Kalusa: War of the Words
| From: | Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, May 24, 2006, 20:00 |
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It's interesting to watch the "war of the words"
developing on the Kalusa free-for-all site!
Some are offering stict CV words and some are using
consonant clusters. There are a lot of reduplicating
words emerging, and a lot of people voting them up or
down. Some are using short words and others are
offering longer, more comoplicated words. Which will
prevail?
Some are compounding words to create new words and
others are insisting on using particles with the root
words for derivation. Some are attaching suffixes
while others are attaching particles with a hyphen,
and still others setting the particles apart from the
root word.
It's almost as if there are two "dialects" of Kalusa
developing that I've been thinking of as "Slavic
Kalusa" and "polynesian Kalusa". The two seem quite
alien to each other, and the words don't seem to mesh
together in a single sentence.
By this weekend I hope to have a new page with the
first 100 standardized and graded sentences that will
allow visitors to offer alternate translations and
vote on the various versions. Once that happens it
will be interesting to watch the battles over what the
"true" translation of such common, yet currently hotly
contested words and "man", "father", and "mother" will
be. Which "man/woman" faction will prevail, the
"ezikize/kalemaze" faction or the "andru/adesa"
faction?
Will "da" become the definite article that some are
trying to make it as in "Ma vito da palu", (I see the
cat.) or will it be reserved for the meaning "the one
which is..." as in "Ma vito da ruba" (I see the red
one.)?
Will "kia" be reserved for linking adjectives to
nouns, or will it be used as the possesive link as
well? The partilce "a" is trying to become exclusively
the possesive connector as in "palua a ma" as opposed
to "palu kia ma", but "kia" as the possesive is
putting up a good fight. Which will win out?
Stay tuned for the excitement as graded, standardized
sentences are added to the mix in the next few days.
--gary
http://kalusa.fiziwig.com
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