+-----------------------------------------------+
|                                               |
|            (-:   VORTPUNOJ   :-)              |
|       ^Jurnalo de nenecessaj lingvoj          |
| Nur alia eldono, la 31-an de februaro, 1992   |
|            S. Brewer, redaktoro               |
|             brewer@cs.wmich.edu               |
+-----------------------------------------------+

IN THIS ISSUE OF VORTPUNOJ:
        Lingvo de la monato: Diptolongo         By So:l Daleb Kap
        Porpoise Poetry Revisited               By D-ro M. Bontrompon
        A contest!

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Lingvo de la monato: Diptongalo

        Diphthongalo                            Diptongalo

Diphthongal was created by a speech     Diptongalon kreis parolada
theripist to help his patients who      terapisto, por helpi terapatojn, kiu
had trouble pronouncing or              malbone diras a^u komprenas
understanding diphthongs.  The          diftongojn.  La fonemoj de la lingvo
language's phoneme set consists         estas nur diftongoj kaj la vokaloj,
entirely of diphtongs together with     kiu konsistigas ilin.  Ties aboco
the pure vowels that make them up.      konsistas tute de ne-normaj signoj,
Its alphabet consists entirely of       sed, estas norma transliterumado per
non-standard characters, but there      du-literaj kombinoj por ^ciuj
is a standard transliteration using     Diptongala litero.  Jen la aboco:
two-character combinations for each
Diphthongal character.  Here is the
alphabet:

a   e   i   o   u                       a   e   i   o   u 
au  eu  iu  ou  ui                      au  eu  iu  ou  ui
aw  ew  iw  ow  uj                      aw  ew  iw  ow  uj
ai  ei      oi                          ai  ei      oi
aj  ej      oj                          aj  ej      oj

The words were selected so as to        La vortojn oni elektis por fari, ke
make pronouncing and understanding      diri kaj kompreni la diftongojn
the diphthongs critical for             estu gravega por komprenado.  Oni
comprehension.  This was done by        faras tiun per devigi, ke rilataj
making related words differ only by     vortoj malsamas nur pro tio ke unu
one having a two-vowel phoneme and      havas du-vokalan fonemon kaj la alia
the other a diphthong.  Some            diftongon.  Jen ekzemploj:
examples:

ei      yes                             ei      jes
ej      no                              ej      ne

ui      right                           ui      dekstre
uj      left                            uj      maldekstre

euuj    inside                          euuj    interne
ewuj    outside                         ewuj    ekstere

********************************
Porpoise Poetry Revisited

Multaj homoj skribis al ni por demandi pri la "Porpoise Poetry" de S-ro F.
Foceno en la lasta numero de Vortpunoj.  Ni, kompreneble, turnis nin al
Profesoro Mifaras Bontrompon je la Porpoise Linguistics Institute.  Jen
lia responda^jo:

In recent email with the Editorial staff of Vortpunoj, I received the
following message which is purported to be poetry written by a porpoise.
My assignment was to produce a translation of the meaning of the poem,
with the understanding that the poetic nature of the original might be
lost.

This task was considerably more difficult than the usual run-of-the-mill
assignment translating geckos or cockroaches.  Although non-standard
transliterations are quite common, in this case the choice of
transliteration scheme nearly rendered the task impossible.
Representing porpoise speech entirely with the characters "E" and "e"
meant that much of the nuance of the individual words was lost.

However, I believe I have accomplished the task.  Standard
representation of porpoise speech, which consists of a
pitch/volume/duration triplet for each squeak.  Of course, the original
is lacking in all three of those values.  However, we made the
simplifying assumption that the number of "e" characters correspond to a
duration, we also assumed that the capital "E" characters indicated a
higher volume than the "e" characters.  We created for each squeak an
estimated *range* of possible values, based on our simplifying
assumptions.  Then, we ran a computer matching program that generated
every possible word that the might be indicated.  In several cases there
was only one possible word.  Based on these we could eliminate some of
the possibilities for other words, in some cases due to grammatical
impossibility and in others on consistancy in meaning.

Here are the results of our efforts:

Glossary

E               I-see-it [via echo-location]
                seaweed
                tentacle
Ee              good-luck!
EeEeEeEe        right [correct, exclamation of agreement]
Eee             thermocline 
Eeee            behold or to-bite-the-flukes of
EeeeEeeeE       underneath-and-to-the-right
EeeeeEeeeeE     go-for-it [exhortation to strive, whatever the odds]
Eeeeeeee        so-near-and-yet-so-far [exclamation on the unatanable]
                you've-almost-got-it
                you're-almost-there
Eeeeee          look-out [exhortation to take care]

> Eeee! Eee!  EeeeEeeeE?

Behold!  Look underneath that thermocline and to the right!

> EeEeEeEe....  E E E!

Right....  I see it!  There's [seaweed or tentacle] there!

> Eeeeeeee.  Eeeeeeee.

So near and yet so far!

> Eee! Eeee!  EeEeEeEe!  E!

At the termocline!  Look!  You can get it!  The [seaweed or tentacle]!

> EeeeeEeeeeE?  Ee!

Go for it!  Good luck!

> Eeeeeee.  Eeeeee.  E!  E!

You're almost there! Look out!  I see it!  The [seaweed or tentacle]!

> E!  E!

I see it!  The [seaweed or tentacle]!

E E E!

I see it!  The [seaweed or tentacle]!  I see it!
**********************************

        * CONTEST *                             * KONKURSO *

The designers of a new langague are     La planantoj de nova lingvo ser^cas
seeking input.  The person who          sugesta^jojn.  La homo, kiu sugestos
submits the most useful suggestion      la plej uzindan ideon, tiu ricevos
will receive free a signed limited      senpage a^utografitan eldonon de The
edition of The Complete Grammar of      Complete Grammar of Simplang, lingvo
Simplang, a language mathmatically      matimatike pruvita havi la plej
proven to have the smallest possible    malgrande eblan gramatikon.
grammar.

Input is sought for the design of       Sugesta^jojn oni ser^cas por la
Inoffensish.  This language is to       planado de Inoffensish.  Tiun lingvon
allow people to make statements         permesas, ke homoj faru asertojn,
about the world that won't offend       kiuj ne ofendos iun ajn.  Ekzemple,
anyone.  For example, these two         ^ci tiuj du frazoj tradukus al la
sentences would translate to exactly    tute sama frazo:
the same sentence:

   In 1492 Columbus discovered             Je 1492 Columbuso trovis ameriko
   America and brought                     kaj portis kristanismon al la
   Christianity to the new                 nova mondo.
   world.

   In 1492 white europeans began           Je 1492 blanka e^uropanoj
   a centuries-long program of             komencis centjaroj-longan
   genocide against native                 programon por gentmortigi 
   Americans.                              kontra^u indi^genaj amerikanoj.

In Inoffensish both sentences           En Inoffensish, amba^u frazoj
would mean something like:              signifus promksimume:

   In 1492 Columbus opened the             Je 1492 Columbuso malfermis la
   new world to Europeans, which           novan mondon por e^uropanoj, kiu
   has had profound effects,               por pralo^gantoj de norda ameriko
   both good and bad, for                  faris gravajn efikojn, kaj bona
   aboriginal North Americans.             kaj malbona.

The purposes for this langague          Oni uzos tiun lingvon por pacigado,
will be for use in mediation,           diplomatio, presraportoj de grupoj
peace studies, diplomacy, press         tiuj, kiuj bezonas registaran
releases by groups dependent on         subtenon, ktp.
government funds, etc.

Send in your suggestion now!            Ensendu viajn sugesta^jojn tuj!

--  Fin --