Hi everybody, it's been a while! :)

--- Adam Walker skrzypszy:

> Is Jan really working with you on this project?  I haven't seen him post for
> some time.  I wondered what he was up to.

Yeah, I haven't posted much to the Conlang list lately. Lately, well, a couple 
of years actually. Christophe and I have actually one more thing in common 
than just conlanging: we both have made it our life's task to invent the 48-
hour day. But I haven't succeeded yet (have you, Christophe?). And so, I 
simply don't have the time anymore to deal with high-traffic lists and groups. I 
do post a lot to the Slovianski forum though: 
http://s8.zetaboards.com/Slovianski/index/

But don't you worry, I'm alive and kicking. Still spending more than half of my 
time working on conlanging in some way. And while I've been working almost 
exclusively on Slovianski for the last two years, I'm still and artlanger at heart. 

--- Vojtěch Merunka skrzypszy:

> Neoslavonic in an artificial extrapolation (or evolution) of the Old 
> Slavonic language (not the younger Old Church Slavonic, but the original 
> language from IX-XI centuries being also "artifficial conlang" in its 
> period). 

This has always puzzled me, so I started digging a bit. One thing you should 
be aware of is that in literature in English never uses the term "Old Slavonic" - 
it's always "Old Church Slavonic". Later, this language existed in several local 
versions: a Serbian one (later displaced by the Russian one), a Bulgarian, a 
Czech and a Russian one. 

Also, it is very uncertain if this language was really artificial, and if so, in how 
far. As far as I know, it was mostly based on a Macedonian dialect.

> Slovianski started several years ago as modification of Slovio by more 
> natural grammar. 

Ho ho, you're absolutely wrong here! This is indeed what Mark Hucko has been 
saying all the time, but just take a look at his other writings (including his 
antisemitic rants, his pseudo-scientific stuff about the Etruscans being Slavs, 
etc.) and you'll recognise him for the raving lunatic he really is. The people 
who initiated Slovianski back in 2006 had never been Slovio users, and Slovio 
has never a base or even an influence in its development. If there is any 
connection at all, it just that a lot of people have never liked Slovio in the first 
place, and some of them decided to create something different.

Of course, there have been differences in approach, and there still are. Ondrej 
Rečnik advocated a pidgin approach, much like Lingua Franca Nova, for 
example. The idea of the entire grammar and vocabulary being an 
extrapolation of linguistic comparison of the living Slavic languages was 
entirely my idea. 

> Their method is based on making intersections from living natural 
> languages. (They call it "voting machine".) In case of differences or 
> ambiguous results made by the voting machine, Jan prefers 
> protoslavic roots (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Slavic_language).

Yes, that's true. Mind, "voting machine" is just a funny name. It's not that I 
actually use it much for coining words. The idea is that the Slavic languages 
can be subdivided into six groups (I agree with you that the traditional division 
into three has its disadvantages), and that each of them is treated equally. 
Basically, words and grammatical forms are acceptable if they exist in at least 
half of them.

> So, our approaches are pretty similar and we agreed to use the same 
> dictionary in the future. In my opinion, there could be a multi-layer 
> concept of the practically used slavic conlang based on the same 
> dictionary kernel:
> 
> 1st layer - this is the Slovio level. No cases, simple verbal system, ... -
> similar to Esperanto. This language can be good for easy and basic 
> communication of non-slavs with slavs etc. And it works!

I just wouldn't call this "Slovio level". Slovio is just too different from other 
projects to be a candidate for anything. Not that Hucko would even think of 
that, BTW (he mostly raves about interslavic projects being one big anti-
Slavic Jewish conspiracy). But besides, Slovio is clearly a schematic language, 
and there's no way schematicism and naturalism can be merged into one 
language. Any compromise between those can only result in the creation of a 
monster. Besides, adopting Slovio would also imply adopting the Slovio 
dictionary. And be honest: if you take a good look at it, you'll find that some 
10% of the words were randomly picked from the Slavic languages, 90% was 
taking from Russian, and most compounds are calques from German.

Slovio grammar won't qualify either, because it is way to unnatural. For an 
Esperanto-based global IAL with Russian instead of Romance/Germanic based 
roots, that's not a problem. For a language that claims to be "interslavic", it 
mostly definitely is.

I wouldn't bother too much about Slovio. It has had its merits, but that's over 
now. With no more than 2-4 users, it is practically dead.

For this level, I've made a proposal called "Slovianto". The name is a bit 
tongue-in-cheek, I admit. Remember the good old days when Padraic, I and a 
few others were staging a fake IAL flamewar here, 
with "Kernopanto", "Venedino sen Flekso", "Jovianto", "Romaklono" and the like? 
Well, that's where I got the idea!

> 2nd layer - this is the first layer plus more grammar: 6-7 but still 
> simplified cases, 3 verbal tenses, 2 participles, phonetical orthography 
> having only one "i" instead of "i" and "y" and only one "e" instead of 
> "e" and "ie" etc. This is almost current status of Slovianski or similar 
> Slovioski. 

Well, not entirely, Vojta. Slovianski has evolved quite a lot during the past 
year. Slovianski actually DOES have _y_, it's just that South Slavs and others 
who have a problem with it can just as well write _i_ instead. Likewise, 
Slovianski DOES have _ě_, it's just that it is usually not written (but it is not 
forbidden either). This is probably the biggest of the last year: instead of 
having one closed system, I've built in a lot of flexibility.

> This level is almost current status of Neoslavonic, which is shared by Jan 
> as "http://steen.free.fr/slovianski/nauczny_medzsuslovjanski.html". This is 
> also the common basis, we collaborate with.

Yes yes. I hope we can get started very soon!

> In my opinion:
> It is not reasonable to stay in our fixed positions (Slovio, Slovianski, 
> Neoslavonic/Novoslovienski) and take never-ending debates on the same 
> matter of orthography, complexity level, ... in the Facebook and other 
> forums within our group of few people. 

Agreed. Well, you know my opinion: it would be best if we make all Slovianski, 
Slovioski and Novoslovienskij history, and start working on something new 
together, taking our current projects as a starting point. This new language 
should have the flexibility to allow for several options in the field of 
simplification levels and also of regional applications. Choices should NOT be 
based on what Russian or OCS does, nor on what you want or what I want, 
not on what Slovianski does or Novoslovienskij does, but on which choice 
works best under which circumstances. This will, of course, require a lot of 
compromise and also some sacrifice on both our parts, but if we can manage, 
then success is almost guaranteed!

> Moreover, there started recently some hostile behavior among members of 
> this group like unnecessary changes of patterns or words, disputes over 
> authorship, redesigning of already made work, etc.

I take it you're referring to Hucko? Take my advice and neglect him. 

> If we want to put an interslavic conlang into the living practice, we 
> need to have more results, more experiences and more feedback.

Yes, and that is not as easy as it seems. All authors of similar projects have 
problems with that. Just writing something on a forum won't solve the issue. 
Usually, you will get the same sort of response:
- "Cool, I can understand most of it"
- "Useless crap, nobody is going to learn that anyway - get a life"
- "Let's use English/Russian/Esperanto"
As for 2 and 3, these just come with the trade. Don't feel insulted by that kind 
of reactions, because it's normal. Sad but true.
But also be careful with 1. If people say they can understand most of it, that 
probably means that you are on the right path, but it doesn't confirm that all 
your choices were right.
Also, be careful with whom you ask. For example, you said that you got 
positive responses from Poland, but believe me, the Polish conlanger forum is 
not a representative group at all. I know these people: they are all language 
geeks like us, many of them know other Slavic languages as well, many of 
them are very familiar with Church Slavonic, and many of them have created 
their own Slavic artlangs. If they see a Slavic imperfect or aorist, they'll 
probably say "cool". What they forgot to tell you is that nobody in Poland 
would ever understand those forms.
The kind of feedback we really need is like: "Look, you've done a nice job, but 
if you want to improve it, please consider this: [...]". Plus the words from your 
sample that they don't understand (or understand only from context). But 
unfortunately though, it rarely happens that somebody will take the time for 
that.

Cheers,
Jan