Naeso/Intro
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The stated goal of the Naeso project is to create a language which would be appropriate for using on the internet, and especially IRC channels like #conlang on Freenode. Whether or not the language is actually supposed to be spoken is up to each member of the project. The language includes several innovative ideas which are intended to help make it particularly useful in online environments, such as activity-based pronouns.
Naeso's development is perhaps the first instance of a group of people collaborating over a wiki-based interface via voting to create a language together. Even though creators come and go (as is the truth with many things) the language survives and continues to grow.
History
Naeso is a constructed language which got its start in the latter half of 2010, when a member of the irc.freenode.net chat #conlang called blisk decided he'd like to make a collang. After issuing a call for collaborators and recieving replies from several interested parties, the language began being developed on a wikispaces page. Though blisk dropped out of its creation early on in the project, the idea survived its creator's withdrawal, and eventually the language's development was moved to FrathWiki in early 2011.
Writing
Early in its development, there was a vote taken on whether or note to write Naso in a native script. Because this vote came up as positive towards writing with a native script, a syllabary (which was the result of yet another early vote) was developed.
The syllabary, developed mostly by MalfermitaKodo, is unique to Naeso and is awesome, but since it has been decided that the language is intended for the internet, the syllabary has been demoted to only being used for ornamental purposes.
Most Naeso is actually written in the Latin script for ease of use on the internet, which is historically called the transliteration.
Voting
Main article: Naeso/Voting
Voting plays a big role in the project: all of the phonology, orthography and grammar have been voted on, creating what the language is today. And proposed words are still going through the same voting process that was thought up around the beginning of the creation of the language: One takes the number of contributors and divides by half, then adds one (half plus one) to determine consensus. Voting tags are used to distinguish between different contributors. Though the system works very well the way it is now, this was not always the case.
In the beginning of 2011, with many creators dropping out of development, the language began to stagnate. Due to the fact that the early voting system then used by the creators to determine consensus used the full number of creators involved in the project divided by half to find the number of votes required for 'quorum', it became increasingly difficult for any development and growth to occur. Following passing of two historic proposals by Fenhl on vote reform in the beginning of June of 2011, the language is beginning to grow again with renewed vigor.
Grammar
Main article: Naeso/Grammar
The grammar of Naeso is being designed to be easy to learn and use, which means that it is as regular as possible (unlike English). A rule of thumb regarding Naeso's grammar is that the most general information comes first in a sentence, and the details follow after. This means that every sentence starts with the verb, and details such as subjects, objects, time, place, etc. can be added afterward. These noun phrases each start with one of a handy set of particles which help one to determine the function of each noun phrase in a sentence. After the noun, adjectives can be added.
Naeso | |
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General: | Voting • Member list • An Introduction to Naeso |
Phonology and orthography: | Phonology • Stress • Orthography • Transliteration |
Grammar: | Grammar • Suffixes • Prepositions |
Lexicon and corpus: | Naeso-English • English-Naeso • Proposed words • Swadesh • Names • Corpus of Sentences • Math |
Conlang relay torches: | LCC4 Relay |
This page is part of the project Naeso. We meet up to discuss changes in 'real time' in #naeso on Freenode. |