Introduction to Béu: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:21, 15 May 2015

Welcome to the béu

..... Some questions and answers

Question ... What is béu ?

Answer ... béu is a way of life.

Question ... Where does béu come from ?

Answer ... Well béu was wilfully constructed here, down on earth, by humans. In fact béu is intended to evolve over time, so maybe it is better to say that béu is "being constructed", rather than "was constructed".

Question ... Why was béu constructed ?

Answer ... béu was constructed to fill a gap in the life of a man. Or maybe better to say ... béu was constructed to fill a gap in the lives of men.

Question ... What was the starting point in this "construction ?

Answer ... The starting point for constructing béu was to ask two questions …

What is a human being ?

What is the point of life ?

After some thought the first question was answered on three different levels …

A) ... A collection of genes.

B) ... A collection of urges ... to eat, to drink, to have sex, etc etc etc

C) ... A network of friends and family … loved-ones.

And after some further thought the answer to the second question was answerred …

D) … To get enough food.

..

..... More on the building of béu

..

DISCUSS ???

Now OK ... it is not a complete answer ... but it is about 80% or 90% of the answer)

E) ... Other bits and pieces ... but really, they pale into insignificance compared to D).

However that fact should not condemn it to disregard. By arranging the beukia in such a way that people of "compassion" and "taste" always rise to the top of the organisation and and also by having a method that allows for continuous revision of every aspect of itself, béu should produce truths and ways that are very worthy of regard.

béu place great importance upon education and lifelong learning. There is a core body of work that all béume must read. Also there are a great many “recommended works” that they are encouraged to study.

The most important “daily ritual” is 15 minutes given over to the study of these books..

béume are expected to show generosity, hospitality, and to constantly pursue of social justice and reform of poor institutions. They are discouraged from the excessive pursuit of luxury and status.

Rather … they believe that in order to be happy, you need …

1) A community of good friends

2) To be engaged in work that gives satisfaction (as part of this self-empoyment is look favourably on)

3) To spend a part of each day in contemplation (reading the holy books is believed engenders this contemplation) ... beume believe that the highest calling in life is to expand the body of knowledge that humanity possesses ( peugəŋgau) ... to accomplish addition or amendment to one of the treasure of books that are considered "cannonical" is to gain the greatest regard possible from fellow beume.

For the harmonious functioning of society as a whole, everybody should follow the rule …

1) What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others

Probably the most detailed part of béu is beuba (the language of béu).

First some new words concerning béu ...

beuki = a person that follows béu and takes part in the community of béu

beume = a person that follows béu but follows in a private manner.^*

beugan = all the people that follow béu plus all the paraphernalia of béu (i.e. buildings, flags, clothes, etc. etc.)

Note ... I will not use the term beuba from now on ... I shall simply say béu. This is sufficient since it is obvious that I am talking about the language. In a similar way, in a book about language you do not continuously come across the term "the English language" ... but rather "English".

..... About the language

The very first language that I tried to construct was called HARWENG. This was eventually given up about 14 years ago. The basic problem was that I didn't know enough about linguistics. As they say "if you want to get high, you first must build a strong foundation". When I tried to build on the HARWENG foundations, I found too many things just didn't harmonise. It seemed like an impossible task to cut though the tangles, so I put that project reluctantly aside.

My second project was called SEUNA. The reason that I put this one aside was that I wasn't too happy with the SEUNA script. However my third language ... BEU (from now on referred to as béu ... by the way, the diacritic above the "e" indicated a high tone ... all monosyllable words in béu either have a low tone or a high tone) seems like it will carry on to fruition. béuhas many ideas that were originally in SEUNA.

What interests me most in linguistics is that fascinating area where logic, grammar and semantics intersect. It was an appreciation of the elegance of the patterns found within natural languages that lead me to construct béu. Also I have always been a perfectionist, keenly aware of all the imperfections that everyday life entails. I have always had the feeling that in order to build perfection I must start at the bottom ... and language is the most basic thing that makes us human (I believe that language co-evolved with the increase in the human cranial capacity ... so language has been with us for over a million years). Hence the first step to making a better world is to develop a logical, elegant and beautiful language. Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder ...

The nicest constructed language which I have ever come across was CEQLI. However it was not much more than a sketch. Also the two languages created by Dirk Elzinga ... TEPA and SHEMSPREG were also very neat. However again they were not fully thought out ... not complete languages. I intend that béu will be a fully thought out language ... like Esperanto.

..

The "bubble fountain" above is how I see the world 4,000 languages (OK I haven't drawn 4,000 bubbles ... pretend) of the world. The vertical axis is complexity. The black line at the bottom represents zero ... the way that a group of people would communicate initially if they all spoke totally different languages and were forced to associate together by some twist of fate. There would be zero grammaticisation ... it would be a very inefficient means of communication and I would presume quite frustrating to try and converse in. The horizontal axis represents how far the different languages diverge from each other (this "divergence" should be multi-dimensional because of course languages diverge from each other in many many different ways ... but I am afraid we must make do with one dimension on my little chart).

You will notice that the simple languages at the bottom of the chart differ less from each other less than the more complex languages at the top. These simple languages tend to have one concept to one word ... they are analytic. Now a simple language is just as fit-for-purpose as a complicated language. And I certainly didn't want complexity for complexity's sake : I just wanted a language that was easy to learn and that would appear to be "natural". Hence the structure of béu is not a million miles away from the structure of English ... or Mandarin. In its final form béu seems like a natural language : the grammar and the "patterns" in the language wouldn't be considered out of place in a natural language.

In its long history (HARWENG => SEUNA => béu) it has changed many many times. It has gone thru' many iterations^*. I would change one part of the grammar and then find that this change didn't fit with something else. So I would change it back, or modify the "something else", or maybe try out a completely new paradigm. This happened many many times. I suppose the changes that happened in in the development of béu are similar to the diachronic changes that happen to natural languages, and hence béu ended up looking quite naturalistic.

^* A good analogy to this how a protein takes its shape. This is a long linear chain molecule that folds up on itself to takes on a very definite and complicated shape. The final shape is determined by a series of movements that are initiated by the attractive and repulsive forces that the various links in the chain have for each other. In a similar way the final shape of béu was determined by the way that different grammatical patterns and phonological patterns either clashed with each other, or matched with each other through a number of successive iteration.

Addendum ... When talking about grammar I follow the lead given by R.M.W. Dixon in "Basic Linguistic Theory". I would thoroughly recommend this book : as well as giving a broad topological perspective of the World's languages, this book puts the dangerously convoluted terminology that has grown up in the field of linguistics over the years, firmly in its place ... that place being the trash can :-) .

AS OF TODAY ( 17 MARCH 2015 ) BEU IS UNFINISHED. WHEN IT IS FINISHED TO MY SATISFACTION, THIS FOOTNOTE WILL BE DELETED. ALSO I MIGHT TAKE SOME STEPS TO PUBLICISE THE LANGUAGE AND CULTURE OF BEU AT THAT TIME.

..

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[Image:TW_75.png]]
-Welcome to the language and culture of <big> '''béu'''</big>
+Welcome to the <big> '''béu'''</big>
+== ..... Some questions and answers==
+Question ... What is '''béu''' ?
+Answer ... '''béu''' is a way of life.
+Question ... Where does '''béu''' come from ?
+Answer ... Well '''béu''' was wilfully constructed here, down on earth, by humans. In fact '''béu''' is intended to evolve over time, so maybe it is better to say that '''béu''' is "being constructed", rather than "was constructed".
+Question ... Why was '''béu''' constructed ?
+Answer ... '''béu''' was constructed to fill a gap in the life of a man. Or maybe better to say ... '''béu''' was constructed to fill a gap in the lives of men.
+Question ... What was the starting point in this "construction ?
+Answer ... The starting point for constructing '''béu''' was to ask two questions …
+What is a human being ?
+What is the point of life ?
+After some thought the first question was answered on three different levels …
+A) ... A collection of genes.
+B) ... A collection of urges ... to eat, to drink, to have sex, etc etc etc
+C) ... A network of friends and family … loved-ones.
+And after some further thought the answer to the second question was answerred …
+D) … To get enough food.
+..
+== ..... More on the building of '''béu'''==
+..
+DISCUSS ???
+Now OK ... it is not a complete answer ... but it is about 80% or 90% of the answer)
+E) ... Other bits and pieces ... but really, they pale into insignificance compared to D).
+However that fact should not condemn it to disregard. By arranging the '''beukia''' in such a way that people of "compassion" and "taste" always rise to the top of the organisation and and also by having a method that allows for continuous revision of every aspect of itself, '''béu''' should produce truths and ways that are very worthy of regard.
+'''béu''' place great importance upon education and lifelong learning. There is a core body of work that all '''béume''' must read. Also there are a great many “recommended works” that they are encouraged to study.
+The most important “daily ritual” is 15 minutes given over to the study of these books..
+------
+'''béume''' are expected to show generosity, hospitality, and to constantly pursue of social justice and reform of poor institutions. They are discouraged from the excessive pursuit of luxury and status.
+Rather … they believe that in order to be happy, you need …
+) 	A community of good friends
+)	To be engaged in work that gives satisfaction (as part of this self-empoyment is look favourably on)
+)	To spend a part of each day in contemplation (reading the holy books is believed engenders this contemplation) ...  '''beume''' believe that the highest calling in life is to expand the body of knowledge that humanity possesses ( '''peugəŋgau''') ... to accomplish addition or amendment to one of the treasure of books that are considered "cannonical" is to gain the greatest regard possible from fellow '''beume'''.
+------
+For the harmonious functioning of society as a whole, everybody should follow the rule …
+)	What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others
+------
+Probably the most detailed part of '''béu''' is '''beuba''' (the language of '''béu''').
+First some new words concerning '''béu''' ...
+'''beuki''' = a person that follows '''béu''' and takes part in the community of '''béu'''
+'''beume''' = a person that follows '''béu''' but follows in a private manner.<sup>*</sup>
+'''beugan''' = all the people that follow '''béu''' plus all the paraphernalia of '''béu''' (i.e. buildings, flags, clothes, etc. etc.)
+Note ... I will not use the term '''beuba''' from now on ... I shall simply say '''béu'''. This is sufficient since it is obvious that I am talking about the language. In a similar way, in a book about language you do not continuously come across the term "the English language"  ... but rather "English".
+== ..... About the language==
 The very first language that I tried to construct was called HARWENG. This was eventually given up about 14 years ago. The basic problem was that I didn't know enough about linguistics. As they say "if you want to get high, you first must build a strong foundation". When I tried to build on the HARWENG foundations, I found too many things just didn't harmonise. It seemed like an impossible task to cut though the tangles, so I put that project reluctantly aside.

Introduction to Béu: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:21, 15 May 2015

Contents

..... Some questions and answers

..... More on the building of béu

..... About the language

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