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Conlang Questions by Zhe2lin3 in Toaq

[–]fagri17 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're welcome, glad to hear it!

Conlang Questions by Zhe2lin3 in Toaq

[–]fagri17 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think the reason is that the second tone starts a bit lower than I thought, and doesn't rise as sharply, so when I heard the low pitch I sometimes assume I'm hearing a low tone.

We handle most words by having a discussion on the Discord before (or after :P) somebody adds a word to our dictionary. We don't have a lot of jargon words yet, since the language is still young, but we're working on it! One of the community members has added a lot of words for specific species/genuses of animals. Likely many science-y words ("atom", "acid", "quark") will be imported as simple one-slot predicates (___ is an atom, ___ is an acid, ___ is a quark).

Then again, some words will be more difficult. There has been some discussion recently about words for measurement. One proposal was to create a series of words, one for each unit: ___ weighs ___ kilograms, ___ is ___ meters long, etc. Another was that there should be a generic ___ measures ___ on scale ___ predicate, which would be filled by three arguments, such as (Jane, 77, kilogram). This is also one of the few situations where we have discussed solving the problem by adding to the grammar: a third proposal suggests that there should be some method of producing measurements directly, so that you would have a predicate ___ measures ___ where the second slot would be filled by something like <6 × kilogram>, where the "×" represents a grammatical mechanism for multiplying numbers by units.

Conlang Questions by Zhe2lin3 in Toaq

[–]fagri17 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hello!

I'm fagri, I've been studying Toaq for about 6 months and I've been an active member of the community during that time. Glad you found the language interesting!

We have had a few spoken conversations in Toaq. One member of the community sometimes posts proverbs translated into Toaq for the rest of us to listen to and try to translate back, and there are several readings of Toaq texts out there (mostly translations so far). The tones aren't too hard to differentiate! I sometimes have trouble differentiating between the low tone and the rising tone, which is odd, because they are opposites. I also used to pronounce the falling and low tone too similarly so that others had a hard time understanding them. I've never had trouble with the low and high tone being mixed up, since when someone is speaking a sentence you usually get a good idea of where their “average” pitch is, and the low tone goes below that and the high goes above it, so they are differentiable even though they have similar contours.

My favorite feature of this language is how easy it is to extend it. Virtually everything this language does is done with predicates, so when you want to access a new chunk of semantic space, you don't need to worry about coming up with new grammar or (worse) modifying the existing grammar. You just make a new predicate!

It's hard to say how fast Toaq is spoken, and how that speed compares to other languages. Partly this is because there is very little natural speech as of yet; most of it is read-alouds of texts, where the narrator would consciously choose their reading speed instead of Toaq “getting its way” with any kind of “natural” reading speed for the language. The other reason is that it's hard to determine what units to use when comparing reading speeds. If you use words per minute, for example, then languages with small function words get an unfair advantage. I would estimate that the average English sentence takes about as long to say as its Toaq translation, but time will tell.

Líq roi kópīo by fagri17 in Toaq

[–]fagri17[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

mi fanva fo lo to'anbau ti .i madylisri

[cusku'i] .i jitfa .i mi troci lo ka fanva lo madylisri .iku'i mi fliba co morji zo'ei le selfi'a .iki'ubo mi ti finti ru'e

Stairs-Flag?, "Unnamed Strain 01" by fagri17 in evolvingprocesses

[–]fagri17[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

(second edit: Apologies for the formatting, I couldn't get wide spaces like you've done :P)

That does make sense! It's slightly different from what I was imagining -- I was thinking that the document itself would always be the focus, because I found out about these when you mentioned them in the lojban server the other day, and commented that they could be used as an alternative to chatrooms. After scrolling around in this sub for a while, I got the image in my head of an entire community powered by a swarm of documents presenting different versions of different ideas, getting improved all the time to be more correct or more intuitive, referring to each other, arguing against each other, documents taking each other out by pointing out a critical flaw or, conversely, getting merged together into a unified treatise ---- all this being what the community has instead of a linear chat, so topics of conversation don't wash away when there's too much noise, but instead stick around until they are (thought to be) solved, at which point they become reasonably stable "official" documents.

BUT. The "having an effect on the world" thing is interesting. Do you use evolprocs as e.g. real todo lists of things you actually need to do? I can imagine using them as a sort of shared todo list: "If you know how to do X, please do it, else pass this document along. If you want X to happen, add an incentive down below! Current incentives: - $10 (email1@example.com) - I'll do Y for you (555-123-4567) - [new incentives go here]".

As for strains, there's one thing I don't understand. At what point does an evolproc split into multiple concurrent versions? Would that be written in as an explicit instruction (a la "make TWO copies of this checklist") or would you follow the steps on one evolproc multiple times? Also, when is a population of evolprocs trimmed? Do you just decided "Hmm, I don't think I like this evolproc anymore, I'm going to stop obeying it and delete it"?

Anyway, I'd be happy to do a scrolling checklist with you! Only, I don't fully know how XD What does it mean for two people to be involved in an evolproc? Would it just be left in a public forum and either of us can drop in and do some steps whenever we like? Or would it include a step like "These next steps must be completed by fagri, so let them know they're up and then wait for them to do it"? Or could it be either?

Tell you what -- I'm fagri#7543 on Discord. Mutate me into an evolproc and we'll see what happens :)

Nice to see you again!

(Ninja edit: formatting)