Angos

[razlem]

Thanks

I actually need to update the grammar on Scribd, some of the stuff has changed a little bit.

[razlem]

So I tried to do a vlog speaking Angos. My American accent is so strong, I need to work on my vowels XD

The actual details of the vlog are fairly personal, so I'll leave it up to other speakers to translate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB5fCwFbGs4

[Ashucky]

If you want other people to be able to watch the video, you should first make it public and not keep it private.

[razlem]

Oops, yes, I suppose that would help XD

[Ashucky]

Now it works. And it sounds pretty great, good job. Maybe you could include the text in the description under the video (or here)? Not the translation, just the text. I'd love to follow the text as you say it, even though I don't understand a word (except one or two that I actually understand)

[razlem]

I think I accidentally deleted the script I used. When I have some time I'll transcribe it.

[razlem]

Finally finished this damned grammar guide.

Now I just need critiquing. If anyone would like to go through it and tell me what they think, that would be fantastic

http://www.scribd.com/doc/125403899/Angos-Grammar

[language learner]

On a first glance, this transitivity/causativity thing still buggs me being completely Eurocentric. Essentially, there are two groups of verbs - the first one are the normal transitive ones; the second one are usually intransitive in natlangs. In Angos when they have an object (X1 verbs X2) they represent exactly causativity (X1 makes X2 to verb) - take for example ota. The thing is such causativity can't be done for the first group of verbs, they would require some other method and in this way there'd be asymmetry in this auxlang. The causativity thing would be a part of the word definition.
Wouldnt ayni/aynu rather mean only?

[razlem]

Yes, there are two sets of verbs, but it's hardly Eurocentric. As far as I can tell, transitive and intransitive verbs are universal. You can't use an intransitive verb transitively because the arguments are fixed. But they are not in Angos. The meaning changes depending on the presence of an object. And because of the strict SVO order, there's no confusion about the recipient of an action.

Wo gulava to – [[1ps] [gravity+action] [2ps]] - I cause you to fall
Because an object has been introduced, it forces the verb to become transitive. In this case, the only transitive option is causation.

I don't think it creates asymmetry though, quite the contrary. I'm allowing transitive verbs to be used intransitively ("wo via"), and intransitive verbs transitively ("wo gulava to").

And yes, "ayni/aynu" should mean "alone/only". Is there a place where it says something different? If so I'll go back and fix it.

[language learner]

Yes, in one place it says it means lone. There could be confusion if it means both alone and only - would ayni omo mean alone man or the only man? Both may fit certain contexts.
There's other polysemy that bothers me - why is there one modal for both permission and ability? In an auxlang such thing should be unambiguous. There are some other words which I can't recall, but one is that b- thing - why can't you just create a seperate root for such different concepts as knowing, having, taking?

[razlem]

ayni means 'singular', and aynu means 'singularly/in a singular manner'

Fi omo ayni - this person is alone (no one else is near them)
Ayn omo ala - one person eats (there may be others near them who are not eating)
Fi ayni omo ala - this single person eats (no one else around, eats by themself)
Fi omo aynu ala - this person only [singularly] eats (there may be others around, but they choose to eat by themself)
Fi omo he ala - this person only eats (they do nothing else but eat)

The combination ability/permission is pretty common cross-linguistically, I don't think there would be any problems as long as there's context; more roots would just create more nuances. For b- and others, same reasoning. Though keep in mind 'understand/have/take' aren't the root meanings, it's 'a grasp' or 'a hold'.

[Ashucky]

Finally finished this damned grammar guide.

Now I just need critiquing. If anyone would like to go through it and tell me what they think, that would be fantastic

http://www.scribd.com/doc/125403899/Angos-Grammar

Looks pretty good to me. I only noticed two things in regards of phonology. Allophone are written within squared brackets [], the slashes // are used for phonemes; and the RP pronunciation of <sew> is /səʊ/, not /sɛʊ/, so I'm not sure if it's a good example for your /ɛʊ/ diphthong. It may be better if you use Australian [æʊ] in <town> or <now> since /æ/ is, I think, closer to /ɛ/ than to /ə/. Oh, and the glottal stop occurs only dialectally in RP, not as a standard pronounciation, or in Cockney, for example.

[razlem]

I only noticed two things in regards of phonology. Allophone are written within squared brackets [], the slashes // are used for phonemes

Despite having taken several phonology courses I still can't remember this... XD

Guess I'll think of some other examples then, though I thought RP glottal stop in 'button' was standard.

[razlem]

I'm trying to record the etymologies of all the words I used in Angos, but I've come across some that I don't know how to categorize.

"allergy", for example, uses Greek roots, but was coined by an Austrian doctor in 1906. Would it be accurate to say the Angos root 'alegi' is a Greek root?

And for the Korean "san" (Angos 'san'), would it be Altaic, because it comes from the Korean form in particular, or Sinitic, because of the original form?

[Dormouse559]

"allergy", for example, uses Greek roots, but was coined by an Austrian doctor in 1906. Would it be accurate to say the Angos root 'alegi' is a Greek root?

For words like that, especially when they've been borrowed into a lot of languages, you might use "international" or something similar.

[razlem]

As I'm doing the etymology, I've had to change a handful of words because I couldn't find their etymologies or the source word had a small but significant difference in meaning from the Angos root.

I'm not done yet, but as it stands now, here's the etymological breakdown:
A priori: 116 (so many because particles, prepositions, conjunctions)
Germanic: 109
Latin: 93
Sinitic: 73 (includes nonnative Japanese and Korean forms)
Uralic: 70
Semitic: 63
Indic: 60
Slavic: 57
Altaic: 48 (includes native Japanese/Korean)
Multilingual: 43 (shares a form within a family)
Greek: 40
Austronesian: 27
International: 25 (shares a form cross-linguistically)
Basque: 18
Bantu: 16
Iranian: 9
Uto-Aztecan: 8
Athabaskan: 8
Armenian: 4
Iroquoian: 4

[Fox Saint-Just]

May I ask you a list of the roots, if it's not a problem?

[razlem]

http://angoslanguage.wikispaces.com/Kalim-Bukos

The etymologies I'm doing on a separate, alphabetized list.

[razlem]

After hours and hours of painstaking data collection, I have finished the etymology section of the glossary.

It's here in the grammar, which I've updated on Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/125403899/Angos-Grammar

Because some roots are used for multiple English words, simply counting the sources wouldn't yield an accurate statistic, but here's the raw data:
A priori: 211
Compound words: 151
Latin: 148
Germanic: 146
Sinitic: 129
International: 120
Uralic: 103
Semitic: 93
Slavic: 85
Altaic: 83
Indic: 69
Greek: 61
Multilingual: 60
Austronesian: 37
Niger-Congo: 26
Basque: 22
Athabaskan: 18
Iranian: 14
Armenian: 12
Iroquoian: 8
Uto-Aztecan: 8
Onomatopoeic: 8
Eskaleut: 4
Celtic: 3

[Fox Saint-Just]

The etymologic table is really useful.