Learning a Language Together

[Highlander]

Or rather, learning an invented language together.

I saw this on another forum I occasionally go to. Would anyone be interested in learning a language together, as a group?

First off, any suggestions? I would say that, for now maybe, we hold off on doing the more famous ones, such as Tolkien's Elvish, or Esperanto, or what have you. It will need to have a complete enough vocabulary and grammar that it can be usable, of course.

 

[Prometheus_2300]

Did the Romulan dictionary ever come out?

 

[False Dmitri]

How about Volapük? It seems fitting for an alternate history forum. There's an introductory tutorial site: http://personal.southern.edu/~caviness/Volapuk/VolVifik/volvif00.html

 

[Highlander]

We have one suggestion - is anyone else interested?

When we have enough suggestions I'll make a poll.

 

[Zuvarq]

Maybe something on Conlang.wikia.

 

[Sachyriel]

I think we should expand Nasdat or Newspeak, they seem appropraite for our forum.

 

[Konrad13]

Ya'll forgot Xisaro?

 

[thekingsguard]

Or rather, learning an invented language together.

I saw this on another forum I occasionally go to. Would anyone be interested in learning a language together, as a group?

First off, any suggestions? I would say that, for now maybe, we hold off on doing the more famous ones, such as Tolkien's Elvish, or Esperanto, or what have you. It will need to have a complete enough vocabulary and grammar that it can be usable, of course.

I consider myself fluent in Nadsat

 

[Zuvarq]

Ya'll forgot Xisaro?

We never finished it, though. Plus it's hella difficult to pronounce.

 

[ZombieSlayer54]

I'm all for this once you guys figure out whatever language you want to learn. Being mono-lingual is getting sort of boring.

 

[Highlander]

I consider myself fluent in Nadsat

That's nice. Remember, I said we would learn a language together.

We never finished it, though. Plus it's hella difficult to pronounce.

Ya'll forgot Xisaro?

While a novel idea, I don't think that project turned out too well.

I think we should expand Nasdat or Newspeak, they seem appropraite for our forum.

Eh. I think except for maybe expanding vocabulary, I don't think it would be best if we have to alter or add on to the language.


With this all in mind, any other suggestions?

 

[Zuvarq]

I think we should learn something real that we don't know. Perhaps sort of scarce, but not necessarily, just something different from Indo-European stuff.
Because learning a conlang is useless unless it's Esperanto or Interlingua.
Basque? Nahuatl? Arabic (I know that several people on here know it, but only a few people will be in this project anyway)? Ancient Egyptian? Bantu? Yucatec?

 

[Highlander]

That is an idea, too. There are plenty of rare languages waiting to be learned (however I think resources for some of them are only in print form, which would prove difficult).

But learning a conlang is intellectually satisfying, even if you won't run into people who speak it.

 

[False Dmitri]

Well, I'll still shout out to Volapü. It's obscure but still has an online presence (see: Wikipedia ). As an alternate history project, it's fun to imagine a world where it became the most popular conlang. It was written by a man because God told him to in a dream. No disadvantages, as I see it.

 

[thekingsguard]

http://www.soomka.com/nadsat.html

For all of you droogs who wish to use your gullivers for Nadsat.

 

[Highlander]

I think it would be interesting if, whichever language we choose, we develop a system to gauge how many fluent speakers we have amassed. Whether this is developing a test or what have you.

Others may find it lame, but oh well.

 

[Zuvarq]

I think it would be interesting if, whichever language we choose, we develop a system to gauge how many fluent speakers we have amassed. Whether this is developing a test or what have you.

AH.com is trying to spread Arabic, it is a terrorist organization.

 

[miocid]

Maybe Mandolorian would be interesting. If you want to do real languages, arabic, nahuatl, tibetan or coptic sound interesting.

 

[Sachyriel]

I consider myself fluent in Nadsat

http://www.soomka.com/nadsat.html

For all of you droogs who wish to use your gullivers for Nadsat.

Ehhh, Nadsat and Newspeak mesh together double-plus Horrorshow.

 

[Leo Caesius]

I'd be interested in doing something along these lines, and would second the suggestion of Volapük, but with one caveat: let's learn Classical Volapük, none of this newfangled Revision of 1920 nonsense. Post's 1890 grammar is even freely available through Google Books.

If you need inspiration to learn Volapük, try reading this article from the Village Voice or Stephen Fry's first novel The Liar which is about a secret society that uses Volapük as their in-language.

Failing that, I'd suggest something like Coptic, since that is a language that I don't know and I really ought to learn someday for my job.

I would even suggest setting up a Sakai page and manually adding interested parties to it, so it would be just like taking an online course at my university, but the only complication is that I'm about to disappear off the face of the planet in a week or so and won't be able to manage things until the end of March at the latest.