Talk:Novial

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someone forgot to add a sample text..

Novial '98 webpage has apparently not been updated since 1998 and contains at least two dead links.J S Ayer 00:45, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Suffixes to change word uses

A section explaining the way to change the use of a word using suffixes (eg. mali "bad" into maleso "evil") needs to be added. The 'adverbs' section seems like a start in this but it must be expanded on. Ciraric 15:16, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ISO 639-3

wrong info : http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Novial_language&diff=prev&oldid=28166338

nov is NOT ISO 639-3

Tobias Conradi (Talk) 09:19, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Is the information at SIL incorrect, then?
http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=nov

reinserted iso3=nov. template now uses http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id= and not the ethnologue URL which said nov is not a language code used in the Ethnologue, 15th edition. Other constructed languages where mentioned with their code, so I thought nov is not valid 639-3. Tobias Conradi 13:27, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sources of Novial

To what extent can it be claimed that Esperanto is a source of Novial (as stated in the info box)? I am aware of only one word (absent from any ethnic language) definitely borrowed from Esperanto: the indefinite preposition "ye".

All else is based on ethnic languages, although somewhat influenced by the author's work on Ido. Novial differs radically from both Ido and Esperanto in grammar. Nov_ialiste (Talk)

It seems more similar to Occidental than any of the others.Cameron Nedland 15:14, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Especially the verbal system. Nov ialiste 14:47, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lu

I am deleting this part: "However, animate objects like dogs should probably be referred to using 'LE' or a gender-specific pronoun".

Reasons: 1) "should probably" is vague and does not help the reader.

2) The statement would need to be backed up by an authoritative reference (I am aware of none). Nov ialiste 17:01, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Non-copyright picture of Otto Jespersen

Does anybody know of a non-copyright picture of Otto Jespersen? It would be nice to include and could go on the Otto Jespersen page also. Nov ialiste 18:51, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not displacing native languages

"Novial ... is ... intended to facilitate international communication and friendship, without displacing anyone's native language."

but

"Its vocabulary is based largely on the Germanic and Romance languages and its grammar is influenced by English."

This is confusing. What does "without displacing anyone's naitve language" mean -- what is the significance of that part of the sentence? What danger does an IAL pose to native languages that Novial's design removes, especially for native languages that are not Germanic or Romance, such as Slavic, Baltic and Celtic languages, Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic, Farsi, and the numerous African, Amerindian and Indian languages, that are spoken natively? -Pgan002 08:41, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

It's due to the fact that just about all IALs are based on the theory that people should be able to use their native language when they want, and use an IAL when conversing with someone from another linguistic background. That's in order to remove the situation where one person from a linguistic background might want his or her children to learn a more widespread language in place of theirs for their economic benefit, and in doing so cause their own language to lose more and more native speakers. With an easy IAL, in theory, a person with a mother tongue of only 1000 people should be on the same footing as a person from an English background, because when using an IAL they both use it as a second language. Mithridates 14:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
So if (as you say) all IALs are intended this way, then Novial is not special in this regard, and it does not need to be mentioned in the Novial article. Or, if it is special, what features of Novial make it better suited to "facilitate communication ... without displacing anyone's native language"? How does it cater to people who speak (say) only Mandarin, better than other IALs do? -Pgan002 19:10, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
It might need to be changed to state that this is the purpose of an IAL, not specifically Novial. I remember when I nominated the Ido article to be a FA there were a few comments on how the article was good but didn't state what its purpose was, assuming somewhat that the reader already knows. IOW, instead of cutting that part out, more detail is what's needed. Mithridates 00:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Religious Sample Text

Shouldn't we make this more secular? Religious sensitivity?

DarkestMoonlight (talk) 14:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)


I totally agree, why do they always use the lord's prayer? what' up with that? 74.56.51.203 (talk) 04:45, 22 May 2008 (UTC)