relatively limited free time, and being sophisticated and expressive and precise enough for serious literary use. It really does fit the description of being a practical International Auxiliary Language in that it is significantly easier than most alternative constructed languages, for literary use in which a relatively high degree of precision is required. And it has the huge advantage of being a highly educational worldlang.

Did you know snova is Russian for "again" / "anew"? Did you know swasti is Sanskrit for "may fortune favour you"? Do you know that hampi is Indonesian for "almost"? You might know that danke is German for "thank you" but do you also know that a synonym from Arabic and Hindi is shukran? How about the word hao, which is Chinese for "good", or jamile, Arabic for "beautiful"? This is seriously educational stuff and a real joy to use for a writer. It is a joy.

Lingwa de Planeta is a language which — although it is new and will take a few years yet to fully develop and stabilise — I highly recommend to any writer interested in producing literature for a truly global audience.

Lingwa de Planeta es jamile lingwa! Lingwa de Planeta is a beautiful language!

Incidentally, this means that LdP has unexpectedly but indubitably turned out to be my favourite constructed language for literary use, two years in a row: first in 2010 and now again in 2011. Accordingly...

Lingwa de Planeta is the winner of the Gold Medal

Best Literary Language of 2011 Category: International Auxiliary Languages

Of course this is not any kind of public competition, it is just my personal opinion based on two years of long and dedicated study of many different constructed languages. It will be interesting to see whether or not my opinion changes in 2012 or 2013 but for now LdP is the winner of my personal quest to find an IAL which I feel is best suited for truly global literature.

I've given up Interlingua, another fine language, in favour of spending time improving my French. Strangely, I now find French easier to read.

Incidentally, for any concerned Esperanto readers who may be reading this, although my favourite constructed language for writing literature is definitely LdP, I have recently returned to learning to read literature in Esperanto and there is some chance that I might, after all, warm to the idea of regularly reading in Esperanto, mainly because studying all these other languages has gradually resulted in Esperanto becoming not quite so impossible to read. I'm not sure if my temporary resurgence of interest in reading in Esperanto will amount to anything however; I'm quite likely to lose interest and give up. Whereas I do not expect to lose interest in LdP any time soon.

I expect to reach 5000 words of LdP translation during 2012.

It would not even surprise me if I reach 10000 words.

Onward...