Re: Vulcan
hotlisp
Sat, 12 Apr 1997 20:38:44 GMT

In message <199704120240,VAA08433*mail,uit,net> "Saul R. Epstein" writes:
> 
> I'm almost as curious to know an explanation internal to the ST
> universe as to how the planet/people came to be known in Standard as
> "Vulcan." My preferred explanation would be that the actual name
> sounds something like it. Actually, this looks like a perfect place
> to use Professor Zvelebil's /w~l/ sound. Suppose the planet's name is
> W~L'q^n.
That is exactly what I've always thought. What would W~Lq^n mean?

> > Also what does it mean? (e,g. 'where we live', 'land' etc.).
> 
> That could depend on how long they've been calling it whatever they
> call it. A recent name could take into account that it is one of many
> planets, while an ancient name could imply that it is all-space. Of
> course, they have c'thia for that...
I suppose logical Vulcans might change the name of their planet when
they learned more about the Universe, but I suspect that even they
would stick to what it had always been called.

> > Also, I believe it has been shown that all languages evolved
> > from simple sounds, easy to make and meaning either simple
> > imperatives like 'come', 'go', 'hide', 'run', or
> > things like:'how', 'why'
> > or 'Mama' and 'me', 'my'!!!
> 
> I would be interested to know how this has been shown. It does
> parallel language acquisition in children, but really the sounds in

By analysis of virtually every language on the planet and discovery
that certain basic verbs and pronouns tend to use the same sounds
even when nothing else in the language is like any other. The
thesis (sorry I've forgotten the name of the linguist who did
the work) only referred to the very beginning of language. Once
it gets started, clearly all sorts of influences come into play,
as can be seen by what has happened to the many that have
devolved from an original Indo-European language, or even, in
modern times, from Latin or from the Celtic root.

> languages are all roughly equal in difficulty. It's just that some
> languages have sounds that are more different from any of one's own
> language's sounds, which makes them difficult to hear properly, which
> in turn compounds the difficulty of pronouncing a strange sound in
> the first place. Actually this is just as true in terms of sounds
> that are very much like sounds in one's own language: it may be that
> you pronounce such sounds all the time, but you can't hear the
> difference so you can't produce a specific version on demand.
> 
Cannot hear cannot say is certainly true, it's why I gave up all
thought of learning Mandarin or even Cantonese.
 
> It would make sense, however, that the meanings and arrangements of
> words began simply. But I've heard arguments that syntax and
> phonology both become simpler over time.
In the sense that basic hunter-gatherers tend to have a multitude
of ways of talking of things that are not relevant in a modern
society, I guess that is true. More recently - with travel and
interaction between languages, I think simplifications creep in,
but I suspect that is all 'late development' from something that
intially became more and more complex.
> 
> > Clearly  Vulcans may find sounds easy which humans do not,
> > but I wonder if anyone has thought about the evolution of
> > the language?
> 
> I still think the single most important influence, in language and
> other things, that we're going to need to take into account is
> telepathy. No, I'm sorry. Telepathy and geography. And probably
> something else...
Logic! Well - it seems to me that after Surak they would try to
eliminate illogic from the language and that what is spoken by
Romulans would be more like ancient Vulcan - which I think puts
me in conlict with Diane D, who, as I recall, postulated that
the ones who left Vulcan invented a new language.

p,s. I too would like to know what Vulcans call themselves.
I suppose the equivalent of Cymraeg ('friends'-'comrades')
would only be true if it was the orginal word, as per name
of planet. Cymru is roughly 'our place'. (yma = 'here')
Ironically, 'Welsh' which is what the Saxons called us, 
means 'foreigners'. At least we called them after their knives!
-- 
Jacqueline Y. Comben
fire-breathing dragon and ex-lisper!