Re: List of natlangs

Joshua Shinavier wrote:

> so I won't be here to maintain the natlang list -- we need a volunteer
> to take over; Carlos?
Since I just rejoined, I'm not quite sure what this is for -- is it justsome li'l
intellectual exercise, or do y'all need it for something?
Hmm...

> The list is still incomplete, and really the blank entries I've typed in are
> just suggestions; the ideal list would have not just countries and languages,
> but even major cities, ethnic groups etc. so that it would be easy to
> translate any important foreign name into a conlang.  But this will have to
> do for now :)
Other possibilities off the top of my head:

Ancient langs (mostly extinct):
Ugaritic
Minoan Linear A
Minoan Linear B - early dialect of Greek
Lydian - A(sia) M(inor)
Lycian - AM
Luwian (aka Luvian) - AM
Hittite - AM
Hieroglyphic Hittite - AM
Elamitic - Fertile crescent
Thracian - B(alkans)
Ilyrian -Bal
Dacian - Bal
Oscan -It(aly)
Umbrian - It
Sabine - It
Venetic -It
Etruscan - It
Messapic - It (?)
Hieroglyphic Akkadian - FC
Sumerian - FC
Vedic Sanskrit
Pali - a la the Buddhist Sutras
all the Prakrits (Gujarat, Hindi, Bengali, etc.)
   (in this column, their ancestral proto-forms of course)


Protolangs:
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Romance
Proto-Italic
Proto-Germanic
Proto-(every other branch of IE)
Proto-Sinitic - East Asia
Proto-Hamitic -Africa
Proto-Semitic - Middle East
Amerindian - well, duh :)
Nadene - northwest North America
Eskimo-Aleut - really really northwest NA
Proto-Salishan  - ditto

(then for the last two, their modern correlates:
Inuktitut
Wahatch Salish (I'm not sure that's the name)

Random weird fun langs:

Tukano - (an interesting li'l lang in present day South America: the
people have a social taboo that one must marry outside one's
native linguistic group, which means _everyone_ is bilingual prettymuch)Remo [re'mo], a
small tribal language spoken only by a few
hundred or thousand people in Northern India (it's one of those interesting
Austronesian languages that's nowhere near where it should be).
Fun fact:  they have only one word for both green and blue.

Have you looked on the Human languages page?  That has lots of
info there

<http://www.june29.com/HLP/>


=======================================
Tom Wier <twier@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

  Seek not to know what must not be reveal'd,
  joys only flow where fate is most conceal'd.
  Too busy man would find his sorrows more
  if future fortunes he should know before;
  for by that knowledge of his destiny
  he would not live at all but always die.
 - the god of Dreams, in Purcell's
   _The Indian Queen_

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