Lidepla-ney un-ney Golde Medal

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(Created page with "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 Chart...")
 
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= 7 oktober 2011 =
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Huge Sambahsa translation of Stendhal available! Also Interlingua, Frenkisch...
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Jumat, 07 Oktober 2011
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Over at the new Joy of Literature site which now accompanies this blog, an ongoing translation of the great French novel La Chartreuse de Parme is underway, starting with Chapter Four which features scenes from the Battle of Waterloo. By the way, I mean 'great' only in the sense of it being a great literary work, not in the sense of agreeing with any views expressed therein. But I digress.
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Anyway, along with my humble contribution of an Interlingua translation, and David Parke's kind contribution of a Frenkisch translation, both of which are in their early stages, Dr Olivier Simon has 'gone nuts' (as we say in Australian English, to imply 'worked with great enthusiasm') and finished the entire chapter, producing a Sambahsa translation of over 6,000 words! Since each of these translations shows the original French and an English translation in parallel, this is the perfect opportunity for students wishing to learn how to write literature in these constructed languages.
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That Olivier was able to so quickly create (in a few days) such a large translation demonstrates the maturity of the Sambahsa language and its grammar. An achievement not to be sniffed at. Also notable is that the Sambahsa text is shorter than both the English and the French, demonstrating that Sambahsa is indeed a capable yet concise language. Being concise is a virtue not to be underestimated.
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To celebrate Olivier's amazing achievement, I am going to attempt to translate some of the Sambahsa into English without reading either the original French or its English translation. Since I have not read the end of the chapter, this is a valid test. Let's test the precision of Sambahsa, a language at which I am a beginner barely capable of writing a few short sentences, by doing this exercise. Unfortunately, Sambahsa is rather difficult and so I think I had better start with just one paragraph, the fifth-last paragraph of the chapter, which I have never read. Let's take a look at the Sambahsa:
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Is sergeant, currend ex id herbehrg, hieb viso sien colonel falle, ed iom credih grave-ye vurnen. Currt apter Fabrices ekwum ed seht id ak os sien saber do ia nugvers ios fur; so fallt. Ies hussars, vidend ep id brigv tik iom sergeant ped-ye, upergaloppent ed feugent jaldi. So qui eet ped-ye mwaungsout do id rur.
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Okay, here goes. First I will make a literal translation, to demonstrate some aspects of Sambahsa grammar. Highlighted in yellow are shown some interesting Sambahsa constructions:
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The sergeant, running out of the inn, had seen his colonel fall, and believed him gravely wounded. He runs behind Fabrice's horse and cuts the point of his sabre into the kidneys of the thief; that one* falls. The hussars, seeing on the bridge only the sergeant on foot, gallop over** and flee quickly. That one*** who was on foot escapes into the countryside.
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* meaning the thief
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** strongly implying "over the bridge"
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*** meaning the one who was on foot (that is, the sergeant)
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I am no expert on Sambahsa tenses but it seems to me that the text is written using an unusual literary device of tense formation, namely that some of the text uses the present tense although the action occurs in the past. Since this is just the sort of trick that the original author, Stendhal, liked to get up to, I'm assuming it has been translated as such. Now let's convert all this into literary English:
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The sergeant, running out of the inn, had seen his colonel fall and believed him gravely wounded. He ran behind Fabrice's horse and cut the point of his sabre into the kidneys of the thief, felling him. The hussars, seeing on the bridge only the sergeant on foot, quickly galloped over and fled. The man on foot escaped into the countryside.
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Okay, that's about the best I can do without spending too much time looking up documentation. This was a fun exercise, didn't take too long, and I enjoyed it immensely. I was able to deduce here and there a few words which were not found in the dictionary, and was reasonably comfortable doing so, extrapolating from what is in the dictionary. This shows I am getting more comfortable with Sambahsa. Mind you, reading the whole chapter would take me a long time.
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I must say, I like the literary quality of Sambahsa, it is very fine.
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Okay, now for the result. How did I do?
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Here is the original French:
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Le maréchal des logis, en accourant de l'auberge, avait vu tomber son colonel, et le croyait gravement blessé. Il court après le cheval de Fabrice et plonge la pointe de son sabre dans les reins du voleur, celui-ci tombe. Les hussards, ne voyant plus sur le pont que le maréchal des logis à pied, passent au galop et filent rapidement. Celui qui était à pied s'enfuit dans la campagne.
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And here is Scott-Moncrieff's translation (in grey) compared to my result (in green):
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The serjeant, as he hurried from the inn, had seen his colonel fall, and supposed him to be seriously wounded. He ran after Fabrizio’s horse and plunged the point of his sabre into the thief’s entrails; he fell. The hussars, seeing no one now on the bridge but the serjeant, who was on foot, crossed at a gallop and rapidly disappeared. The one on foot bolted into the fields.
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The sergeant, running out of the inn, had seen his colonel fall and believed him gravely wounded. He ran behind Fabrice's horse and cut the point of his sabre into the kidneys of the thief, felling him. The hussars, seeing on the bridge only the sergeant on foot, quickly galloped over and fled. The man on foot escaped into the countryside.
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Another fantastic result for Sambahsa! Almost exactly correct.
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Sambahsa really is an amazing literary language of great quality. It's only drawback is its difficulty.
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Bravo, Olivier!
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= 10 oktober 2011 =
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Reading Frenkisch
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Senin, 10 Oktober 2011
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David Parke has kindly been making a Frenkisch translation from the French novel La Chartreuse de Parme. Hopefully I will soon find the time to contribute some tentative paragraphs there myself but first I thought it would be interesting to repeat the exercise I recently did with Sambahsa, but this time with Frenkisch. Let's take a paragraph of David's translation and translate it into English, then compare the result with Scott-Moncrieff's 1924 English translation. This tests the precision of Frenkisch. I have read the original paragraph before but not in the last few days.
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Here we go! Below is David's translation in Frenkisch:
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“Lad dyn musket ond sett di after dat triew, insonderheid, schut nejt befor myn befel… Genaideleus Godd!”, roup’d de korporal aut fersteur’d, “hi kann nejt alssolk lade syn waipen!”. (Hi help’d Fabrice tou doue dis, fortgaiend mid syn opdragen.) “Infall mag en fyndlik ryder galopire an di om tou hacke di, leup om dyn triew, ond schut nejt antill hi is in naij reikwydde, hwann dyn ryder is tri schreden af di: wajt antill dyn bajonett treff naijgenoug syn uniform.”
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Using the dictionary and grammar which can be downloaded from the Files section of the Frenkisch Yahoo Group (freely available once you have registered as a member of that group), I have made a translation of the above paragraph into English. Here it is, first literally:
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"Load* your musket and position yourself behind that tree, don't shoot before my order... Merciless God!" the corporal cried out, disturbed, "He can not [as such] load his weapon!" (He helped Fabrice to do this, continuing with his orders.) "In case an enemy rider gallops next to and around you in order to hack you, run around your tree, and don't shoot until he is in close range, when your rider is three paces** from you; wait until your bayonet near-enough meets his uniform."
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* or, synonymously, "Charge"
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** not sure why singular schryde has had a vowel change in the plural form schreden; I'm guessing either a typo, a new grammatical rule, or perhaps schrede is 'yard' and schryde is 'pace'.
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Here it is changed into more literary, less literal, English:
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"Charge your musket and take up position behind that tree. Don't shoot before my order.... Merciless God!" the corporal cried out in exasperation, "He can't even load his weapon!" (He helped Fabrice to do so as he continued issuing orders.) "If an enemy rider gallops at you to cut you down, run around your tree, and don't shoot until he's in close range, when your rider's three paces from you; wait until your bayonet is just about touching his uniform."
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That was great fun. I enjoyed that immensely. What's not to love about a language with such marvellous constructs as genaideleus (merciless), fyndlik ryder (enemy rider), and naijgenoug (near enough, nearly)? It is quite simply lovely. Easy too, for an English speaker with some knowledge of German, when it comes to recognising words and decoding constructions.
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Okay, now for the result. How did I do?
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Here is the original French:
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- Charge ton fusil et mets-toi là derrière cet arbre, et surtout ne va pas tirer avant l'ordre que je t'en donnerai... Dieu de Dieu! dit le caporal en s'interrompant, il ne sait pas même charger son arme!... (Il aida Fabrice en continuant son discours.) Si un cavalier ennemi galope sur toi pour te sabrer, tourne autour de ton arbre et ne lâche ton coup qu'à bout portant, quand ton cavalier sera à trois pas de toi; il faut presque que ta baïonnette touche son uniforme..
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And here is Scott-Moncrieff's translation (in grey) compared to my result (in green):
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“Load your musket and stick yourself behind this tree, and whatever you do don’t fire till you get the order from me.... Great God in heaven!” the corporal broke off, “he doesn’t even know how to load!” He helped Fabrizio to do this while going on with his instructions. “If one of the enemy’s cavalry gallops at you to cut you down, dodge round your tree and don’t fire till he’s within three paces: wait till your bayonet’s practically touching his uniform.
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"Charge your musket and take up position behind that tree. Don't shoot before my order.... Merciless God!" the corporal cried out in exasperation, "He can't even load his weapon!" (He helped Fabrice to do so as he continued issuing orders.) "If an enemy rider gallops at you to cut you down, run around your tree, and don't shoot until he's in close range, when your rider's three paces from you; wait until your bayonet is just about touching his uniform."
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A great result for Frenkisch! Almost exactly correct except that I got the sense of exasperation (feeling disturbed or perturbed) rather that interruption (being disturbed or interrupted) for the corporal, and also a few very minor stylistic liberties by myself and by David in making our translations.
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This demonstrates the power, precision, style, and expressiveness of Frenkisch for literary use. Remember that speakers of Germanic languages could probably easily read such a translation with little or no prior study, an advantage not to be sniffed at!
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Bravo, David!
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= 11 oktober 2011 =
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Writing in Sambahsa
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Selasa, 11 Oktober 2011
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Okay, now I am going to attempt to translate into Sambahsa a paragraph from a famous French novel. This is just a learning exercise, since the paragraph has already been translated by an expert, but I have not yet read that translation. Let's see how well I can do. This is the original French:
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- Tais-toi d'abord! Avance-toi là, à cinquante pas en avant du bois, tu trouveras quelqu'un des pauvres soldats du régiment qui viennent d'être sabrés; tu lui prendras sa giberne et son fusil. Ne va pas dépouiller un blessé, au moins; prends le fusil et la giberne d'un qui soit bien mort, et dépêche-toi, pour ne pas recevoir les coups de fusil de nos gens.
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And here is an approximate English translation (C. K. Scott–Moncrieff, 1924):
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“Will you hold your tongue? Go forward there: fifty paces in front of the wood you’ll find one of the poor fellows of the Regiment who’ve been sabred; you will take his cartridge-pouch and his musket. Don’t strip a wounded man, though; take the pouch and musket from one who’s properly dead, and hurry up or you’ll be shot in the back by our fellows.”
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And, just for comparison, here is my Interlingua translation:
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- Tace! Avantia la. A cinquanta passos avante del bosco, tu trovará alcuno del povre soldates del regimento qui ha essite sabrate; tu le prenderá su cartuchiera e su fusil. Non spolia un vulnerato, al mínus; prende le fusil e le cartuchiera de un qui es ben morte, e hasta te pro non reciper le colpes de fusil de nostre hómines.
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Okay, now here is my best attempt to make a Sambahsa translation. I am a beginner at Sambahsa:
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- Sweighe ! Avance ter, ad penkgim stieups ant id bosc, tu trehvsie un iom orm soldats ios regiment quoy ste sabert; tu ghendsie eys palaska ed eys bunduk. Bet ne skehne un veurnto; ghends id bunduk ed id palaska os un qui es druve-ye mohrt, ed speude te, pro ne bihe strehlt ab nies wirs.
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Oh boy, that was absolutely exhausting. Sambahsa is a language which clearly works extremely well, with great precision and expressiveness, when written by an expert; as a reader you can clearly appreciate these benefits of the language. In other words, the language clearly works and works very well; it is also highly educational. However, as a writer, it is very difficult until you become an expert, and becoming an expert would be no easy task. Just by way of comparison, today I have made short translations in four auxlangs: Interlingua, Lingwa de Planeta, Frenkisch, and Sambahsa. The difficulty of writing in these languages was in exactly that order: Interlingua easiest, Sambahsa hardest. Just to keep this in perspective, writing in Sambahsa is hugely easier than writing in Latin and very significantly easier than writing in French. It is far more logical, regular, and consistent than those more difficult natural languages. Nevertheless, Sambahsa is not for the faint-hearted.
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All right, let's see how I did. I am far too exhausted to attempt to make any further corrections. Lets compare my translation (in purple) with the expert translation by Dr Olivier Simon (in green):
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- Sweighe ! Avance ter, ad penkgim stieups ant id bosc, tu trehvsie un iom orm soldats ios regiment quoy ste sabert; tu ghendsie eys palaska ed eys bunduk. Bet ne skehne un veurnto; ghends id bunduk ed id palaska os un qui es druve-ye mohrt, ed speude te, pro ne bihe strehlt ab nies wirs.
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- Tayc preter ! Gwah perodh tetro, penkgim stieups ant id bosc, trehfsies sem iom orm soldats ios regiment quoy hant just esen sabern; ghendsies ud iom eys palaska ed eys bunduk. Bariem mae gwah ad spolye un vurnt; ghend id palaska ed id bunduk os oin qui est druve-ye mohrt, ed spehd, kay ne ses hiht ab ia strehls niesen leuds.
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Hmmm. Interesting. Right away I have learned some useful things:
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* oin (not un) should be used for "one", in the sense of oin qui est druve-ye mohrt
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* kay (not pro) should be used for "in order to"
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The latter I think is listed somewhere in the documentation. The former I am not so sure is documented adequately. Anyway, I was not able to find it despite going looking for it; that is, I did find oin but I interpreted it to mean only the number 1.
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Apart from those observations, obviously I need to learn a bit more about conjugation in Sambahsa. However, I was pleased to see quoy hant just esen sabern as that is pretty close to what I had almost decided to write, namely quoy just hant esen sabert, but which in the end I had decided against because it was so lengthy and if one is sabred one stays sabred so I thought quoy ste sabert might be acceptable and I liked it because it was shorter. This is tricky because it has to do with whether or not the thing which occurred in the past is considered to be continuing in the present or not.
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That's about all I can interpret. Hopefully this exercise will be useful for Olivier, perhaps it will highlight some common errors which the typical student might make.
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Incidentally, I now believe that it would take about five years to master any auxlang to fluency such that one could write a good novel in it, and that time estimate applies to all of the four auxlangs mentioned above. That is, although the initial difficulty of writing in Sambahsa is greater than the other three auxlangs mentioned, I believe that after five years of dedicated study all four of these languages would seem to be of equal difficulty; that is, all would seem quite easy to write in.
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So what it comes down to is not really a comparison of difficulty, since in the long term they are all about the same in difficulty despite large initial differences in difficulty. Other factors influence the choice of auxlang for the novelist, such as the genre you are writing in, the target audience for the novel, personal preference, available documentation, and so on.
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Bear in mind that five years of study of a natural language, such as French or English, is nowhere near long enough to be able to write a good novel, unless you are a genius. Twenty years would probably be a more reliable estimate for French or English, unless your editor writes your book for you!
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So, by comparison, five years to learn one of these auxlangs is entirely acceptable to me now.
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If only there were 48 hours in a day, I would gladly simultaneously learn all four of these languages to fluency! Each of them has so much to offer. Alas, time constraints prevent me from doing so.
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= 15 oktber 2011 =
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Frenkisch Grammar 2.01 released!
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Sabtu, 15 Oktober 2011
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David Parke, the creator of the excellent Germanic international auxiliary language, Frenkisch, has updated the grammar of that language. This is big news for any writer interested in writing literature for readers who speak a Germanic language. If you were to write a simple short story in Frenkisch, chances are that such readers will mostly be able to read your story at first sight without prior knowledge of Frenkisch; or, at the very least, they will probably have a good idea of what the story is about.
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Just as you can write a story in Interlingua which is easily accessible to speakers of Romance languages, now you can write a story in Frenkisch which is accessible to speakers of Germanic languages.
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Do you speak a Germanic language? If so, please take a look at this translation of the start of a French novel into Frenkisch. Are you able to understand it? Please let me know!
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If you need a little help to read Frenkisch, you can download its dictionary (the beautifully formatted De Greut Frenkisch Englisch Wordbouk V2 is a little out of date, better to use the HTML files instead) and the newly updated grammar (De Frenkischgrammatik fon David Parke V2.01) from the Files section of the Frenkisch Yahoo Group. All you have to do to obtain these documents is to register as a member of that group, then you can freely download the dictionary and grammar.
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Alternatively, you can view the grammar and the dictionary online by following the links at David's new blog, Konstspraik. There you can find out about Frenkisch and his other auxlangs in development. On the right margin of the page you will find the "Useful Files" section.
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Frenkisch is one of my top-four favourite auxlangs: Interlingua, Lingwa de Planeta, Frenkisch and Sambahsa. Although it is in a relatively early stage of its grammatical development, it has an excellent large dictionary and is one of the best new auxlangs. I highly recommend checking it out.
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Thanks very much to David for this latest update of an exciting new language.
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= 23 oktober 2011 =
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One Year of Study: October 2011 to October 2012
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Minggu, 23 Oktober 2011
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All right, let's see what I can do in a year of serious study.
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The following four languages will be my focus:
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English
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French
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Interlingua
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Lingwa de Planeta
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For each of these languages, my goals for the year are:
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English : to read and write literature
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French : to read literature and other texts
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Interlingua : to read and translate literature
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Lingwa de Planeta : to read and translate literature
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The aim is to make this study synergistic. For example, Latin terms which I learn from studying French and Interlingua might be incorporated into my English writing; certainly they will be useful to me as a reader of sophisticated texts in the English language, as will be terms from Arabic, Persian, Russian, Hindi and Chinese which I will learn from studying Lingwa de Planeta. This is not just about expanding my linguistic horizons, it is also about gaining cultural and historical knowledge—useful things indeed for a writer.
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This is different from the many lists of languages to study which I have previously made on this blog, each of which I quickly abandoned and changed. What's the difference? I grew up.
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While hopefully I have not lost my youthful sense of humour, I have lost the youthful magical thinking that a language can be mastered in six months. Therefore I no longer am inclined to jump from language to language in the vain hope that one of them will deliver the magic ability to gain fluency quickly. Instead I see obtaining mastery of any auxlang, for a novelist such as myself, as a five-year process, and I am more inclined to choose languages which suit my literary goals rather than which are the easiest to learn. Since learning French is a labour of love to which I am already committed, the combination of English, French and Interlingua makes perfect sense; the combination is undoubtedly highly synergistic. Lingwa de Planeta provides what none of these three languages does: a true worldlang, equally welcoming to everyone, and which is primarily designed to be easy rather than faithful to any existing grammar or grammars.
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In the longer term, if I wrote a novel in English and simultaneously translated it into Interlingua and Lingwa de Planeta, I could theoretically reach readers anywhere in the world without further translation. Many people interested in international communication already read either English or a Romance language. Those who read a Romance language will be able to read Interlingua with relatively little study since it so much resembles natural Romance languages. For those who speak no European language, Lingwa de Planeta (LdP) is the best solution I have seen; I would not expect a speaker of Chinese or Indonesian to find Interlingua easy to learn, but I would expect them to find LdP very accessible; I confidently expect that such students could easily become fluent readers of LdP after five years of study. LdP is a welcoming language to all, more so than any other literary auxlang I have ever seen; the emotional benefit of seeing words from your own language in an auxlang, no matter what country you come from, cannot be overstated.
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Incidentally, at this stage in my journey I would not even consider Esperanto at all. It is outclassed by the other choices available. For novelists seeking a naturalistic auxlang I would instead recommend Interlingua. For novelists seeking an easy-to-learn auxlang, I would instead recommend LdP.
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One thing I have found, with regard to time management, is that I find it very stressful to try to do too much, and trying to do too much results in very little getting done. Accordingly as much as I would love to simultaneously study Sambahsa and Frenkisch this year, I have decided to put them to one side for now while focussing on the above four languages. This is probably good timing anyway since the documentation for both of these languages is currently being expanded and improved and a year from now both of these languages will probably be significantly easier to study because of this improvement in documentation. I remain extremely impressed by both of these languages and hope to see their user communities grow.
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To follow my ongoing translation of a famous French novel into Interlingua and Lingwa de Planeta during the coming year, please visit The Joy of Literature, a companion site to this blog. There you will also find translations in other auxlangs, including Sambahsa and Frenkisch, kindly made by others.
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Hopefully at the end of this one year of study I will be able to comfortably read literature in French, Interlingua, and LdP, and able to comfortably make translations into Interlingua and LdP.
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But only time shall tell. Onward....
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= 26 november 2011 =
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One Year of Study Revised: October 2011-2012
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Sabtu, 26 November 2011
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It's been just over one month since my last post, in which I declared my one-year study plan for languages. One month down, eleven months to go. So how has it been going? Good and bad.
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First, the good: I made 900-word parallel literary translations into Interlingua and Lingwa de Planeta (LdP) from the novel La Chartreuse de Parme. The translations can be found at The Joy of Literature.
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Now, the bad: it has sadly become clear that, given my other commitments, I simply do not have the time to learn two auxlangs to fluency at the same time as learning French. Therefore I have been forced to make a choice between Interlingua and LdP. And my choice is LdP. So my revised plan is exactly the same as my original plan except that Interlingua has been removed.
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The following three languages will be my focus:
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English
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French
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Lingwa de Planeta
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For each of these languages, my goals for the year are:
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English : to read and write literature
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French : to read literature and other texts
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Lingwa de Planeta : to read and translate literature
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Explanatory Note:
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Why LdP instead of Interlingua?
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I believe LdP is clearly a better auxlang than Interlingua for global literary use, being easier to read, easier to pronounce, and incorporating vocabulary from around the world rather than just from Romance languages. It is also easier to speak and to write for those like myself who are not native speakers of a Romance language. Lastly, LdP is primarily designed to be easy whereas Interlingua is primarily designed to be naturalistic; this really counts when it comes to truly global use... for example I cannot imagine readers in China being willing to learn Interlingua but I can easily imagine them being willing to learn LdP. Apart from being easier, the design of LdP pays attention to making people feel welcome by including words from a much more diverse collection of natural languages than the small number of source languages of Interlingua. Since my intention is to write literature for global consumption, rather than merely for European consumption or merely for those who speak Indo-European languages, LdP is clearly a better choice, even taking into account its relative immaturity. In my opinion LdP has greater potential than Interlingua to succeed globally. In other words, for global literary use I have now come to believe that worldlangs are the answer.
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As a minor additional note, I have stylistic problems with Interlingua. It is very difficult to write well without being a native speaker of a Romance language, perhaps impossibly so without assistance. To be honest, I also find French easier to read than Interlingua, for passive comprehension, despite the fact that my command of French is so poor that I can barely carry out even a simple conversation. This greater ease of reading is partially because French resources are more readily available. I also enjoy reading French far more than reading Interlingua because in my opinion French is a much more beautiful language. So, to be honest, I'd rather be reading French than reading Interlingua.
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= 3 desember 2011 =
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The Strange Journey
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Sabtu, 03 Desember 2011
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Ah, what a strange journey it is, to learn constructed languages. It is indeed a strange journey to learn unfamiliar natural languages when one is already an adult, but to learn constructed languages is doubly strange.
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On the plus side, I am now 22 months into this (some might say ridiculous) journey and yet I'm still here and ultimately have not given up. Still learning, still growing, still journeying, still adventuring. And still constantly surprised. Every time I turn a corner I learn something new and unexpected.
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When learning a natural language one learns not only the language itself but also something of the culture or cultures in which that language is used. For example, learning French is opening my eyes to French culture and to the cultures of the francophone world. Becoming progressively more able to read newspapers and novels and magazines in French, for example, is slowly opening up a whole new world to me; such a skill is indeed a profound change and improvement in one's life, especially in this world in which the anglophone media has become so riddled with propaganda and so devoid of real information that being able to read another language is extremely helpful to maintaining a more balanced outlook on the world. Sure, the francophone media might also be riddled with propaganda but at least it is different propaganda. At least one gets different perspectives on the world.
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When one learns a good constructed language the cultural effect is even more profound: it throws the door open to all cultures, to learning about the whole world, at least in theory. If a constructed language is easy enough to be learned to a useful degree of international fluency in five years, regardless of one's mother tongue, then in theory it can effectively open the door to all cultures, especially if its design is welcoming to people from all over the world, for example by including words from many languages. One such language is Lingwa de Planeta (LdP), which indeed is the only remaining constructed language which I am currently actively using (that is, not just reading but writing). Through it I am learning words from Sanskrit, Persian, Hindi, Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, Indonesian, and several European languages. It is still in its early stages of development but is nevertheless mature enough to allow me, with expert help, to gradually translate a famous French novel into LdP; my translation is already 900 words in length and should exceed 1000 words soon. It is a pleasure to work on.
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I don't want to make too much of a song and dance about it in this particular post but, admittedly, LdP has indeed become my de-facto Best Literary Language of 2011, just as it was my Best Literary Language of 2010. I judge it to be so because, voilà (or should I say walaa): it's the only constructed language which I'm still actively using for writing. Even after abandoning it for some months and instead writing in Occidental and later Interlingua, the good design of LdP has magnetically pulled me back to its charms.
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So, how is that for a strange journey? I've come full circle.
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I also realised that learning any language, constructed or otherwise, is inevitably at least a five-year journey and that nothing shorter should be hoped for, except for gifted polyglots or under conditions of total immersion. In fact I even came to believe that a better name for international auxiliary languages (IALs) would be five-year languages, as such a name would fully prepare the student for the reality of the investment required for fluency. Whereas five years is generally nowhere near long enough to become fluent in English or French, it is probably sufficient for well designed auxlangs.
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But wait, there's more...
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I discovered that (surprisingly) not only can I now read French more easily than Interlingua and that (unsurprisingly) I much prefer reading French to Interlingua because of its greater beauty and utility, but that something has happened to my brain and that I can now to some extent also read Esperanto (with the aid of a dictionary), even without recent study. (Esperanto is a language which I did considerable study of at the start of my journey and by which I was repeatedly and bitterly disappointed.) There is a part of me that now might prefer to read Esperanto rather than Interlingua when it comes to passively using a constructed language for reading only. Partly this is because of the highly artificial nature of Esperanto, with its parts of speech marked by mandatory endings which although ugly do greatly increase the ease of reading, but mostly it is because there is far more literature available to read in Esperanto, from many more writers around the world. So this is another unexpected outcome of my strange journey: I feel right now that there is some chance that I might begin to use Esperanto passively, a use for which it was never really designed, instead of using Interlingua, a language which was primarily designed for passive use by readers. Meanwhile I have at this time no interest in using Esperanto actively. Oh, the irony!
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Whether I will actually do any significant amount of reading in Esperanto remains to be seen. I might indeed do none. I just happened to notice today that I no longer find it too difficult to read, so I might use it passively.
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For writing I remain far more interested in LdP.
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= 08 Desember 2011 =
 
1000 Words of Lingwa de Planeta - Best Literary Language of 2011
 
1000 Words of Lingwa de Planeta - Best Literary Language of 2011
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Kamis, 08 Desember 2011
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Kamis,  
 
I have reached a major, happy milestone.
 
I have reached a major, happy milestone.
  

Revision as of 19:52, 28 July 2014

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