Post JpiEKgzSHC5

Paul Strack Mar 20, 2018 (01:04)

I am still working on how to handle neologisms in Eldamo. One issue I have is there are a number of “well accepted” neologisms that I think should be treated differently. Some of them are so well accepted that I think many people don’t even think of them as neologisms anymore.

The best (and perhaps only?) examples of this are Noldorin words beginning with rh- or lh- adapted into Sindarin by changing the initial letter to r- or l-, such as ᴺS. raun from N. rhaun:

http://eldamo.org/content/words/word-1675525471.html

I am thinking of marking such words with a recycle symbol: ♻️. That way these “well accepted” neologisms can be more easily distinguished from the more dubious ones that I am adding.

I am also planning on adding a “source” for neologisms, such as NQNT for those pulled from Helge’s Neo-Quenya New Testament. It may be a while before I get to that, though, so I am thinking of the ♻️ symbol as a stop gap until I get around to more detailed sourcing.
Eldamo : Neo-Sindarin : raun
N. rhaun adj. “errant”. Reference ✧ Ety/RAN ✧ “errant”. Cognates. ᴹQ. ránen “errant” ✧ Ety/RAN. Derivations. < ᴹ√RAN “wander, stray” ✧ Ety/RAN. Phonetic Developments. ᴹ√RAN > rhaun, [rānen] > [rǭnen] > [rǭne] > [roune] > [raune] > [raun] > [r̥aun], ✧ Ety/RAN.

Ицхак Пензев Mar 20, 2018 (17:35)

erta- and yuhta- are among them, too, IMHO

Paul Strack Mar 21, 2018 (00:03)

+Ицхак Пензев I am going to start conservatively and expand only after I get confirmation from the community.

Upon further reflection, I’ve decided to leave the “well accepted” neologisms with no icon, and put the recycle icon on the more dubious ones. A less experienced student is more likely to use the unmarked entries than the marked entries.

Leonard W. Mar 21, 2018 (02:30)

This is a great initiative. However, I do not believe your solution runs the risk of introducing a collection of symbols with different meanings, effectively adding clutter to what is today a pleasant, monochrome experience. Moreover, I do not believe the recycling symbol is especially intuitive.

How about you categorize neologisms the same way as you group words by language? Categorization could be "established neologisms" and "experimental", but it can also be specific derivation approaches, such as root reversal (S. *sa "beside" :) ).

It would add more overhead, but it would give you more options in how to visualize the glossary. Furthermore, it would enable you to add filtering functionality based on derivation approaches.

Paul Strack Mar 21, 2018 (06:56)

+Leonard W. You raise some good points. Some of these things will be less of an issue than you might think, though.

First, the emoji icons are limited to the Neo-Eldarin sections. The old Eldamo language sections (Quenya, Sindarin, Noldorin, etc.) will remain clutter free.

Second, you should think of the current Neo-Eldarin word lists as working drafts. These word lists include every possible Neo-Eldarin word, with markers for what is included and excluded, and additional markers indicating the “reliability” of particular inclusions or exclusions. These word lists are aimed at experts, not beginners, to help them understand the rationale being my decisions.

The ultimate goal is to use the Neo-Eldarin working drafts to produce curated vocabulary lists for two major languages: Quenya and Sindarin. These curated lists will be very streamlined and have only two reliability levels, either “attested” (unmarked) and “unattested” (marked *). The curated lists will be aimed at beginners who are willing to accept my word choices.

I also have some vague hopes of soliciting feedback from the community at large on my choices, but I am not sure how practical that is. I am pretty sure that there will be something somewhere in the choices I make that will annoy everyone. Getting people to agree on specific neologisms is by itself a big challenge; getting people to agree on a shared approach to Neo-Eldarin design may be impossible.

Nevertheless, I intend to move forward for my own edification, accepting the possibility that the end result may be a Neo-Eldarin dialect used only by myself.