Thank you for your suggestions. I appreciate your support and
encouragement, but I appreciate more your critiques and debate.

To answer a few questions:

1. The list of consonants comes from the advice of many sites; however,
I'll point to one specifically: in Richard K. Harrison's "Proposed
Guidelines for the Design of an Optimal International Auxiliary Language
(http://www.magicnet.net/~hrick/optimal.html)," he discusses Rick
Morneau's chart of the world's 25 major languages... 22 of them have these
few consonants (b, d, j, k, l, m, n, p, s, t). Edward Sapir suggests only
p, t, k, s, l, m, n and v; Jason Johnston recommends p, t, k, m, n, s and
l for they are phonologically unmarked.

There seems to be disagreement as to the use of /f/, /v/ and /w/. I have
considered these consonants; I may consider them again. But, as Mr. Moser
points out, /v/ is rare and /f/ and /p/ are often not both found. The /w/
is also avoided for the same reason he mentioned: it is rare in Central
and East Europe, a predominant group needed convincing of an international
language. Of course, the same can be argued with other non-Western
languages... right?

2. Mr. Moser points out that an a-posteriori approach is more likely to
succeed in vocabulary design. This is true: look at Esperanto, Ido, etc...
yet too much debate in the IAL movement centers around favoritism towards
other tounges... this is entirely avoided in a a-priori manner.

3. My apologies for my lack of explanation: I will *most* definately take
a look at other languages, "natural" and artificial, in creating my
language. I don't think I was clear on that. I marvel at many of these
projects, and I think they're a great start. You cannot start from
scratch; what I meant was that I am not going to create another offspring
of one language.

4. Mr. Pasi wrote,"You could actually "apronify" someone. To apron could
be, say, to follow a young woman to her first date, just to make sure that
she does not do any ... with her date." I disagree... this description is
either a metaphor for another term or pure slang, and has nothing to do
with the cloth wrapped around your waist. If I were "to banana" someone,
what idea would come to your mind? Would a banana actually be used in this
process, or something else...? Or, is this what usually happens in an IAL?
Are words generally twisted into these obviously obscure meanings? If so,
would you recommend allowing these strange twists, or find another place
for them among the slang? I know that a language needs these ideas to
allow it to breathe... but with international communication, is that
absolutely necessary?

5. The language has yet to be named. I'd rather not do that until further
into the project.

Not much was said at all on my question of tenses... what tenses, moods,
etc., would be optimal in an IAL?

Thank you! :-)

Brian P. Batch
Box 10061
Otterbein College
Westerville, OH 43081-2006 USA