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Ask Slashdot: What Would a Constructed Language Have To Be To Replace English?
Loren Chorley writes: The idea of constructing a language capable of replacing English has fascinated me for a long time. I'd like to start a project with some of my own ideas and anyone who's interested, but I'd really like to hear what the Slashdot community thinks on the topic first. Taking for granted that actually replacing English is highly unlikely, what characteristics would the new language need? More specifically: How could the language be made as easy as possible to learn coming from any linguistic background? How could interest in the language be fostered in as many people as possible? What sort of grammar would you choose and why? How would you build words and how would you select meanings for them, and why? What sounds and letters (and script(s)) would you choose? How important is simplicity and brevity? How important are aesthetics (and what makes a language aesthetic)? What other factors could be important to consider, and what other things would you like to see in such a language?
It's called Ebonics.
It would have to be backwards compatible with English. Then you could say that everyone who speaks English is also speaking your constructed language.
But Perl is still easier to learn and with a significantly larger user base.
As Miriam Ferguson, first female governor of Texas, said, "If the King's English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for the children of Texas!"
The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has
been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European
communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British government conceded that
English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a
five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for
short).
In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c".
Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the
hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up
konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the
troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f". This will make words like
"fotograf" 20 per sent shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be
expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are
possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters,
which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil
agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is
disgrasful, and they would go.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing
"th" by z" and "w" by " v".
During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords
kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer
kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be
no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand
ech ozer.
Den, Ze drem vil finali kum tru.
Yes but esperanto is certainly easier to read.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
If somebody answers with "NodeJS", I'll personally install Windows on your Linux server.
Table-ized A.I.
Right,. English combines the melody of German pronunciation and the ease of French grammar with the simplicity of Latin logic. A beautiful language, indeed.