The Name Game

Names are a nuisance, especially for auxlangers. Consider the following:

Petrus Peter Pietro Pedro Pierre Pyotr

What do they have in common? They all begin with "p" and have an "r" further on. If we increase the level of abstraction, we can add more. But from a practical standpoint, what do you call someone whose name derives from Greek Petros?

Natlangs have trouble with this too, and there is no single answer. Do you translate the name—"Pedro" in Spanish, "Pyotr" in Russian, and so on—or simply reproduce the original? The original is more likely most of the time, but it may create problems: How do you write (or pronounce) "Shakespeare" in Esperanto, for example? Do you write it as in English, with perhaps the pronunciation in parentheses? And which pronunciation? The British themselves don't pronounce the "r," at least not in the Esperanto fashion, yet Ŝekspiro is common enough. In Inlis I'd use Shekspia, I suppose.

Anyway, the modern, somewhat smug answer seems to be, "Just use the original form."

How clever!

How ignorant!

What if the original form is obscure or problematic? Do we use "India" or "Bharat," for example? "Bharat" is well-known in its own area, but among the target demographic so is "India" (or anyway "Indi-"), and without the troubling "bh-" sequence. It's good to honor the local name and pronunciation, but it's only ethically required, I think, if we mean to replace the original: if the goal is to supplant the languages of India, we may as well retain "Bharat" as an epitaph. But if we work to leave the original languages in place, it's not so pressing.

You can also see this in the Bible. Zamenhof retained more Hebraic forms a lot of the time. Thus "Isaiah" (a wonderfully variable name anyway) becomes "Jesaja," and "Judah" becomes "Jehuda." (Yes, I know: this assumes an English standpoint. Guess what language we're using right now.) And then there's the matter of YHWH, however you want to pronounce it.

About all you can do is try to find a rule or guideline you can follow consistently. I'll give an example next time.

Inlis: Importation and Homonyms

The main thing to remember when importing vocabulary into Inlis is that you will be importing nouns--not verbs as such nor adjectives as such. However, the forms may look like adjectives or (less often) verbs.

Verbs are imported as verbal nouns, and they generally end in -in: tinkin (thinking), wakin (working), wokin (walking), and so on. The reason for this ending is that -ing can suggest a noun or participle (and -en a participle), thus indicating the usage, and the marking as a verbal noun can avoid homonyms: rid (reed), ridin (reading); rait (right, privilege), raitin (writing). To avoid unwanted diphthongs, use -en instead of -in for roots ending in -a (rare--in fact, I can't think of an example right off) or -o: noen (knowing), goen (going). We also use -en after -i: sien (seeing, sight), not *siin. After -e we use -yen: breyen (braying), freyen (fraying), preyen (praying, prayer).

On the other hand, phrasal verbs don't use -in: bloap (not *bloenap, much less *bloapin), setap, wakaut (workout), etc. This generally coincides with English usage.

We seldom use -ion forms unless they are more common than the verb: neshan, opinyan, etc. Thus "creating, -ion" is krietin, not krieshan, which may however be used for the religious idea: Dem tok dibetin da krieshan oa da evolushan (They debate creation or evolution). Similarly, "sight, vision, seeing" is (as noted above) sien; vijan is vision in the mystical sense or that of what a visionary has.

Adjectives are imported in the shortest, simplest form unless that creates a homonym. Thus "wise" is wais, not wisdam, though the latter is more distinctive. Also hai (not *hait), waid (not wid, which means "weed"), and so on.

For nouns as such, we sometimes resort to the plural to avoid a homonym: tri "three," tris "tree"; bi "be," bis "bee."

In some cases, however, homonyms are acceptable. Thus, both "coat" and "court" become kot, but "court" will normally be lo-kot ("law-court"). But in compounds lo- will normally be dropped: kot-haus ("courthouse"). This won't keep punsters and fantasy-writers from construing it as "coat-house," nor is there any danger in such a move.

We try to avoid final consonant clusters, so the final consonant usually drops: impotan ("important"), esperantis ("Esperantist"), but esperantisam ("Esperantism").

This doesn't cover everything, but it should make current choices more intelligible and help someone who wants to import a form do so accurately.

Next time I'll sketch the grammar, which should explain some of the quirks we've already encountered.