This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--------------29C74912C6C80DB7A5E438AB
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit



Robert J. Petry wrote:

> [snip]
> >
> > No, when I made my posting, I had not seen your second part. It was truly an
> > exercise in futility. It was base-64-encoded, so to do anything with it I
> > needed to save it in a file, download the file, decode it, upload it, and
> > THEN, discovering the lines were too long for my editor, run a Unix format
> > program to make the lines reasonable-length.
> >
> > I never had any of these problems with anything you posted before. Why did
> > this new thing go so differently.
> >
> >                                 Bruce R. Gilson
>
> Well, I switched to another emailer because someone said they had
> problems with my former posts. So, in trying to fix that, it looks
> like the new email program gives you problems. [Seems you can't win
> for losing. :-)]
>
> I was using Netscape 4.03, and am now using the latest Pegasus.
> Maybe I shouldgo back to Netscape?
>

Well, I will try sending part two with Netscape again. Hope it works properly, and
please excuse this extra post to those of you who did not have problems.!!!!

Bob

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/2464

> http://www.sisna.com/users/Ambassador/index.html
> http://www.freeyellow.com/members/raplinrie/index.html
> http://www.xoom.com/Diplomat
> ICQ1383825
> "Procrastination takes time."



--------------29C74912C6C80DB7A5E438AB
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; name="Nov2.txt"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline; filename="Nov2.txt"

Justification might be argued here by pleading a choice of evils; but it =
is clear that respect for usage has been carried too far when we find alt=
ernative Word-forms permitted solely in order that national prejudices ma=
v be indulged.  In the Novialiste of May, 1934, we are told that " Alread=
y in the Novial dictionary one finds in many places two forms permitted a=
s equally correct or equivalent." Examples given are envia : invidia for =
'envy;' sele : selule for ' cell.' In the same issue Jespersen remarks th=
at an Englishman has expressed his preference for kreatore rather than kr=
eere creator), and says that though he himself has no objection to kreere=
, he also admits words like kreatore, diktatore, kolaboyalore as " entire=
ly in the spirit of Novial." Such variants have no stylistic value in a l=
anguage uncouth beyond literary redemption, and tend only to make the voc=
abulary unstable.  Moreover, in a system which makes suffixes a primary s=
emantic device, they are necessarily a cause of confusion.  It is natural=
 to suppose that a selule is some special sort of a cell --probably a sma=
ll one-and that a kyeatore is a kyeere for whom one has feelings of awe.

We have seen that Novial is by no means completely successful in avoiding=
 what its inventor describes as the " Charybdis of too great conformity w=
ith the irregular chaos of natural languages.  "(1) But Charybdis is not =
courted consistently.  A study of the Dictionary reveals a number of misl=
eading echoes, which indicate a strange disregard for national background=
=2E  The Englishman will be puzzled to discover that farma =3D 'affirm,' =
for =3D 'away,' grape =3D 'clustering bunch;' and the Frenchman no less s=
o to find that cheri =3D ' cher, couteux,' folie =3D 'feuille,' and faire=
 =3D 'free.' And why add further to the confusion bv cherishing bogus rel=
ation-ships, as between chapele (=3Dhat) and kapele (=3D chapel), or jus =
(=3D just) and juste (=3Dright) ?
Having learnt that in Novial, apparently, words are not what they seem, o=
ur Englishman may go on to interpret aje, chipi, drena, and eme correctly=
 as ' age,' ' cheap,' ' drain,' and 'aim' respectively, and our Frenchman=
 may triumphantly restore an agulie into an ' aiguille;' but I

(1)Novialiste, May, 1934, p. 3. This is opposed to " the Scylla of pedant=
ic, rigid schematism," which threatens to seize the affixes in its @angle=
hold.

hardly think so.  But the effort to do so should at least prepare them to=
 accept without protest the ' female uncles ' (onklas) who, in spite of t=
he inventor's respect for the sexes,(1) have to do duty as aunts.
Another point which will strike anyone who studies the Dictionary is that=
 this is a very queer collection of words to be described as " the most n=
ecessary vocabulary of the international language NOVIAL.  "(2) In it we =
find carefully thoughtout equivalents for ' battering-ram,' ' saxifrage,'=
 ' griffin,' ' arquebus,' and a host of other obsolete and rare objects. =
 The chance contents of a dictionary may seem not to bear fundamentally o=
n the efficiency of a language; but when that language is a synthetic pro=
duct designed for utility, and the compiler of the dictionary is also the=
 inventor of the language, the connection ceases to be fortuitous.  For t=
he dictionary Of an artificial language is not an historical record but a=
 manual for use, and its value is impaired by every unnecessary entry.
(1) Jesperen pours scorn on Zamenhof for a similar metamorphosis in the d=
erivation of fraulo'410 (bachelor) from fraulino (spinster), pointing
out that the sex is indicated by - frau.,
(2)Novial Levike, p. 9.


Professor Jespersen's indiscriminate hoard of purely 'literary' words is =
one more testimony to the universal disregard by interlinguists of the ke=
y to their problem, namely word economy.  Novial betrays evidences of thi=
s disregard in the organization as well as in the range of its vocabulary=
=2E  We find semi-puns like karte (map and card) and inkube (incubus and =
nightmare)(1) by the side of synonyms, such as kapaseso and kapasitate (f=
or ' capacity ') and marcha and promena (for 'walk')defects paralleled in=
 the grammatical structure by the indefinite preposition ye, on the one h=
and, and two forms to express the genitive case (de and -n), on the other=
=2E
In Novial, as in its predecessors, an attempt is made to economize the vo=
cabulary by the use of word-building elements, or affixes.  These are mor=
e or less international forms taken from existing languages and defined a=
nd universalized.  The policy cuts dangerously across established modes o=
f speech, though it may give a compensating mnemonic advantage.  There is=
, however, a real difficulty in maintaining consistency, partly because

(1)Yet jespersen prides himself on eliminating =

universally recognized puns like 'bank' and =

organ whose use creates no ambignity.

compariatively few words suggest parallel modifications of meaning, =

and partly because the pull of normal, current usage custs across any sys=
tem.
--------------29C74912C6C80DB7A5E438AB--