Conlang Critic: Novial

/ hbmmaster
seximal.net
the NEW longest ever episode of Conlang Critic! this was really fun to make. I almost forgot how much I like analyzing international auxiliary languages. shoutout to Kate for helping with the script!

[@anthonymccarthy4164]

I'm getting tired of scrolling through all of those comments so I'm starting a new tread here.

[@palatasikuntheyoutubecomme2046]

First of all, I acknowledge that it wasn't grammatical gender Second of all, I get it. People were sexist, okay! But, isn't Esperanto getting continuously updated? Should an update be there that stops the blatant sexism? Third of all, In the discord you said that Sonja was an Esperantist, we replied that Zamenhof was a Volapukist, you said that what obviously happened was that Zamenhoff improved Volapuk, and I agree, Esperanto is an improvement over Volapuk. But Novial gets rid off the accusative case, it's an improvement over Esperanto, and Lingwa De Planeta gets rid of the Eurocentrism. Are you a Lideplist?

[@anthonymccarthy4164]

@@palatasikuntheyoutubecomme2046 As I recall it, I WAS THE ONE WHO POINTED OUT THAT ZAMENHOF HAD TRIED VOLAPUK, I never said Zamenhof improved Volapuk, Esperanto is a totally different language ONE WHICH ZAMENHOF HAD BEEN WORKING ON BEFORE HE BECAME INVOLVED WITH VOLAPUK. I am the one who has, also, had to point out, over the course of a few years, that when Sonja Lang translated her supposed inspiration for toki pona, the scriptures of Taoism, that she translated them not into toki pona but into Esperanto which is capable of carrying the meaning whereas toki pona isn't. Your analysis of the "improvement" done by getting rid or the accusative case is obviously not shared by those who choose to learn Esperanto with the alternative of Ido - which is actually related to Esperanto - or Novial. Since Ido was first published c. 1900 and Novial in 1928, probably every single person who has chosen to learn Esperanto in the past hundred twenty years has rejected that "improvement". If it were such an improvement, I have no problem thinking that a far larger, probably most Esperantists would have jumped on the Ido or Novial bandwagon, both of which, notably, didn't attract many from Esperanto. I would guess that most of those who bothered familiarizing themselves with either were, in fact, Esperantists. I suspect if Esperanto had replaced the flexibility of the accusative with rigid word order designation of the direct object you guys would be whining about the rigid word order as being a defect. The only thing wrong about the accusative that I've found is that virtually no textbook I've seen gives it an effective amount of time or examples that are needed to learn it IN ANY OF THE MANY LANGUAGES WHICH HAVE IT AS A FEATURE. Your claim that the use of the affix -in is "blatant sexism" is as stupid as any claim you have made. If it is "blatant sexism" then so is the retention of all such linguistic designations of gender in regard to people and animals, not to mention those which assign gender to inanimate objects -NOT the same thing as grammatical gender which I will note you have not admitted to be wrong about. English, MOST LANGUAGES have such linguistic designations of gender, it would be impossible to compose a document asserting the equal rights of women without using such linguistic designations. The actual presence of those designations is not an expression of sexism. Thinking about your comment, I remember seeing a comment posted online in which it noted the flexibility of Esperanto, of the kind which you created absurd examples I've never seen in any other context, gave it a unique ability to clearly express gender-bending concepts surrounding sex and gender, the use of the gender inclusive prefix ge- with even gendered words - the example I remember was "geonklo" in which an "uncle" of inspecific gender enters into mind - would certainly dissolve your claim that it is a "blatantly sexist" language. I would suspect that an Esperanto group would tend to be significantly less sexist than the ambient society it existed in at least 9 out of 10 times. In my experience Esperantists are significantly less sexist than KZbin comment thread rats.

[@palatasikuntheyoutubecomme2046]

@@anthonymccarthy4164 Novial wasn't based on Esperanto, neither was Esperanto based on Volapuk. They both took a great deal of inspiration from what came before them and IMPROVED what came before them. They were not in any way based on each other like you are trying to imply. Also, if ge is a gender neutral thing, then why isn't geknabo a word

[@palatasikuntheyoutubecomme2046]

@@anthonymccarthy4164 I am the one who has, also, had to point out, over the course of a few years, that when Sonja Lang translated her supposed inspiration for toki pona, the scriptures of Taoism, that she translated them not into toki pona but into Esperanto which is capable of carrying the meaning whereas toki pona isn't. No, she did so because she was an Esperantist. Zamen hof translated many Esperanto related stuff into volapuk you know!

[@anthonymccarthy4164]

@@palatasikuntheyoutubecomme2046 I am unaware of any extensive translation by Zamenhof into Volapuk, what do you base that claim on? He did make extensive translations into Esperanto so as to test and subject his theories to something like an actual test - something virtually no other inventors of proposed international languages have done. One thing, though, Zamenhof certainly understood what you guys don't, the biggest potential audience for a pitch for an alternative IAL are those who went to the bother to learn one already. Those who have learned Esperanto know better than a bunch of non-learners of an IAL that it works, you would have to overcome that fact as well as the actual largest number of users of any constructed language and the body of literature in the language, much of which is rather good, to convert us. I'm sure Sonja Lang knew that which is why she didn't pretend she was inventing an IAL when she invented toki pona. I am sure Sonja Lang, unlike you guys, is smart enough to understand that the Taoist scriptures contain ideas that toki pona cannot express. If she tried to translate "The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao/ The name that can be named is not the eternal name// The unnameable is the eternally real/ Naming is the origin of all particular things," into toki pona she would, no doubt, have found herself floundering in uncompounded compounds to try to approximate the meaning, especially in context, of just about every noun, adjective and verb in that or any of the other English translations I've seen of it. I would think it would be relatively easy to translate it into Esperanto or Ido or, perhaps, though I am not that familiar with its vocabulary, Novial. She may have been inspired to invent a "language" of 120 words by the ideas expressed in the Book of Tao, figuring to reach the unnameable "eternally real" by avoiding calling most things what they are but it isn't even useful for translating those ideas.

[@appleislander8536]

Really there needs to be a separate category for "Eurolang". That's what most IALs have historically been, and it would allow languages like Novial to get credit for what they *are* good at.

[@tompatterson1548]

Basically zonal IALs for europe

[@josephshlanta8870]

Eurolang concept: it's just latin

[@GuiSmith]

@@josephshlanta8870 I mean, you could try harder and do a slightly higher branch of proto-indo-european, but that would just be more trouble than it’s worth

[@earthone4939]

Eh, although Esperanto has mostly European words, I don’t think that disqualifies it for being an IAL, it’s quite different to languages like inter language because it takes a rhetoric approach to making a language easy making it easier to learn for people around the world compared to other auxlangs which are designed to mimic specific groups of languages.

[@spaceisntgreen3578]

@@GuiSmith that actually sounds really interesting. it could be called eschato-indo-european, or something. neo-indo-european? if i knew more than english and some russian, i’d totally do it. might do it anyways regardless for laughs.

[@iamwhatitoture]

As a German myself, I like the "What is Germany called" test

[@iamwhatitoture]

To add, german fails at Japan

[@zozzy4630]

Personally, I think maybe it should have been the "What do you call Deutschland? Test" as a proof-of-concept, but it's still an important consideration regardless of the name .

[@festerdam4548]

I mean, I have no problem with people calling Germany Germania or Alemanha or something else, as long as most people around the world are familiar with that term. I'm pretty sure that more people would link Germania to Germany more than Deutschland to Germany. Most people in Germany are probably also familiar with the term Germania, today.

[@meta04]

Oh also Deutschland has potential of leading to confusion with the Netherlands: Deutsche sprechen Deutsch in Deutschland (Germans speak German in Germany) Nederlanders spreken Nederlands in Nederland (Dutch speak Dutch in the Netherlands)

[@The_name105]

Germany doesn't have an actual name because it is just a group of states that formed a nation. Alemania is what some languages call it because alemania was a germanic country also german comes from latin germanus and sibling or relative is the best translation of what it means because german is the brother language of latin and thus germans are. I think it is best to call it germany from latin germania land of related language and germans to be called germanians because they are OF the brother land and tongue rather than they themselves BEING the brother of the romance languages since germanic peoples aren't just in germany and I guess the entire german population world wide would be the Germandom. Though I would prefer that everyone called it deuchland, dutchland, or deuchia/dutchia simply because that is what germans call germany though dutch is english for deuch but we use it to describe nederlanders and the -ia ending is from latin. calling them dutchlanders would be wierd so we should stick to our romanized maps and romanized names.

[@altrifrancobolli]

The "what do you call Germany?" Test may now be my favorite part of this show lol. Season 3 is fantastic!

[@AriaLunaCampbell]

I hope languages that pass the "what do you call germany test" also get put to the "what do you call Japan" test cause I could certainly see some of these eurocentric auxlangs getting Deutschland right but not Nihon. Also, maybe a "What do you call China" test too cause, as obscure as it may be to westerners, it will be important to the many, many people who live in that region and speak languages from it. Of course, though, this is just something I think would be cool. I'm more than happy if he keeps doing what he does. :D

[@qwertyTRiG]

@@AriaLunaCampbell I kind of feel that "What do you call Finland" might also be a little fun.

[@crosisbh1451]

@@AriaLunaCampbell I feel like Japan gets a little more leeway because Nippon is another name for Japan in Japanese, and Japan is believed to be derived from a Chinese pronunciation of Nippon, but should still be given the German treatment nonetheless. Represent ALL native country names.

[@2712animefreak]

@@qwertyTRiG Yes but with Finland you have the extra problem that Finland has two official languages, so "Finland" is also correct. Similarly, you end up with the problem of "what do you call Switzerland" or "what do you call Belgium".

[@mehrheitler]

Surprisingly, Klingon also passes.

[@fernandobanda5734]

Love the added production value (the What's the Most Commonly Spoken Language Whose Consonant Inventory Is Incompatible with That of This Particular International Auxiliary Language? segment).

[@Wonderland_Jutomi]

That was top quality content. I was so shocked when that happened, made my day. xD

[@conanhighwoods4304]

Scribblenauts!!!

[@TheRojo387]

I challenge those who should accept my challenge to create an Afro-centric IAL; this would make more sense being that Africa, not Europe, is the birthplace of humanity itself!

[@PhantomKING113]

@@TheRojo387 There's not realy many people in Africa for how big it is. Also, some people in Africa wouldn't realy realice it happened. If Esperanto didn't make it in Europe, with less Internet connection, I don't realy think it could succeed. Also, besides that, when a eurocentric interlang is created, it can be based on Latin and that works for most of Europe and all of America, 2 continents. In Africa, I don't think there's any language family that covers most of it. Europe is small, Africa is not. What would make the most sense would be an Asian interlang, but that isn't easy either. Sorry for possible missplellings, English is not my first language.

[@EnriqueLaberintico]

SOUNDS THAT MAKE /h/ UPSET

[@atrinoc0207]

I am LOVING these much longer, more in depth episodes!

[@Katieushka]

Tbf it was kinda needed from the start, now the show is above average quality at least and im happy for that

[@ingwerschorle_]

Dude I need your username

[@RedOctober_]

I think the issue with having a consonant inventory that's compatible with the 20 most spoken languages is there won't be enough cosnonants to reproduce words from source langs also arabic doesn't have P sound i can imagine that would make difficulties

[@Ghi102]

As a french speaker, the "h" sound from english is pretty hard to learn for french speakers. Very easy to drop it (so that "hat" sounds the same as "at").

[@primalaspie]

I'm an English speaker, and I don't really use the "h" sound all that much. I normally just use a glottal stop. "Hey, how are you doing?" becomes (with glottal stops being ') 'ei, 'æo yə duɪn

[@frank_calvert]

@@primalaspie did you just write /jə/ as yə

[@primalaspie]

@@frank_calvert I'm not very good at the IPA yet.

[@Xnoob545]

I speak english pretty good (not native) I cant actually say the h sound alone but I can say it while saying house or words with h

[@milkflys]

@@Xnoob545 cant say it alone? what does it sound like when you take a big sigh?

[@OrangeC7]

Census Taker: "What is your favourite show, and which segment makes you enjoy that show?" Me: "What's the Most Commonly Spoken Language Whose Consonant Inventory Is Incompatible with That of This Particular International Auxiliary Language?™"

[@Xnoob545]

ORANGEC7

[@blaizecramer6052]

I really like this longer video format, and I really like the direction this channel is going in. I'm seeing more work put into these videos and I love it. It rly has come a long way, especially comparing the first video to this one.

[@daviddechamplain5718]

It's almost like inventing a language that's universally easy to learn is impossible.

[@iwanttoliveinsoutheastasia2952]

Because it is. All languages are different, you literally can't create a language that suits perfectly the peculiarities of mandarin, russian, English and Spanish, to say a few, specially in grammar.

[@zozzy4630]

Toki pona apparently did it by accident, if you ask Jan Misali up there.

[@davinchristino]

Eh I don't think toki pona is still a good interlang, it is still a good artlang though

[@ighao6032]

exactly! but still, *minimizing* bias towards one language, one group of languages or one continent is still *essential* for an universal IAL, even though perfection is clearly impossible

[@ricardooliveira9774]

@@ighao6032 I agree.

[@notaninstrument7707]

If French doesn’t have h, how do they say hon hon hon?

[@jakubpociecha8819]

I guess it's just an erray of nasalised /o/'s

[@kharris3352]

Like the video said, it’s a quite easy sound to make and a lot of languages that gain an “h” through a sound change, do so by just accidentally adding it to the beginning. The issue is being able to pick out an h in rapid speech. Someone who’s very familiar with the language could do it, but someone who isn’t would have to train themselves to do it. Not a good feature when you’re going for recognizability

[@levaChier]

They don't. Though "ha ha ha" is very common and pronounced approximately the same as in English. Despite that, French people learning English have a hard time with that sound as the letter 'h' is completely silent in French. They either don't pronounce it at all, or randomly stick it to the beginning of any word starting with a vowel in an attempt to correct themselves. Which gives funny things like «How old are you?» becoming either «'ow old are you?» or «How hold are you?»

[@georgeandrews1394]

@@levaChier Yeah, I remember one of my French teachers having the ' _h_ our' problem.

[@SnoFitzroy]

The first two replies are precisely correct. Edit: *first Also, background: I took three years of French. Thjey don't pronounce beginning H like how we generally don't pronounce ending E. so "hon hon hon" sounds like "ON ON ON" but more nasal

[@willowbarrelmaker8269]

Personally, I think you should still rank interlangs. It makes sense not to rank artlangs, but interlangs all hand very similar goals.

[@mehrheitler]

Not similar enough. Like, Interslavic would be the best interlang ever if you rank them by achieving their goal. But it’s obvious that approximating a bunch of pretty similar languages is far easier than approximating all of the languages in the world. After all, how would you treat these eurocentrized ones that don’t know Asia and Africa exist? How do you compare them to those who take it to an account?

[@thomasjenkins5727]

Or rather, rank IALs.

[@EzraBradford]

15:58 "It _is_ weird seeing one of the source languages be something that isn't actually a single language." Oh, like the ever-popular source "Chinese". :P

[@1000eau]

Oh, it's just a popular way to name Mandarin, which is even said in Chinese (中文)

[@satouhikou1103]

​@@1000eauWhich is also inaccurate. Putonghua is the correct term.

[@pokeflora]

i love the “what do you call germany” test. (and similar tests)

[@sictoabu9611]

I was binging KZbin in the dark and the thumbnail scared me. The same thing happened when the Dothraki episode came out. How in the world am I scared of simple shapes? Maybe I think of them as ominous when they float above the ground in the middle of my corridor.

[@Desert_Rose_]

Jervik Hsien Serrano man you really wouldn’t like high contrast photos of fruit floating ominously in the night

[@elemenopi9239]

oh hey, i didn't know you were here lol

[@wyla5896]

Maybe you have trypophobia

[@chloeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee]

ok but where is the love for “welcome to the shovial novial” at 3:37, that line is genius

[@richetherapperinductionsol9155]

20 minutes of conlang critic? What?!

[@aslankhalilov1045]

You should review the new Ithkuil when the reform will be out and compare it to old version. It would make such an interesting video

[@Pining_for_the_fjords]

What reform?

[@mfultimate]

@@Pining_for_the_fjords the new ithkuilic language, aka tnil, aka ithkuil v4, is coming... eventually. its development was largely community-influenced, but John Quijada semi-recently got tired of the bickering and strife in the community and decided to just finish up whatever he'd made already and publish it. it's still not out as far as i'm aware, and it's hard to find info on what happened and is happening, but it's a thing apparently. ithkuil.place and the discord server should have more info if you're interested

[@EnriqueLaberintico]

"thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time, where I'll be rereviewing Ithkuil."

[@__donez__]

18:16 "Of course, this is irrelevant because objectively speaking base ten is just horrible, and any that wants to be viable sh-" 😂😂

[@bradykeith3993]

JAN MISELI IF YOU SEE THIS JUST KNOW I AM INSPIRED BY YOU I LOVE YOU

[@alejrandom6592]

ew

[@elliottsampson1454]

*jan Misali

[@ingwerschorle_]

Ah yes, I see you're a man of culture as well

[@cueiyo6906]

🤣🤣

[@markykid8760]

16:00 "Scandinavian" is probably closer to being one language than "Italian" if you're counting all different dialects in Italy. There's a lot of dialectal difference but mutual intelligibility especially across Sweden and Norway. In the end it's just tiny things like ha and bli

[@njjj2688]

If he's trying to make it easy to remember…WHY GIVE THE NOUNS GENDER

[@aspol12]

because it was 1928 lol

[@samiraperi467]

@@aspol12 Finnish didn't have genders even then.

[@EnriqueLaberintico]

What's wrong with grammatical gender? As long as you make all inanimate nouns neuter instead of making it random.

[@l_alphy]

@@EnriqueLaberintico german why

[@EnriqueLaberintico]

@@l_alphy no, like this: every animate noun can decline by gender for more information (masculine, feminine or neuter), but inanimate nouns are neuter instead of having random genders like in Spanish.

[@calvakianlastname9009]

I am SO happy that you had a lot of fun making this! This is my favorite episode yet!

[@iamveryconfusedabout]

I'm always really happy when you upload

[@majkus]

"Actually, it seems to me, too, that technical improvement of the machinery, either aiming at greater simplicity and perspicuity of structure, or at greater internationality, or what not, tends (to judge by recent examples) to destroy the "humane" or aesthetic aspect of the invented idiom. This apparently unpractical aspect appears to be largely overlooked by theorists; though I imagine it is not really unpractical, and will have ultimately great influence on the prime matter of universal acceptance. N___, for instance, is ingenious, and easier than Esperanto, but hideous -- "factory product" is written all over it, or rather, "made of spare parts" -- and it has no gleam of the individuality, coherence and beauty, which appear in the great natural idioms, and which do appear to a considerable degree (probably as high a degree as is possible in an artificial idiom) in Esperanto -- a proof of the genius of the original author..." --J.R.R. Tolkien in The British Esperantist, 1932. 'N___' is almost certainly Novial.

[@regalrayquaza7609]

I really have been enjoying these longer videos, keep it up. Personally, I think these newest two are of higher quality than any before it. In some previous episodes, I felt you went way to in depth about the phonology without showing any example sentences, but your newer videos certainly give a much better picture of what the conlangs are like for viewers. I also appreciate you taking time to satirize your own segment with the consonant inventories. I always found that form of criticism to be a very fussy, extremely theoretical way to criticize an interlang. These newer videos are awesome, keep up the good work.

[@godofgamer5316]

i clicked with no idea what i was watching and you know what, its nice and i have learned quite a bit

[@gustavovillegas5909]

The quality of this episode really surpassed my expectations! Nice work

[@chalcedonycoral1943]

Ah, so that's what your ideals are for gender in language. Ya, that's a reasonable system. Also, I like how this episode includes your reading a long piece of text translated to this language. It's useful. Been missing things like that in many other episodes.

[@jonahwoodward503]

The guy who created Novial is also the guy who coined the term “conlang”.

[@markusoliverasagtg9704]

I hope this becomes a meme like Vötgil

[@zozzy4630]

I like how the only optional case markings are for the accusative case. So someone could easily say a sentence they think means "the man gave the dog a bone" but the listener thinks means "the dog gave the man a bone"

[@dashiellpepperman6611]

Is the song at the end from rhythm heaven? It sounds like it but I’m not positive Edit: I just saw the video about rhythm heaven memes, that clears things up

[@eclipsion136]

1:54 ok, second thing I just recently noticed... some sort of *yes-person*... you sir, are genius

[@xenoblad]

Would it be best to make a unifying European language and a unifying African language and so on for every regional language family, instead of jumping to a global language right away? Or do you think capitalism will eventually just force everyone into English, and none of this matters? Granted, that last question might be out of your wheelhouse.

[@mickmickymick6927]

There's like 4 or 5 African language metafamilies.

[@appleislander8536]

The thing is, in the cases where that would be useful (the region being more connected to itself than to anywhere else), they generally *have* a "regional language" already (Hispano-America has Spanish, North America, Australasia and Western Europe have English, Arab World has Arabic, West Africa has French, Northern Eurasia has Russian), and in other cases, they do (and should) use English, the global language.

[@finndriver1063]

A dude in the Esperanto community proposed (though I'm sure that someone has thought of this before) a conlang which would have an equivalent word-inventory for each major language family, and consistent grammar between them. Although someone speaking Romance-style Lang wouldn't understand someone speaking Sinitic-style or Semitic-style (for example), translation - especially computerised - would be extremely easy by directly converting each individual word. The script and terminology become little more than display-settings. Barrier to entry would also be low, as each family could have it's own unifying phonetics and phonology; and there would probably be a lot of crossover with native languages. Learning a 'second language' for travel or work becomes as easy as learning a set of synonyms with flashcards. Effectively, rather than a language that's universal by being unnatural, it would be global by being similar to many languages. It would be a monumental undertaking of course; a single word-inventory is difficult enough, but it's basically what you're talking about: an intermediary/initial set of sort-of-languages that would converge into a global language, rather than trying to start at the end-result. I thought it sounded like an interesting idea.

[@chalcedonycoral1943]

Meh. It's simple question, really. Capitalistic elite will have things cushy and fun. Common people from the street? Those will be utterly f*cked and tricked. That's a constant. Exact language assimilation strategy is irrelevant... Jokes aside, there will always be some friction between elites. And there will always be a need to point your fingers at Group living in region G and say "they are evil, listen to their evil language, lets murder them and steal all their money, incidentally weakening elite member G in the process". So I think that makes it pretty attractive to keep few languages around. And any powerful block might benefit from using language G as new standard. Having standard language might be beneficial for science and trade and engineering and medicine, if it's designed reasonably well. But with different languages you can more easily create conflicts and hamper communications. What's important is the point of time when technological singularity happens before human extinction or if it never happens. Other questions are dust, I think. After singularity happens rules of game would be wildly unpredictable.

[@appleislander8536]

@@chalcedonycoral1943 In the long term, standardised language use, at least within economic and intellectual spheres, is beneficial to everyone. It is much more effective for economic development and prosperity, which in this day and age is what is important for the "capitalist elite". As the world is no longer a zero-sum game, those that draw their wealth from the production and consumption of others benefit most from a large middle class that can produce and consume, generating wealth within society, from which the "elite" draw their own wealth.

[@lukeishere3579]

i know people are good without the ranking part, but i personally like it. if you come back to this series, please consider it

[@damara1546]

"clearly a distinction shouldn't be made between the sounds /tʃ/ and /ʃ/" *cries in argentinian*

[@teacul]

This is great. I love how you're coming up with heuristics for judging auxlangs. Like your "what's the largest language whose phonetic inventory is incompatible with it" test or the "does it call this nation/culture/language by something other than what they call themselves" test. You should write a book about what you've learned in reviewing conlangs. There probably isn't much of a need for it for most conlangs since their uses and purposes are so variable. But a structured system of judging international auxlangs can be very useful since they all have a common goal. Another simple test is the size of their phonetic inventory. I'm sure you could come up with more

[@taududeblobber221]

i þink having a well-designed inventory is alot more important þan having a small one: see zese and poliespo's invs of course having þe inv be too larġe would still be bad, but not _as_ bad? still, i still þink þat ċoosing the correct phonemes is important.

[@EsperantoVarietyShow]

I (reluctantly) made a video called "Which Conlang would be the best International Auxiliary Language?" - It was much more popular than I expected, so I made a follow up video. I've been meaning to continue the series, but there are more ideas than time to make videos, really. In the meanwhile, KZbin has started showing me your videos - which is kind of nice. I can't help but thing, though, that there really isn't a whole lot of difference between the "Euroclones" - certainly not enough to get bent out of shape over. In fact, I run a discussion list (and now FB group) based on the mutual comprehensibility of Euroclones like NovIAL.

[@IvanSN]

Oh dad's back from the store

[@drewstillexists]

Excited for this one. I've been learning Novial, so I can't wait to see Jan Misali shit all over it, lol.

[@nm425]

Why are you learning novial

[@yeezet4592]

How are you learning

[@ruimiguelteixeirasilva]

as a portuguese, I learned how to pronounce "h" thinking like it was an Portuguese "r" And it's really funny that many English linguists do that, just reversed

[@booloffs.3912]

Really good episode, I loved the "compatible consonant inventory" segment.

[@WhizzKid2012]

He should do it for vowels too

[@claytoncoe838]

I just noticed the Quiz Show theme in the background at 3:12, nice easter egg (?) (and the sound effects for each compatible language)

[@michaelkindt3288]

@1:13-.-OK, but you have to do a conlang tier-list after the end of the season.

[@HoneydewBeach]

First new uploads from other channels, and now this! Thank you, jan Misali!

[@averagejoey2000]

Congratulations Otto! You made Spanish, from scratch

[@DWithDiagonalStroke]

And you didn't even need almost 1000 years of natural language evolution!

[@suplerb]

I’ve never been more confused and simultaneously interested

[@dextrodemon]

i was thinking maybe it might be good to go over the colours as well as the numbers. colours change from language to language and it's usually an interesting reflection on the people who speak it. there's the well known case of people wondering if the ancient greeks could even perceive colour specifically, and extra distinct colours which we don't have in english like that russian blue. there's also generally a specific way in which colour language develops, so it could say something about like an artlang that's supposed to be primitive or very sophisticated, for example. just a thought, maybe conlang people never think about it much and so it's all just the same stuff.

[@NatoBoram]

The hell do you mean French doesn't have H? We say it in interjections (hé), laughing sounds (haha, héhé, hihi, hoho) and animal noises (hiii-haaan)

[@maiku20]

I enjoyed the presentation. Appreciate the work you put in.

[@McRaylie]

I’m really loving this new season

[@hieronyma_]

官话 isn't used as much as 普通话 when referring to Mandarin.

[@adastra553]

To expand on this, 普通话 Pǔtōnghuà, Common Speech, is the term used on the Mainland (PRC) to refer to Modern Standard Mandarin Chinese In Taiwan (ROC), it is instead called 國語 Guóyǔ, the National Language. Hong Kong uses both, though as it is part of the PRC, 普通話 is preferred officially In Southeast Asia, namely Singapore and Malaysia, the term 华语/華語 Huáyǔ, Chinese Language, is used Other common terms include 汉语/漢語 Hànyǔ, Han Language; 中文 Zhōngwén, Middle [i.e., China] Writing; and 中国话/中國話 Zhōngguóhuà, China Speech, which generally refer to any or all topolects of Chinese, but are proscribed to mean “Mandarin”, much in the same way the term “Chinese” works in English Finally, the term “Mandarin” is calqued from Chinese 官話 Guānhuà, Official Speech, which was the language used by officials (that is, mandarins) during the Ming and Qing Dynasties - this specific language is often called “Late Imperial Lingua Franca” in English The development of these terms came from the need to separate Classical/Literary Chinese from Vernacular Chinese around the turn of the century; the term “Guóyǔ” entered into use during the Qing Dynasty to refer to Late Imperial Lingua Franca and passed into usage by the Beiyang and National Party’s ROCs, instead referring to the formal vernacular that had been born out of Guānhuà. The PRC also initially used “Guóyǔ”, until 1956, when they officially switched to “Pǔtōnghuà” - a term that was already a favourite of left-leaning intellectuals and writers - to again distinguish between the formal vernacular and the popular vernacular

[@Ty4ons]

Putonghua is standard Mandarin, Guanhua is the linguistic name used to refer to the dialect Mandarin which is much more varied than the standardized form.

[@Asymmetrization]

came here to say this

[@Asymmetrization]

@@Ty4ons wait can you elaborate please

[@Ty4ons]

​@@Asymmetrization It's kinda like the standardized versions of English. With General American a group of people sat down to write all kinds of grammar and pronunciation rules, but if you travel around the US you'll find people speaking their own dialect of American English. Same with most countries. Chinese has many different varieties that are very different to each other and the most spoken of these is Mandarin which itself has a lot of variation and is spoken over a very large area. Standardized Mandarin was worked on in the 1900s and the Taiwanese and Mainland versions are so similar because the work started before the civil war. Before this written Chinese was mostly in Classical Chinese and very different to what anyone spoke so they tried to make a standardized variety based off the Beijing dialect of Mandarin Chinese since that would be much easier to learn.

[@gem157a]

This was a great episode, especially with higher production quality and the longer, more in-depth analysis.

[@WhizzKid2012]

Underrated

[@zozzy4630]

10:35 The -um suffix is a way to turn adjectives into nouns, and it technically forms part od the neuter gender class in that sense. The whole "rendered as a 'thing'" bit isn't bijective: -um words are "things," but not all "things" take -um. He lists examples like "verum" from "veri" and "falsum" from "falsi;" and he actually also gives the translation "li bonum de ti situatione es ke..." "what is good in that situation is that...", showing that he really did mean a "circumscription of 'what is'" and not "an answer to the question 'what is..?'" It works fairly well as the Novial alternative to -ness, but it's difficult to describe that function in an unbiased way that doesn't just refer to a few examples from natural languages. I actually ended up on this page by searching "conceptual or national neuter": nov.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AIL_Neut

[@HBMmaster]

yeah that makes more sense than what I understood it to mean. you win THIS time, yesperson.

[@coktatlveiyidirkahramankag5893]

@@HBMmaster @jan Misali

[@eclipsion136]

How is this the first time I noticed he says "welcome to the shovial Novial" xD 3:37

[@solarprogeny6736]

French people know how to make the H sound and do it without any problem. Source: I'm French.

[@haraldvicaire2503]

Je plussoie

[@muhtesemsiyanur]

Also the french can be used for , they're both dorsal

[@DTux5249]

MUCH.... LEMTH... I love this longer format

[@TaiFerret]

I've been thinking of making an IAL for quite a long time. I think I would give it a CV syllable structure, or perhaps with an optional nasal ending at most. A lot of IALs seem to like consonant clusters way too much. As for vocabulary, I think I would use a lot of Chinese based roots, but I fear that with the simplified phonology I intend to use and lack of tones, there could end up being a lot of homophony like when the Japanese borrowed vocabulary from Chinese. Maybe I should try to keep the number of roots low and use lots of compounding. Perhaps it could even be optionally written in Chinese characters.

[@sharkatzor]

im just binging this and i absolutely love the use of rhythm heaven music, you have amazing taste sir

[@Kraigon42]

While personally I kind of enjoyed seeing you rank conlangs against each other and thought it gave a window into your personality, I think it's also why people apparently see you as a "meanie" (no joke), so I can see why you would drop it.

[@4orinrin]

The cut when you started ranting about base 10 was gold

[@TubeHeader]

You should make an IAL, you seem pretty qualified based on all of these videos

[@mal1cious_]

i started brushing my teeth while watching this and the frequency that my toothbrush vibrated at was the tonic of the outro music. just thought that was a fun coincidence

[@zionj104]

KZbin unsubscribed me from your channel! I know I didn't unsubscribe, and I specifically remember two months ago seeing the subscribe button and thinking _Why haven't I subscribed? I've watched the entirety of the first two seasons!_ If this happens again, we need to form a mob.

[@rubbedibubb5017]

Love the long episodes with more grammar stuff and spoken samples and that ”total number of speakers” thing 😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@tokipona9582]

French actually has /x/ used in loanwords. jota [xɔta]

[@Flowtail]

you're constantly bringing up The Gender Thing which, as an afab enby, is heartening to hear every time :)

[@rubbedibubb5017]

I just found out that Otto Jespersen is a danish linguist who created a dialect alphabet for danish which i like!

[@kriosuranous3440]

I think someone has fell in love with the Rhythm Tengoku series in the past couple months.

[@mschuhler]

very amused that the passive of becoming is denoted by "bli", which is just unapologetically stolen straight from North Germanic languages (at least the only two i know, Swedish and Norwegian) edit: 15:50 lmaooo okay i prolly shoulda just continued watching

[@thefakepie1126]

btw as a french speaker , I can say "h" is not the only sound we don't have , it's the rolled "r" sound that's the hardest for us to learn , the HUGE majority of french speaker can't pronouce rolled r because in our language we pronounce r like a weird dry gargling sound that sound like donald duck chocking on salty glass shard (IK , very elegant way to describe it) , also most of us can't pronounce the english r either , we usualy approximate it with a "w" sound (or don't approximate it at all and just speak in a french accent) , also when I say french I mean france french , cuz there's also quebec french and other french that have different accent

[@finndriver1063]

CC: "Maxim boni means best" Also CC: "Minim boni means least good" Me: **screams** Also, for anyone wondering, an Esperanto reform is to use the "-iĉ-" suffix for masculinity, and the neutral pronoun "ri". Most Esperantists as far as I know actively use these, though admittedly it's not yet officially accepted. It's progress at least.

[@xavierreichel8254]

That was my first reaction, but think about it. "Worst" is the superlative of "bad", it's not any degree of "good", even if "least good" is an awkward periphrasis of it.

[@finndriver1063]

Yeah, just struck me as odd to use a conventional translation for one and a literal translation for the other. I was expecting "most good" and "least good", maybe also noting that "mali" is the word for bad (I believe). It's the same in Esperanto, you have most/least (plej/malplej) and good/bad (bona/malbona), and various permutations for nuances that we don't really have in English with "best/worst". Of course, this is all overarched by the fact that it was a joke, and I'm really just proving how petty I am :)

[@주안석-c3v]

p. 134 of "An International Language" lists '-iste' and '-isme' as substantival suffixes, and "Novial Lexike" contains the words 'optimisme' and 'pesimisme'. Therefore, I think it is permissible and understandable to use 'optimi' (best) and 'pesimi' (worst).

[@mymo_in_Bb]

"hello i am yes person" gets me every damn time. one of the funniest things I've heard recently.

[@DanksterPaws]

I have a proposal. How about we make a eurocentric one, asia centric one, afro centric one, and all big-language-group centric ones. And then use those to create the internal one. So we can split the work when it comes to figuring out what word is best

[@4thalt]

3:36 Welcome to the showvial, Novial

[@gwest3644]

Novial kinda seems like the “Do it Yourself” IAL, given how many rules are left up to the whims of the speaker, which certainly make it easier to speak, but could cause some issues for a listener or reader.

[@TheRealOvaIzzy]

20:06 I swear to god every time he says this I feel like it's about to roll into a sponsored segment

[@casperchristiansen2458]

I think Esperanto is still a more accessible auxlang. Definitely euro-exclusive and thus not really an IAL, but still better structured and planned. Now if we could just fix that gender issue. Great work, jan Misali. You're doing God's work! ; )

[@dakit3724]

Definitely loving the longer vids!

[@Katieushka]

Wait, why are you judging LFN as a global ial when it's clearly focused on communication between romance countries?

[@Queer_Nerd_For_Human_Justice]

I think "focused" is the key word here

[@zozzy4630]

It was claimed to be easy enough to learn that anyone could use it: it's not called Lingua Franca Europa Nova, after all. But he says at the end that even though it's really Eurocentric, it's that "least bad" Eurocentric interlang he's seen, and he did place it right next to Toki Pona.

[@vulpes7079]

​@@zozzy4630 It's not called that because 1) That's a dumb name, and 2) do you know why it's Lingua Franca NOVA instead of just Lingua Franca? That's because it's inspired by the Mediterranean Lingua Franca, which was pretty dominantly Romance. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Lingua_Franca

[@zaph9790]

i mean, i understood the sample with zero effort as an english native and spanish learner, but i think that’s the problem. it’s SO romance it’s insane

[@hya2in8]

4:55 Spanish actually does have /ʤ/(as in "yo"(/ʤo/) one of the first words learned by just about anyone who's ever heard of Spanish), /ʝ/ is an allophone of /ʤ/ not /j/.

[@mariolappano2153]

Well, depending who you ask, /ʝ/ can be considered an allophone of /j~i̯/ (a syllable-initial allophone, where the alternation is made predictable by defining syllable boundaries; in fact, word-initial /j/ never occurs, so this seems like a sensible analysis to me), which would make /ʤ/ an allophone of both (but postalveolar pronunciation of ⟨y⟩ is very rare as far as I know, /ɟʝ/ would be a far more common realisation as an affricate). I think the point stands that there is no way of distinguishing a word-initial /j/-equivalent and /(d)ʒ/-equivalent for a Spanish speaker (so that ‘_yune_’-young one-and ‘june’-June-would be homophones), and word-internal distinction would be based on redefining syllable boundaries.

[@Dudedubba]

I think it makes sense to rank IAL because most of them are created to fulfill the same objective. You can rank the languages that got closer to meet this objective.

[@catholonelbridget1072]

Could we have Sindarin or Quenya from LOTR please, I'd love to see an analysis of that

[@yeezet4592]

How do I like, uh, learn this. This sounds really good.

[@sitamshrijal]

Conlang request: High Valyrian from Game of Thrones by David Peterson.

[@sitamshrijal]

@@drmilkweed Yeah, it's gonna be in the next season. Very excited :)

[@verylostdoommarauder]

5:14 Then how do you pronounce "histoire", "habiller" or "heureux"? Even if some French speakers pronounce them without the h, it wouldn't be that hard to teach them the 'h' noise.

[@eufalesio1146]

tbh If I were to make an IAL I would make the grammar very simple and intuitive but the vocabulary completely made up (maybe even computer-generated) so noone can say it's Eurocentric or *place*-Ocentric and so everyone has the same difficulty learning what the words mean ex: pulo tapa kalete (word-for-word: I like noodles) ps: this is a serious joke

[@BabayChannel]

or more like: linja pan li pona tawa mi

[@Queer_Nerd_For_Human_Justice]

@@BabayChannel I like tp too, but tp is loan-word centric so is a bad example of this concept. as far as i recall, the spread of country-of-origin for tp's lexicon is not super diverse. toki pona tawa ma lon

[@IkarusKommt]

It will not be "auxiliary", then.

[@lescitrons]

grammar that is intuitive to you may not be intuitive to other people. It is very often not just the vocabulary of a language that makes it eurocentric.

[@swfreak258]

Welcome to the shovial, Novial!

[@evanrobbins8872]

Thanos is to use the infinitive stones!

[@LeBonkJordan]

is there a list somewhere of which languages have which sounds that you use for the WtMCSLWCIIIwToFPIAL segment?

[@eufalesio1146]

im up for WMCSLWCIIITTPIAL season 2

[@fishslappa3673]

At 8:24, grave accents are no longer used in Standard Indonesian orthography.

[@manueltoledo9346]

I don't understand how people can difference between 'b', 'v' and 'β'

[@mrboomward]

I don’t think many languages have all three.

[@zozzy4630]

/β/ is extremely difficult for me to tell from the other two, but distinguishing /v/ from /b/ is fine only because I speak English. I don't get how Arabic distinguishes between /ɣ/,/x/,/ʕ/,/ħ/, and /h/ though and that's one of the most widely spoken languages globally.

[@palatasikuntheyoutubecomme2046]

@@zozzy4630 I... as an honourable person on the other hand, can make all these distinctions although I only speak english. Oh, and by the way there are many more distinctions that I can't make so don't think I'm a narcissist (Although then again my innitial statement was a joke)

[@taududeblobber221]

@@palatasikuntheyoutubecomme2046 same

[@TalysAlankil]

For a long time as a native french speaker from Belgium i thought singling out /h/ as something French speakers can't pronounce was silly, but in recent years, having gone to France a lot, I realized it was just my bias as someone who was taught Dutch in school at a young age. A lot of French people, if they bother to pronounce /h/ at all (many act like in french where it's mostly silent, approximate it with the rhotic, which surprised the heck out of me. So I felt the need to come back to this and say, i'm sorry for doubting you lol

[@Scio_]

So, is there a modern IAL? Not being snarky here, I would just like to look at a worthy contender. At least before a video is made :)

[@jordandehart6905]

Pretty sure it's just English at this point.

[@WayneRossi]

Lingwa de Planeta is an interesting recent addition. It’s more global than the old pan-European / Romance based auxlangs, so that may prove more interesting than something like Esperanto or LFN.

[@ajoajoajoaj]

@@WayneRossi I personally prefer Dunia. To me it is far more ethnoculturally neutral in typology and functional vocabulary and much more etymologically rational and coherent, while still having the same goal of an ideal balance between legible recgonizability and true internationality. Unfortunately doesn't have the resources and name brand recognition of LdP though.

[@marcelineraber]

Lol, the "what do you call Germany test" cracked me up so much. I think it's so hilarious how much it changes by language what it's called, but what I find almost even funnier, is that Ivory Coast is over there making sure we don't call it Ivory Coast, because it's Côte d'Ivoir, and they act like they need everyone to call it that and not even a literal, direct, and RECOGNIZABLE alternate name, and like Germany isn't just dealing with everyone calling it whatever they want with no apparent relation to their actual name.

[@micuestion66]

Primero: me gustaría felicitarte por tu canal. Es bueno encontrar una mirada mas neutral en estos temas, admitiendo que todos tenemos nuestros favoritos y que nadie es 100% neutral , pero yo diria que tu lo logras al 95%. Debo decir que me sacaste un par de lagrimas al ver que evaluaste tan mal a interlingua, mi segunda favorita. Segundo: me gustaría que opinaras sobre mi favorita: GLOSA. Tercero: He reflexionado sobre la posibilidad real que una lengua sea internacional sin ser la lengua nativa de ninguna nación, y me he dado cuenta que es imposible… a menos que ya exista. La mayoría de las personas aprenden otros idiomas por finalidades prácticas. el inglés es de facto la lengua franca actual, es un hecho. Hollywood y sus películas son habladas en inglés, porque los videos juegos son hablados en ingleses, porque las bandas de pop, rock, metal etc. y la gente quieren entenderlas y por eso lo aprenden. Pasa lo mismo en el mundo de los negocios o en el académico. No quiero decir que creo que el inglés sea esa “lengua internacional” , creo que dentro del vocabulario ingles hay elementos más internacionales que ella misma:el vocabulario grecolatino. Te voy a dar un ejemplo tomado de la caja de un producto que compre que aparece una frase en varios idiomas: Produits et systemes electriques (francés) Electrical Products and sistems (ingles) elektrische produkte und systeme (alemán) Productos y sistemas eléctricos (español) prodotti e sistema elettrici (italiano) Elektrische producten en systemen (holandés) productos e sistemas eléctricos (portugués) elektriskel ürünler ve sistemler(turco), Elektriska produkter och system (servio), produkti i systemy elektryczne (polaco). Como vez las palabras griegas (ἤλεκτρον, σύστημα) y latinas (productus) han pasado a ser comunes en la mayoría de las lenguas europeas y no pocas no-europeas. Acaso el mismo nombre de la REPUBLIK INDONESIA no es latin (res publica) y griego (¬-nesia es griego y significa “islas”)siendo este un país del sureste asiático? First: I would like to congratulate you on your channel. It is good to find a more neutral look on these issues, admitting that we all have our favorites and that nobody is 100% neutral, but I would say that you achieve it at 95%. I must say that you took me a couple of tears to see that you evaluated so badly to interlingua, my second favorite. Second: I would like you to comment on my favorite: GLOSA. Third: I have reflected on the real possibility that a language is international without being the native language of any nation, and I have realized that it is impossible ... unless it already exists. Most people learn other languages ​​for practical purposes. English is de facto the current free language, it is a fact. Hollywood and its films are spoken in English, because video games are spoken in English, because pop, rock, metal bands etc. and people want to understand them and that's why they learn it. The same is true in the business world or in academics. I don't want to say that I think English is that “international language”, I think that within the English vocabulary there are more international elements than itself: the Greco-Roman vocabulary. I am going to give you an example taken from the box of a product that I bought that appears a phrase in several languages: Produits et systemes electriques (French) Electrical Products and systems (English) elektrische produkte und systeme (German) Products and electrical systems (Spanish ) prodotti e elettrici system (Italian) Elektrische produce in electrical system (Dutch) products and electrical systems (Portuguese) elektriskel ürünler ve systeler (Turkish), Elektriska produkter och system (Serbian), produkti i systemy elektryczne (Polish). As the Greek (ἤλεκτρον, σύστημα) and Latin (productus) words have become common in most European languages ​​and not a few non-European languages. Perhaps the same name of the REPUBLIK INDONESIA is not Latin (res publica) and Greek (¬-nesia is Greek and means “islands”) being this a country of Southeast Asia?

[@micuestion66]

Entiendo bastante de ingles, pero no lo hablo, asi que recurri a google, aun que asumo que entiendes español.

[@iwanttoliveinsoutheastasia2952]

Concuerdo totalmente en que hacer una lengua internacional es imposible. Incluso voy más allá, pues yo no cargo con ningún tonto prejuicio hacia Estados Unidos, Reino Unido o a Europa en general. El inglés *YA ES* el idioma internacional por excelencia: su gramática es muy simple. A pesar de tener un inventario fonético algo grande y, digamos, exótico para muchas partes del mundo, y que su ortografía sea un juego de memoria, es innegable que sigue siendo lo mejor que se tiene, y sí somos pragmáticos, es lo mejor que hay. No necesitamos otro idioma, cuando el inglés se habla en lugares tan remotos como Bután, sabes que ha penetrado hondo en el mundo, y a muchos nos parece un mero capricho/berrinche el querer imponer lenguas como el esperanto (todavía muy eurocentrista) en todo el mundo.

[@miki890098]

Me, an Italian, thinks that it's about time we actually get a euro centric ial (or maybe eurlang?) since for example in the USA they already have something that allows such a huge federation of countries speak the same language, and it's English..