[conlang_learners] IE vs non IE

[Olivier Simon]

Still those technical problems ! I hope Yahoo Mail is not against IE languages
So, I told there are two criteria that can be used to characterize an IE grammar: 
- Presence of flexion (this criterium is common with Semitic). Even Modern IE languages still retain some traces. 
Examples: Eng. foot = plural: feet
French: "mourir" (to die) = but "il meurt" (he dies)
- The neutral gender has similar forms at the nominative and the accusative. This may come from the fact that Primeval IE had no Nominative for the neutral gender. 
 
Some auxlangs can have their entire vocabulary from IE but they may not fullfill these criteria. I think at Uropi which is not IE grammatically speaking. On the contrary C.Quilès (of the Dnghu Project which aims a revival of Old IE) admitted that Sambahsa has a IE grammar. 
Sambahsa is, with Frenkish, the only auxlang which makes use of Ablauts (flexion within a stem) but in Sambahsa, this system is regular. 
 
Jim was right to point out the difference between IE and "Standard Average European". 
 
Personnally, I strove to include Sprachbund features into Sambahsa, from the SAE as well as from the Balkan Sprachbund. 
 
Olivier
http://sambahsa.pbworks.com/ 

--- On Sun, 6/14/09, Olivier Simon <cafaristeir at yahoo.com> wrote:


From: Olivier Simon <cafaristeir at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [conlang_learners] IE vs non IE
To: conlang_learners at conlang.org
Date: Sunday, June 14, 2009, 10:30 PM







Sellamat Arthaey !
 
I see that Jim has already given you a good answer, thus I've got little to add. 
It's good to put the vocabulary issue apart from the grammar issue. To speak simply, I would say there are two important criteria to characterize 

--- On Sun, 6/14/09, Arthaey Angosii <arthaey at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Arthaey Angosii <arthaey at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [conlang_learners] IE vs non IE
To: conlang_learners at conlang.org
Date: Sunday, June 14, 2009, 4:03 PM


English is my native language and Spanish is the only other language I
can hold a conversation in. So while my artlang Asha'ille is a priori,
I'm "concerned" that it adheres too closely to whatever makes IE
languages look IE.

What are the defining characteristics of an Indo-European language,
con- or natlang? (Apart from shared vocabulary/etymology, of course.)
What grammatical features make a language IE-like? Are those features
found also in non-IE languages?


--
AA
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