"The spark that led me to create Mini was realizing that a micro-language like TP could actually work: there’s no reason in principle a language with a limited word-count couldn’t have a simple, complete, and unambiguous grammar alongside a vocabulary based on intelligible word roots designed to handle most aspects of everyday discourse...."
Though if you speak Spanish and English you'll probably be able to guess most of the words, so you may find it easier to read initially than Toki Pona.
I've been making a game system in which the core mechanic is using a limited language to describe magical effects, so it's a long way away from the intended purpose for both Toki Pona and Mini. However, I've found that Mini is far easier to work with and more expressive for my purposes because it's easier to put structure into the statements using the particles to indicate what part of speech is intended for each word. The selection of words also seems to be surprisingly well-chosen, because most of my use cases have been pretty straightforward to express.
I haven't really tried to limit the system to just Mini Kore (which is also 120 words, like Toki Pona, and would be a more direct comparison), mostly because Mini's current size actually seems to have the right feel. It might be an interesting experiment though.
I think the concept of "simplest naturalistic language" may be intrinsically broken -- a "naturalistic language" is not simple. Natural languages balance between regular rules (e.g. in English, we often add -ed to make the past tense of a verb) and exceptions especially for common cases ("went", "was", "had", "made", "did" because going, being, having, making, doing are all so common). This tension is partly about how much a language user must know/consider when speaking/listening and how efficiently you can say things.
I cannot find a citation quickly, but I recall years ago reading a paper about simulated agents "evolving" a language in a game context where agents had to indicate items to one another, by sending messages which were subject to a noisy channel. Items had multiple attributes (think "small red square", "big green triangle" etc), and experimenters could vary both the noise in the channel, and the entropy of the distribution over items. Naturally if "small red square" is 99% of the things you have to communicate, and there is low noise, agents invent an abbreviation for it. If there's a huge amount of noise and a relatively even distribution over items, then "small small green green triangle triangle" or similar becomes more likely. Languages very naturally reflect both the things people discuss and the environment in which they discuss them.
Your general point is a good one but I don't think irregular verbs are the best example of error correcting redundancy, or evolved shortcutting. In most cases they are just a relic of genealogy, and don't serve those purposes:
> Most English irregular verbs are native, derived from verbs that existed in Old English. Nearly all verbs that have been borrowed into the language at a later stage have defaulted to the regular conjugation.
Irregular verbs (go/went, and so on) congugate (change according to tense and subject) using rules just like regular verbs, except that they have different rules. The irregular verbs use Germanic conjugations (cf. man/men, child/children) whereas the regular verbs use grammatical constructions from other source languages.
While completely true, I think this misses the point which makes minimal "natural" language interesting. Sure you don't use one of these constructed languages in practice the same way you don't build your websites with Turing machine tapes. The question of interest is not one of practice but of theory, what is the equivalent of Turing completeness for natural language? What is the minimum criteria of grammar and vocabulary needed to span the space of conversational ability? In other words, what is the minimum needed for a language to even theoretically be "naturalistic" (even if no naturally occurring language ever looks like it in practice)?
not saying those papers are wrong, but 136 years and millions of speakers from _most_ countries and Esperanto's speakers seem just fine without adding irregular verbs.
> Natural languages balance between regular rules (e.g. in English, we often add -ed to make the past tense of a verb) and exceptions especially for common cases ("went", "was", "had", "made", "did" because going, being, having, making, doing are all so common).
Yes, but different natural languages resolve this tension differently.
For example, Turkish is much more regular in its verbs (and in general) than English or German.
> The vowels are pronounced like they are in Spanish, Italian, German, and many other languages
... ok, this is annoying. Can't speak for Italian and Spanish, but in German vowels are pronounced differently depending on context.
Later, it says the 'o' is meant to be pronounced like in "moment". Moment is pronounced differently in American and UK English. And neither are like Italian "momento" or like German "Moment".
> All of the consonants (b d f g j k l m n p r s t v) are pronounced exactly the same as they are in English. Phew!
In pretty much any language there's no single point on the vowel chart that actually identifies a vowel - it's a spectrum with numerous allophones. Conlangs like this one are generally constructed in such a way as to allow maximally wide spectrum that is still distinctive. So if you pronounce it the way you speak English, that's still fine.
If you want more precision, generally speaking, the value of the character in IPA will match the actual sound value, except for "j".
I think the best way to see it is like this: vowels like in Spanish and consonants like in English. The Duolingo Stories have pronunciation with a TTS engine https://duostories.org/mini-en and the dictionary has pronunciation with an actual human voice (mine) https://jprogr.github.io/buku-name
> > The vowels are pronounced like they are in Spanish, Italian, German, and many other languages
> ... ok, this is annoying. Can't speak for Italian and Spanish, but in German vowels are pronounced differently depending on context. Later, it says the 'o' is meant to be pronounced like in "moment". Moment is pronounced differently in American and UK English. And neither are like Italian "momento" or like German "Moment".
I listened all four (UK/US English, German, Italian), and the 'o' in moment sounded the same to me.
Reminds me of some similarities to Arabic. Arabic uses root words, usually 3 consonants, that mean many similar things with surrounding letters. K-T-B means writing. Kitab means book. Kitaba is writing.
The script is hard, and you have to learn enough of the roots and recognize them to get the meaning. Indonesian is slightly similar: tinju is boxing and petinju is boxer. Prefixes on roots to build up and guess meaning from context.
I like Arabic's diacritic system which makes pronounciation of a word you've only previously read predictable.
I remember once pronouncing "stoic" as "stoyc" instead of "stow-ik" once in English for example. My limited knowledge of Arabic indicates that one diacritic produces "aah"-like vowels, another produces "ooh"-like vowels and another "iih"-like vowels, and even though some other modifiers come into play later, it's still predictiable how a word is pronounced just from reading it. Would be happy to be corrected if I am wrong.
Redundancy in a natural language is not necessarily a bug. It can be considered a feature. Speach is transmitted over a noisy channel (as everybody knows who has ever tried talking/screaming to a friend on a busy street or a concert), so needs to contain redundancy for error correction purposes. A lot of that is context (there are only a handful of things my friend could be screaming at me at a given point in time), but a lot is that it's enough to hear parts of a sentence to infer what it's about.
Many different contexts make use of this redundancy. Air traffic communications is another example where synonyms are chosen to minimize misunderstandings yet still be concise.
Minimizing redundancy also minimizes synonyms, which can be undesirable. Another example is poetry.
Like Wilkins’ Real Character, a priori languages attempt to decompose the elements of thought into distinct atomic units and build up larger linguistic constructs from those simpler units.
A posteriori languages like Esperanto take a very different approach: rather than starting from scratch with a set of basic concepts, they attempt to pave over the unnecessary grammatical quirks and complications of natural language to create something which is simple and easier to learn.
Mini’s goal is to fully realize both of these visions: to have, at once, a set of linguistic primitives which can be combined to discuss any topic, while ensuring that those primitives are themselves borrowed as directly from natural languages as possible.
Yeah, I don't get it. In Esperanto you don't use particles, but you change the endings of the words, according to their roles in the sentence. How is Mini fundamentally different?
Maybe I'm just dumb but it claims simple phonetics but even after reading the pronunciation ("Say it like you mean it") section I still don't really understand how it's supposed to sound?
The singular "a" between verbs and objects, is that a long or short vowel sound - do vowels have short and long distinctions at all? It says all the consonants are pronounced how they are in English - but consonants don't have just one sound?
For consonants, when they say that, what it usually means is "consonant by itself" (i.e. not a part of a digraph like "th", and not followed by a vowel like "e" or "i").
Seems interesting as a project, though I doubt the stated goals can be achieved with any new constructed language. I mean, congratulation for the great work, thanks for sharing this with the world and wish you all the luck to succeed with these goals, sure.
Let’s say this is technically the best solution among simplest naturalistic language ever conceived so far to use as an international auxiliary language. This is a ecological niche already largely populated.
Providing the best technical solution, as we know, is only the optional cherry on the tip of the iceberg. What really matters for the stated goals is the community. You can definitely attract a few conlang lovers with some elegant proposals, but that’s about it.
So what’s the plan for making Mini endorsed by a large sustainable community? What kind of ideals, values and social goals it is attached to? What Mini brings on the table for its aimed community to thrive that no other previous constructed language can also provide for people who don’t have ease of learn as sole and primary consideration?
Interesting, this reminded me of Toki Pona ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toki_Pona), but it has different goals (Toki Pona was not intended to be an auxiliary language)
Conlangs are fun, but what will probably happen is we will evolve more efficient communication protocols as bandwidth increases via multimedia communication, Neuralink, etc.
It tickled me to see a changelog for a language there, so i had GPT write one for English too.
Change Log for English Language Evolution
Version 1.0: Proto-English (450 CE)
Initial release of Proto-English, a West Germanic language spoken by Anglo-Saxon tribes.
Basic grammar and vocabulary established.
Development primarily led by "Linguistic Trailblazers."
Version 1.1: Viking Invasion Patch (850 CE)
Introducing Old Norse influence due to Viking invasions.
Added Norse loanwords and grammatical structures.
Integration efforts led by the "Language Fusion Guild."
Version 2.0: The Great Vowel Shift (1400 CE)
Major phonological update affecting long vowels and diphthongs.
Unprecedented vowel sound migrations across the language.
Executed by the "Phonetic Alchemists Consortium."
Version 2.1: Shakespearean Lexical Expansion (1600 CE)
Extensive vocabulary enrichment, drawing inspiration from literary works by William Shakespeare.
Introduction of numerous idiomatic expressions.
Collaborative effort involving "Poetic Linguists Guild."
Version 3.0: British Empire Localization (1800 CE)
Localization effort to adapt English for various regions within the British Empire.
Incorporation of local dialects and vocabulary.
Localization project overseen by the "Imperial Language Commission."
Version 4.0: American Revolution Fork (1776 CE)
Creation of American English variant with notable vocabulary and spelling differences.
Introduction of simplified grammar rules and new expressions.
Led by the "Patriotic Language Architects."
Version 5.0: Globalization Update (20th Century)
English becomes an international language due to global interactions.
Inclusion of loanwords and phrases from various languages.
A collaborative effort by the "Cultural Linguistic Exchange Taskforce."
Version 6.0: Digital Age Upgrade (Late 20th Century)
Vocabulary expansion to encompass computer science and technology terms.
Introduction of internet slang and acronyms.
Driven by the "Cyber Lexicographers Consortium."
Version 7.0: Modern Dialect Divergence (21st Century)
Increasing divergence between regional dialects due to globalization and migration.
Emergence of unique vocabulary and idiomatic expressions in different English-speaking communities.
Monitored by the "Dialectologists Guild."
The change from 1.1 to 2.0 completely missed the Norman invasion which introduced Norman French as the new language in town. Everything which happened later was heavily influenced by that.
Well, not everything we're involved in and accidentally contribute is necessarily _made_ by us, in the sense of intentionally and purposefully brought into existence.
We just happen to learn one or more languages, and pass down a few of our mistakes and innovations to others, the vast majority of which have no effect on anybody.
By sheerest chance I read the same anonymous Japanese basket weaving forum where a link to this was posted just before its appearance here. Well played OP.
Conlectus|2 years ago
That said, Toki Pona's goal is to help clarify thought, whereas this seems to intend to prioritize communication more highly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toki_Pona
hedgehog|2 years ago
"The spark that led me to create Mini was realizing that a micro-language like TP could actually work: there’s no reason in principle a language with a limited word-count couldn’t have a simple, complete, and unambiguous grammar alongside a vocabulary based on intelligible word roots designed to handle most aspects of everyday discourse...."
Y_Y|2 years ago
aethertap|2 years ago
I haven't really tried to limit the system to just Mini Kore (which is also 120 words, like Toki Pona, and would be a more direct comparison), mostly because Mini's current size actually seems to have the right feel. It might be an interesting experiment though.
Dylan16807|2 years ago
abeppu|2 years ago
I cannot find a citation quickly, but I recall years ago reading a paper about simulated agents "evolving" a language in a game context where agents had to indicate items to one another, by sending messages which were subject to a noisy channel. Items had multiple attributes (think "small red square", "big green triangle" etc), and experimenters could vary both the noise in the channel, and the entropy of the distribution over items. Naturally if "small red square" is 99% of the things you have to communicate, and there is low noise, agents invent an abbreviation for it. If there's a huge amount of noise and a relatively even distribution over items, then "small small green green triangle triangle" or similar becomes more likely. Languages very naturally reflect both the things people discuss and the environment in which they discuss them.
jonahx|2 years ago
> Most English irregular verbs are native, derived from verbs that existed in Old English. Nearly all verbs that have been borrowed into the language at a later stage have defaulted to the regular conjugation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_irregular_verbs#Develo...
cjs_ac|2 years ago
IIAOPSW|2 years ago
masukomi|2 years ago
eru|2 years ago
Yes, but different natural languages resolve this tension differently.
For example, Turkish is much more regular in its verbs (and in general) than English or German.
roetlich|2 years ago
... ok, this is annoying. Can't speak for Italian and Spanish, but in German vowels are pronounced differently depending on context. Later, it says the 'o' is meant to be pronounced like in "moment". Moment is pronounced differently in American and UK English. And neither are like Italian "momento" or like German "Moment".
> All of the consonants (b d f g j k l m n p r s t v) are pronounced exactly the same as they are in English. Phew!
Not helpful.
tsuujin|2 years ago
In college Japanese class we were taught the phrase “ah, we soon get old” for a, i, u, e, and o respectively. I found it to be simple and satisfying.
int_19h|2 years ago
If you want more precision, generally speaking, the value of the character in IPA will match the actual sound value, except for "j".
jprogr|2 years ago
msla|2 years ago
"T" as in "Trent" is the same as "T" as in "butter" for this person?
"S" as in "pass" is the same as "S" as in "passion" too?
"G" as in "go" is the same as "G" as in "gel" as well?
There's a reason humans invented the IPA.
bmacho|2 years ago
> ... ok, this is annoying. Can't speak for Italian and Spanish, but in German vowels are pronounced differently depending on context. Later, it says the 'o' is meant to be pronounced like in "moment". Moment is pronounced differently in American and UK English. And neither are like Italian "momento" or like German "Moment".
I listened all four (UK/US English, German, Italian), and the 'o' in moment sounded the same to me.
eggy|2 years ago
The script is hard, and you have to learn enough of the roots and recognize them to get the meaning. Indonesian is slightly similar: tinju is boxing and petinju is boxer. Prefixes on roots to build up and guess meaning from context.
zogrodea|2 years ago
I remember once pronouncing "stoic" as "stoyc" instead of "stow-ik" once in English for example. My limited knowledge of Arabic indicates that one diacritic produces "aah"-like vowels, another produces "ooh"-like vowels and another "iih"-like vowels, and even though some other modifiers come into play later, it's still predictiable how a word is pronounced just from reading it. Would be happy to be corrected if I am wrong.
tyty76|2 years ago
Many different contexts make use of this redundancy. Air traffic communications is another example where synonyms are chosen to minimize misunderstandings yet still be concise.
Minimizing redundancy also minimizes synonyms, which can be undesirable. Another example is poetry.
bmacho|2 years ago
Yeah, I don't get it. In Esperanto you don't use particles, but you change the endings of the words, according to their roles in the sentence. How is Mini fundamentally different?
c7DJTLrn|2 years ago
https://www.bbc.com/pidgin
bullen|2 years ago
I made this 4 letter language: http://move.rupy.se/file/talk.txt
its_ethan|2 years ago
The singular "a" between verbs and objects, is that a long or short vowel sound - do vowels have short and long distinctions at all? It says all the consonants are pronounced how they are in English - but consonants don't have just one sound?
int_19h|2 years ago
For consonants, when they say that, what it usually means is "consonant by itself" (i.e. not a part of a digraph like "th", and not followed by a vowel like "e" or "i").
jprogr|2 years ago
anyaya|2 years ago
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downvotetruth|2 years ago
ithkuil|2 years ago
chadams|2 years ago
psychoslave|2 years ago
Let’s say this is technically the best solution among simplest naturalistic language ever conceived so far to use as an international auxiliary language. This is a ecological niche already largely populated.
Providing the best technical solution, as we know, is only the optional cherry on the tip of the iceberg. What really matters for the stated goals is the community. You can definitely attract a few conlang lovers with some elegant proposals, but that’s about it.
So what’s the plan for making Mini endorsed by a large sustainable community? What kind of ideals, values and social goals it is attached to? What Mini brings on the table for its aimed community to thrive that no other previous constructed language can also provide for people who don’t have ease of learn as sole and primary consideration?
relyks|2 years ago
coldblues|2 years ago
wilg|2 years ago
riku_iki|2 years ago
nateb2022|2 years ago
KMnO4|2 years ago
jp0d|2 years ago
totetsu|2 years ago
Change Log for English Language Evolution
Version 1.0: Proto-English (450 CE)
Version 1.1: Viking Invasion Patch (850 CE) Version 2.0: The Great Vowel Shift (1400 CE) Version 2.1: Shakespearean Lexical Expansion (1600 CE) Version 3.0: British Empire Localization (1800 CE) Version 4.0: American Revolution Fork (1776 CE) Version 5.0: Globalization Update (20th Century) Version 6.0: Digital Age Upgrade (Late 20th Century) Version 7.0: Modern Dialect Divergence (21st Century)Tor3|2 years ago
dumdumchan|2 years ago
raydiatian|2 years ago
Okay. Now I want to know about non-man made languages.
ithkuil|2 years ago
We just happen to learn one or more languages, and pass down a few of our mistakes and innovations to others, the vast majority of which have no effect on anybody.
Turing_Machine|2 years ago
grrdotcloud|2 years ago
gcanyon|2 years ago
mahoro|2 years ago
jprogr|2 years ago
dloss|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
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thallavajhula|2 years ago
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ChrisArchitect|2 years ago
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