(00:00) Intro music (00:06) Jessie: Hello, and welcome to LangTime Chat, episode five! In how many languages can you say "five?" (00:15) David: Oh wow, that's actually a really good question. Probably a lot. I can say "five" in languages I've never studied. Like Korean. Did you know that I was a first degree black belt in Taekwondo? (00:29) Jessie: I had no idea. Like, I feel like this is information you're supposed to share with friends before you've been friends for seven years. But OK. That's cool. (00:37) David: You'd think. You'd think. But again we are not, you know, friends. (00:42) Jessie: Friends. (00:43) David: And I think that you confirmed-- (00:44) Jessie: Mortal enemy. (00:46) David: You confirmed that today when I went to my Instagram and saw news that a family of foxes had visited your house. And your first thought wasn't, "Hey let's share this with my friend who loves animals and foxes, especially." No, no, no. "Let's put this on the 'Gram." And then, "Let's not even tell him about it. Let's just let him happen upon it as he's- as he's going through it." And not only that you- you texted me today for an entirely separate reason you actually texted me and it was just like- I mean, I can't think that you- that the foxes weren't on your mind. All I can think is that you really despise me. (01:45) Jessie: I'm holding it over your head. I am, however- I'll share the other four photos beyond those two that I posted on Instagram. I'll text those to you that I ended up not posting because they're not as good, but I really was too excited to keep my camera steady. (02:02) David: Wow. Well, I guess I feel special. (02:06) Jessie: Four foxes. Yeah. You know, I guess you should. I don't know. But actually the funny- it's really funny that you bring up that first, which I do, from the bottom of my heart, apologize for letting all of "The 'Gram" know when obviously the correct thing to do the moment I had the pictures was text you. I'm sorry. (02:32) David: Thank you. Not accepted but thank you. Thank you. (02:40) Jessie: Was the gesture at least semi appreciated? (02:43) David: It was. Yeah, and I think "semi appreciated" is the best way to put it. (02:49) Jessie: Awesome. Okay, so when the foxes happened upon our backyard, I was actually in the middle of a very tense phone call, because we- Chris and I were locked out of our SFA accounts- so of our university accounts. Like, our first thought is, "Oh, they fired us." They just, they just locked us out and got rid of us. And it turned out there was another issue about an email that we had never received or realized that something with the password needed to be changed, but I was in the middle of- (03:27) David: "Respond to this email or you're fired!" (03:29) Jessie: That's it. That's it. So I was in the middle of talking to the Help Desk people and you know saying what's going on and, you know, telling them about how we had tried to sign in. And we've got all this other stuff. We can't access our school email, couldn't access Zoom, couldn't access like anything that we needed our school credentials for. And so in the middle of all this, I happened to look out the window, and I shout, "There's a fox in our backyard!" The guy on the other end of the phone said, "I'm not sure what that metaphor means, ma'am." Because obviously he didn't know there was literally- so like I'm too excited I'm like, "Wait, no. Literally, literally! A fox!" Then- and then I went to the window and they just kept coming. They kept showing up. (04:23) David: My goodness. Oh, my goodness. This is, you know, when we- when they eventually put, you know, together dolls of us- like you know children's dolls with a drawstring, that'll be your catchphrase. "There's a fox in my backyard!" (04:38) Jessie: I love it. Also, if it were a metaphor, what would that mean? (04:45) David: Well, would it be something that you would start off a conversation with or something that you would be- you'd respond by saying "there's a fox in my backyard"? (04:54) Jessie: I feel like it's a response. (04:56) David: Okay, well then I've got it for you. Ask me asked me a somewhat private question. Go ahead. About somebody else. Ask me a somewhat private question about somebody else. (05:13) Jessie: Oh, wow. Oh, put me on the spot. And then I'm horrible about thinking what would be somewhat private because I'm too Midwestern to think that I would ever actually ask them, so I'm getting embarrassed just thinking about asking you a somewhat private question about somebody else. (05:29) David: That was, that was part of the point. This is my revenge. Semi- semi appreciated. Semi appreciated. (05:36) Jessie: As I'm like kind of hyperventilating like, "I'm not supposed to ask questions." Um, okay, so- Oh, this is a question you should never ask about somebody. (05:52) David: Mm-hmm. Yeah. (05:53) Jessie: And I'm just- who should, who should I ask? Oh, you know, I'll just say, "Who did Erin vote for in the last election?" (06:02) David: There's a fox in my backyard! But I mean, goodness gracious, Hillary Clinton. Come on, but- There- I mean, can't even joke about that. But the idea is that there. When we say, "there's a fox in my backyard," there is something I'm not telling you that I really want to tell you. That I'm not gonna. And- and nobody can say that I told you, because all I said was, "there's a box in my backyard." (06:39) Jessie: I feel like that would be a great one, especially if we were in, you know, a water cooler chat office situation where, you know, "Oh I heard so and so stayed over somewhere by so and so's house" or something I don't know. Something salacious. (06:56) David: Yeah. Yes. (06:57) Jessie: And then, "Mm hmm. Well, there's a fox in my backyard." (07:01) David: Ooh! Well, hopefully they know what it means otherwise they'll, they'll be saying, "Wait a minute. He stayed at your house?! In your backyard?" (07:13) Jessie: Yeah, in the backyard. Oh my gosh. (07:21) David: Salaciousness, or salicity? (07:24) Jessie: Salicity? Who says salicity? And I'm looking this up right now is salicity a thing? (07:30) David: No, I think it's- I think it's a name. It is now. I hope somebody names their daughter Salicity. (07:36) Jessie: Can- all of a sudden I realized I say "salacious," but how do you spell it? Oh. (07:42) David: S-A-L-A-C-I-O-U-S. That is how you spell salacious. Didn't you have that when you went to school? That, that rhyme? (07:51) Jessie: Yeah, that exact little clap and rhyme? No. (07:56) David: That's how we all know how to spell salacious I thought. (07:59) Jessie: Well, remember, remember. Midwestern. We don't talk about such things. (08:06) David: Oh, for us, it was part of fifth grade curriculum. Yeah. (08:11) Jessie: You California people. (08:14) David: Yeah. It was missions. And then salacious spelling. That was it, really. (08:20) Jessie: That was the- I- By the way, I still haven't mastered the art of the eye contact via Zoom because I just moved your, your window over on my computer and I realized I feel like I'm making eye contact, but I'm turning to the side because I'm looking right at you. (08:37) David: That's an idea. (08:38) Jessie: I need to look at the camera. (08:40) David: I'm gonna center Jessie. (08:46) Jessie: And I had moved you over because I was getting ready- I forgot that I needed to open something to go on to what I had actually planned for, you know, the conlang portion. (08:59) David: Speaker view. Look at this. Now you're just full screen. (09:03) Jessie: I'm sorry. (09:05) David: Did you know you could do that? But wait, it can't be full screen because you're recording. Oh. (09:14) Jessie: It c- it can be (09:16) David: But then it will make me small. (09:21) Jessie: Well, actually, when I record- (09:22) David: No, it'll make me big and it'll make you small! (09:25) Jessie: Well, that's how it already is anyway. On my view- on my view, but the actual recording. Are you talking about the recording, when you see the video portion of these recordings that nobody has seen yet? No, it is speaker view. So when I'm speaking, it shows me huge when you're speaking, it shows you huge (09:45) David: Oh, I wish I would have known that four episodes ago (09:50) Jessie: That's why I said, I didn't think anyone was going to be seeing these but apparently maybe someday in the far, far future video footage could be released. (10:00) David: So this is (10:01) Jessie: As you hide behind an elephant. (10:04) David: This is Elefante. A- that's- that's Meridian's little elephant. And- And his name is now Elefante Elephant. And that's his last name. (10:16) Jessie: Yes, very appropriate. (10:18) David: Yep. It's so soft. Like so soft. This is a soft stuffed animal. It's really good. Anyway. (10:32) Jessie: Okay, so. (10:34) David: What do you got? (10:35) Jessie: Are we ready? We're talking- you just snapped. I love it. Today we're talking dictionaries, because I love dictionaries. More specifically, though, because I feel like you're particular style of dictionary entries, at least in my knowledge, is unique to you in terms of how you actually format the entries. Am I right about that or did you steal your ideas from someone else? (11:08) David: I just assumed I was doing it the way dictionaries do. I mean- I don't know. I evolved it very slowly over-- what year is this? (11:21) Jessie: 2020. (11:23) David: So over literally 20 years. Yeah, that's a little bit of a "yikes." So it's like, you know, yeah, my first language was was Megdevi, and I was like, okay, if I'm going to write this up in a document, it needs to be in a dictionary. So I started off by writing the grammar rules, such as they were. And then I made a quick reference section so that I wouldn't have to constantly go back to the grammar. And then I started writing the dictionary and I, of course, did it Megdevi to English and then English to Megdevi. Now my grammar at that time was very small. And I just had them numbered. That was actually inspired by something. So the grammar was inspired by something. That was inspired by Esperanto. Yeah, if you're not aware of this, if you haven't studied Esperanto, Esperanto's grammar is somewhat infamous for having 16 rules and they say, "That's it, just these 16 rules and you can speak the language fluently." And it numbers them and they're really arranged in a rather haphazard way and some of those, you're looking at those and say, "Huh, you use an entire number for that rule? Doesn't seem like it needed one." But anyway, so that's what I did. There were- It was a numbered list of all the grammar things and I think that like number one is like, you know, the definite article is "zhi," which is what the definite article was in Megdevi. Because I think that's grammar rule number one in Esperanto, too, the definite article. Yeah, I think so. (12:58) Jessie: I would like to point out, though, that that would have been funny if "zhi" was not actually the definite article, but it was just the first rule of Megdevi. The second rule was ignore the first rule. (13:11) David: Of course, you know, for my very first language, I took it very seriously. Very seriously. (13:16) Jessie: Sorry, no joking, no joking. (13:17) David: I was the first one to ever create a language for fun. Nobody ever had done that before ever in the history of the entire world. (13:29) Jessie: I hear that's actually true and that all of the people who claim they did it before really had time machines and- (13:36) David: It was nuts. It was just Esperanto and Novial and- and Ro and Occidental and Ido. That was it. (13:47) Jessie: And Megdevi. (13:48) David: Then Megdevi came along and revolutionized the entire world. (13:53) Jessie: Everything. (13:54) David: So yeah, I took it super seriously. But, but, yeah, so like that very first dictionary, it was definitely not as well constructed as- as mine are now. Same with the language, but that basic structure, I just came up with it because it made sense. And then I kept moving forward. It's, it's kind of what I had seen in other dictionaries, which is- or at least dictionaries with reference grammars, right? Especially the- like where it's like, you get the beginning, it's like, "Okay, here's some serious grammar stuff," but like, now here's just the tables, right. Right, so that you don't have to go back to the grammar, you know, and then a long dictionary at the end. So I had just copied that. (14:39) Jessie: I think I find it interesting. Well, for the grammar portion and we can get on that another day. I think the big difference. Sorry. There's so much kitchen noise in the background. So if you're listening to this podcast, I hope it doesn't make you too hungry. Um, but with the grammar portion. I had always--and I still do whenever I'm creating my own languages just for fun--separate them out and so that way I have the cheat sheet charts in one little document and I only ever have to open that document. And then if I need more information, I can open up the full document and like reference that. Because, otherwise, the scrolling back and forth, it just seems like a lot. I don't know. So I always had completely separate documents for those, but the dictionary itself- Have you ever tried using- so this is how I started, I don't do it anymore. And we can talk about why, but had you ever use some sort of spreadsheet, whether it was Excel or Numbers- Is it numbers? Yeah, Numbers is the the Mac version. Have you ever used that for your dictionary? Okay, so- (15:47) David: Never. (15:48) Jessie: By the way he held a big thumbs down for that so, since nobody saw that on the recording. (15:57) David: Right, right. I can- I have to remember we're doing audio, we need to do this like Vin Scully like as a matter of fact, he never used a spreadsheet for a language before. A curious thing in 1973 he opened his very first popsicle stand and then that popsicle stand, believe it or not, he averaged two sales a day but he only sold on Wednesdays and that's why when he's batting right handed during the day on Wednesdays his average is a striking 173. Anyway. (16:35) Jessie: That was the most random thing. (16:37) David: Does nobody else know who Vin Scully is? Did I just LA myself? (16:41) Jessie: I think you did. But the voice was wonderful. (16:46) David: So, the, the thing. Oh, yeah. So spreadsheets. I was shocked--shocked--when I started meeting other conlangers, and they were like, "Oh, you know, I do my dictionary on a spreadsheet." I'm like, "A spreadsheet? A spreadsheet?" So first of all, I mean you you're a Mac person going back, right? (17:07) Jessie: Um. Just a second. I have to stop and line up the years. So I converted in 2009. My first language, my first language, I would have been- my first real language that I claim as a real language- would have been started before that so it would have been on a PC and I used- and god this is really going to be funny. I didn't- I've never been a huge Microsoft fan in terms of their, their products. And so even when I had a PC, I didn't buy the Microsoft products. And so I actually did it on and I can't even remember what the name of it was- whatever the spreadsheet was for Corel. Do you remember the Corel suite? (17:56) David: Boy. Yeah, of course. (17:57) Jessie: Way back in the day? It's not a thing anymore. But that would have been my original- would have been whatever the spreadsheet was in that program. (18:07) David: Yeah, so if you go back to the 90s. When we first got the color Macintoshes, right. (18:16) Jessie: Oh, and those were beautiful. I kind of wish they'd come back, but OK. (18:20) David: So we had a ClarisWorks. ClarisWorks was somewhat similar to- kind of like, kind of like Word but also Corel Draw. Remember that? So it's like- it had a word processor, but it also had a lot of graphic stuff. And then, you know, it kept on going, ClarisWorks was eventually bought out by Apple. And it became Apple Works. And it was at that time that I think they added a spreadsheet functionality, but it's like I looked at once, and I was like, "This is pointless. This looks like something for business." And then I quickly, you know, never did anything again with it. Then eventually Apple Works turned into Pages. And that was when they invented Numbers and Keynote, or they may have come a little bit later because they- they basically- they removed all of the drawing functions. All of the art functions that had been a part of it because you know it was trying to be like Corel Draw and Microsoft Word that had Paint as part of it, right. So, they just split those up and then I didn't think about spreadsheets again until probably a job or something where people were using- Yes. Yes. That was it. It was when I was working for Central Kitchen. So I was part of the Berkeley Cooperative Association, where students lived and you did work for the house for- and got board for reduced rent. And so one year I was- I was a part of the Central Kitchen, which buys in bulk food for everybody and then distributes it to the houses. And so, I not only packed orders, but I also worked with Excel for the first time. This would have been 2003 I want to say. And so, yeah, I used Excel and I became familiar with it and I was like, "Okay, I understand what Excel is good for." You know, it seems to add things up and things like that. And yeah, I didn't really give it much thought until like later on somewhere on the conlang list people are talking about- "Here's the Excel sheet for my dictionary." I'm like, "Is this a joke? Is this a joke? You're using Excel." The thing that has boxes that are like this teeny tiny little things. It's like- (20:50) Jessie: You can make the boxes bigger. (20:53) David: You can make the boxes bigger. And can you color them? Can you create different fonts and do different font sizes? You can. You can now. You couldn't then. What- What I- it's kind of like, you know, if you have, if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The type of dictionaries that I saw, it was just one word things. Here's my word for this and here's its equivalent. Here's my word for this. Here's this equivalent. Here's my word for this, here's it's equivalent. (21:22) Jessie: Right. (21:23) David: There's a- some author who did a version of the Mandoa language for a book or something. (21:32) Jessie: Okay, (21:33) David: And she's put up the dictionary. And it's an Excel spreadsheet and it is exactly that. Here's the word, and here's its equivalent. Here's the word here's equivalent. It's like, "Hm." (21:43) Jessie: Okay, so- (21:44) David: Show me what you got. (21:45) Jessie: I'm about to show you- I'm already laughing. I printed out the grammar of my first language as a book. (21:54) David: You did? When? (21:57) Jessie: Right here. Um, (21:58) David: Why does it looks so good? Like, it's got binding and everything. (21:59) Jessie: Way back when. Oh, I did one of those like- I can't remember what site I used, but it was like Lulu where you print. Oh, Blurb. It was, I don't think Blurb even exists anymore but, like, you could submit files and have them printed as books. (22:19) David: Do you still have a copy of it? Another copy? (22:23) Jessie: This is my only copy. (22:25) David: How do we buy it? (22:29) Jessie: Because everybody wants to buy this. I'm not gonna say it's great, this is my first real language. (22:31) David: Well, I do. (22:36) Jessie: So it, though- And I'm going to have to like take a picture and show, but this is- I did spreadsheet and apparently I'm not as bad as those people that you're complaining about. But this was all formatted with a spreadsheet and like holding it up to the camera for David to see. Yeah, I'm sure you couldn't see anything but that's okay. I'll send you- I'll send you a picture later. But what I found helpful about the spreadsheet, and I did more than just like I would want the first word in the cell of the English portion to be the one that like I would potentially think of first or just in alphabetical order, too. But what it- what spreadsheets allowed me to do was easily sort because this was- now I think find features have gotten better whenever you have to do like a search and find. But one of the things that helped me out, was I could choose any column I wanted and say alphabetize this, so that way I could then have automatically an English to, you know, a conlang dictionary. Because now all the English is alphabetized. Or if I wanted to see like do I already have this word in the language or a form similar to it, I could like alphabetize it by the conlang entry so that way I could easily- and then even like alphabetize it by the conlang entry and then say secondary sort by part of speech so that way I could see like all the verbs together or whatever. And that, to me, was super helpful in terms of what I was doing then. I think part of what is problematic is if you have any sort of language that would do- any language that has like a noun class system where you would have potentially four, five, six, twenty words that are related at their core and you need to keep all that information together somehow. I think that that would not be as easily adjustable in terms of the row layout, where it's just one per row. I think you could do it though. And if you had another column, just for, like, this is a shared base or whatever. But yeah, I always I did it by- but then they're harder to share, I've found because I still don't like Excel. (24:59) David: Yeah, (25:00) Jessie: And so I would prefer Numbers, but then that also limits, like who can, who I can share the document itself with because not everybody can open a Numbers file. (25:11) David: And it doesn't really do much when you print out a PDF. The, the truth is that word processors and spreadsheet, you know, programs have gotten better. But neither of them is ideal. The best dictionary, the best conlang dictionary I've ever seen was Sylvia Sotomayor's. Because the truth is that a word processing file and a spreadsheet are both front end. And, and that's not- That's not really ideal. Ideally, you should be working with the back end. And then get any- whatever type of front end, you want. And that's, in fact, exactly what Sylvia did. She created a database. So her entire dictionary is a mySQL database. Some people say mySequel. I don't. Anyway, so- (26:04) Jessie: I don't even know what it is. So like the fact that, you know, some people call it this other thing is, "Wow." (26:13) David: OK, so mySQL is a database. It's a thing where it's like, you can create databases that have tables that you can give names to and then they can have data in them. And then you have other things usually PHP that tells you how to access the stuff in those tables. This is how WordPress works. So like, for example, everything that's associated with a traditional WordPress blog both like a post entry, but also the author, the categories, the tags, all- the date, all that stuff. It's just stored in databases. And then there are PHP prompts that talk to a website and say, you know, somebody presses this on the website, goes to the PHP, It says return this- return these values from the database and then the- the HTML says format it this way. Okay, and the CSS. So what Sylvia did is she created different tables. Not tables, like- cells. Different tables and cells for the word, its different forms, its different stems, parts of speech, the definition, and then tags for every time it's used in a sentence. So that anywhere on her website, if she puts up a translation, you just click on the word, it goes immediately to that entry. (27:41) Jessie: Wow. (27:42) David: And it's all generated dynamically. She didn't like, you know, write up like you know every single page for every single word. It just is automatically generated. So that's the ideal because then the information is all over here and you just create stuff over here to format it. And the closest that we have to that right now is a program called Polyglot. Are you familiar with Polyglot? (28:10) Jessie: Polyglot? No. (28:12) David: Okay, this is something that you're going to want to look up. There's I keep, I keep promising the guy. He's released a Beta because I wanted to give him feedback on it, but it's- Something like mySQL and PHP, blah, blah, blah, that's all for the web. Imagine if there was something like that that had a friendlier UI that was just for your own personal computer. That's essentially- yeah, that's essentially what Polyglot is. You can define what the parts of speech are and how many of them there are. You can define, you know, like here's your dictionary entry. You can also define extra cells for- because your language might need them. And so this is where, like, the the example you brought up with noun classes. It wouldn't necessarily matter because you could just create a cell and say this is the root of it. And also, this is what noun class it is. And then you could just bring up everything that was in that root, and it would bring up everything. Or everything of a particular noun class. It would bring all of that up and so on. And so it's really close to be the ideal conlang software suite. There were just a couple of little things in there that- that I was hoping to see changed. So I want to work with it but, yeah. High recommend that. (29:32) Jessie: Okay, because I know I- like I had tried to find resources through SIL, like the Shoe Box. You know or the linguistic- (29:41) David: Conlangers did did use that. Conlangers did use Shoe Box for a time. (29:47) Jessie: But I couldn't quite figure out any of their tools that were easy enough for me to figure out how to use that made it useful for me. Because if I'm spending, you know, that much time on a learning curve just to figure out how to make an entry and then I can't necessarily figure out how to access it after I spend all that time. It just, it wasn't worth it when I could instead be, you know, spending the time on the language itself. And so I know, I wonder, because there was a website that I remember joining that was for people- (30:24) David: Conlang Workshop? (30:25) Jessie: That's it. Yes. And they have a way- I remember they had sort of a way to create information and entries and things like that. But it's still- And I had even like started by like making up just a fake language to- stuff to put in there just to see how it worked to see if it was something that I could use with my students. Because I think that's the number one thing that a lot of my students struggle with, too, is how do I keep track. You know, I've got all these handwritten notes because a lot of even modern students prefer actually when they're doing lots of quick notes, they actually prefer to do it all in handwriting on, on paper. And that's great but then you've got like these little scraps of paper when you get inspiration. And they're kind of like sticking all over your folder in your notebook and you're trying to figure out how to get it all together in a cohesive way in a dictionary. And, you know, as, as many times as I try to give advice, it's- everybody's brain sort of works differently because some people do need that spreadsheet idea of I have a cell, put information here. Other people do much better with the sort of freeform dictionary entries like you do just not as- they're usually not as descriptive in terms of some of the, like, you know, the root form and the little numbering system and things like that that you came up with to be helpful for your purposes. But that's the- the big thing is like how do you make it user friendly, in the sense that you can quickly and easily create the entries, but then also user friendly, in the sense that you can find what you wrote later on. And I feel like there's always- it's always the, the biggest pitfall. Whenever people ask for help on that, and my answer is usually, you need to find what works for you. Here are some ideas. (32:21) David: Mm hmm. (32:21) Jessie: See what works. And I have actually, for my own languages, have given up entirely on the glossary that goes from English to the coddling and here's why. (32:33) David: Okay, (32:34) Jessie: Because I can just use the find feature, and I can find the English word in the entry of the dictionary that goes from the conlang to English. So I was like, why am I creating- Why am I creating twice as much work for myself when all I need to do is hit you know command-F and I can find the word probably more quickly than I can scroll through all the pages. (32:58) David: I feel like I still need and want it. (33:01) Jessie: Okay. (33:03) David: I- it's useful to me to go through the English side. But I mean, I think it may just be- it may indeed be a relic because, yeah, you're right. Of course, you can always find. But I don't know. Sometimes it's just easier and lazier. It's just like, I want a word for this and I don't actually want to hit Control F. I just want to scroll. So I just go to the English side. I don't know. (33:31) Jessie: How long have you been a Mac user? (33:36) David: Well, Apple, I've been an Apple user longer than I've been a Mac user. Because our- the first computers that we had were the computers that my mother were let- was allowed to bring home from school during the summer and those were Apple IIe-s. (33:51) Jessie: So that's where I was introduced to computers because my mom taught fourth grade, and they had one computer that they gave each classroom and it was, you know, a huge revolution at the time. (34:03) David: Oh yeah. (34:04) Jessie: Especially in small town in rural Missouri. And yeah, it was- I don't remember the model, but it was an Apple computer and she would bring it home during the summer to try to learn how to use some of the features and my sister and I were all over that. So we were like, "We get to use it." But of course it was very disappointing when the first time we turned it on, there was just a blinking green dot and we had to figure out how to enter the right commands to get it to run anything. (34:29) David: Yeah, so that was a IIe because they had the green screen. Yeah. (34:33) Jessie: Yeah, with the little blinky- (34:34) David: Yep. (34:36) Jessie: Well, the reason I just asked that, by the way, was because you you said control-F. And really I thought you would have said command-F, but. (34:44) David: Well, I always forget that that's what it's called. (34:47) Jessie: Because our control button does other things. (34:50) David: Yeah, it does. Oh, it says command on it now. Did it always say command? I don't know. It's the, you know, it's the big fat button that has the indescribable symbol on it. (35:06) Jessie: It's the swirly square. (35:07) David: What the hell is that? (35:08) Jessie: It's a swirly square. (35:10) David: It's a swirly square. It looks like- it looks like a square that's taken some psychedelics. You know what I mean, starting to do that kaleidoscope thing. (35:22) Jessie: Sure, sure. (35:23) David: And it's also the only symbol on the keyboard- I mean, maybe not on a modern keyboard at least on a traditional keyboard. It's the only symbol on the keyboard that you couldn't type. Like you can't type that. (35:37) Jessie: I think now that- (35:37) David: I don't even know that symbol as a part of Unicode. Is it? (35:40) Jessie: I have no idea. What is the option symbol, though? Is that something that's normal? (35:46) David: It's just has Alt/Option? (35:50) Jessie: Right, so right next to the command and you see the little symbol that's like half a weird X, but not a full X. (36:00) David: Oh. (36:01) Jessie: What would you call that symbol? (36:02) David: I remember the one you mean. It's not on mine anymore. I don't think they put that on keyboards anymore. (36:08) Jessie: What? (36:09) David: Yeah, it's not on there. (36:12) David: It's just says Alt/Option. It doesn't have the symbol anymore. (36:15) Jessie: One moment, I'm checking. I was just gonna- Okay, I have a brand new keyboard from Apple and mine still has a symbol. I was just checking to make sure. I think you have a defective keyboard. (36:30) David: This, this laptop is not as new as your new one, I believe. (36:35) Jessie: No, because I just got mine like the other day, so. (36:40) David: I have pulled up the Wikipedia article on the command key. Oh my god, I can't wait. "Also known as the Apple key, clover key, open Apple key." That's the one I remember--open Apple. (36:52) Jessie: Yes. (36:53) David: "Splat key-" (36:54) Jessie: Splat? (36:55) David: "pretzel key, drone key or propeller key." (37:01) Jessie: Okay, my favorites are obviously splat and drone and clover. What are your favorites? (37:09) David: Oh, I, I, I was immediately drawn to the pretzel key, because I think that's very cute and that it brings it to mind. But it is in Unicode. It is in Unicode. (37:21) Jessie: There you go. (37:22) David: Sorry, I was just showing it. It's called a looped square (37:26) Jessie: Oh, so my swirly square was not far off. (37:29) David: Yeah. (37:30) Jessie: You should listen to me more often. (37:34) David: Should I? I mean, if I, if I- it's like if I listen to you, will I hear more about foxes, or will I not? (37:43) Jessie: If you listened, then I would know to speak more often. (37:48) David: Oh my- Ouch. (37:55) Jessie: Oh, man. (37:56) David: Okay, look at this. There's an entire history of this. "The development team originally went for their old Apple key, but Steve Jobs found it frustrating when Apples filled up the Mac's menus next to the key command because he felt that this was an overuse of the company logo. With only a few days left before the deadline, the team's Bitmap artist Susan Kare started researching for the Apple's logo successor, browsing through a simple dictionary, when she came across the cloverleaf-like symbol commonly used in Nordic countries as an indicator of cultural locations and places of interest." Look at this. It's a Swedish road sign, apparently. (38:34) Jessie: That's amazing. Oh, that makes me even happier for that key. (38:40) David: Wow. (38:42) Jessie: Oh my gosh. (38:43) David: But then why did they use it? "It is the official road sign for tourist attraction in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. And the computer key has often been called 'Fornminne,' ancient monument, by Swedish Mac users and 'Seværdighedstegn-'" oh boy. No, but this is Danish. You don't pronounce any of those. So it's probably just something like, you know, "sairsten" by Danish users. (39:14) Jessie: Sure. (39:16) David: Are you familiar with Danish and it's Danishness? (39:19) Jessie: No. (39:20) David: Okay, so like they don't pronounce anything. Like that thing every- everybody is, is talking about like they always talk about how they can't understand Danish speakers. Like people from other areas because, I don't know. I get the impression that it's like- it's the, it's the Scandinavian version of having a really deep rural Texan accent. (39:48) Jessie: Nice. (39:49) David: Yeah, so I just get, I guess, like, you know, a whole bunch of consonants just get dropped. (39:54) Jessie: Just get thrown out. (39:55) David: In- indiscriminately. (39:58) Jessie: You should hear some other- some other even deeper Southern accents. Some of them, some of them I still struggle to fully understand. Okay, but- (40:10) David: By the way, okay. Wait, really quick. This, I think this is going to be worth it. You tell me later if it was. I have friend Gayle, who's from Iowa. And you remember the movie Napoleon Dynamite when it came out? (40:20) Jessie: Of course, (40:21) David: Okay. So there's this one part where- I forget what's going on in the scene. It's somewhere towards the middle of the first half of the movie, but Napoleon is there talking to this guy. He's an older guy and they're just on his land and he says something that it's like inaudible. Like you have no idea what the heck this guy was saying. Something like, you know, [MUMBLE, MUMBLE, MUMBLE]. We're sure like what? What on earth did he just say? It's like, I guess like that was part of the joke that nobody knew what he was saying. But then, Gayle came and heard him. And it's like, oh yeah, he said, "Actually, there's some- we found some Shoshone arrowheads over there the other day." I'm like, What? How did you understand? It's like, oh yeah, "That's an accent from like around where I'm from." (41:10) Jessie: Nice. (41:11) David: And we are well familiar with it, and it was like, so it wasn't him speaking gibberish. He was just speaking in the accent and doing it correctly because she got it just like that. It's extraordinary. (41:24) Jessie: Okay. So going back to dictionaries because- because one of the things that I, well, one that I like about the dictionaries that you have whenever we remember to actually put entries in, which is apparently an issue sometimes. Um, but it does have all the parts that I wouldn't think of. And there's a couple of- two little things. Obviously the, you know, the spelling how it's written, part of speech, definition. Like those are standard and that's fine. It's the tiny details. One thing that I would not have thought of probably until I was in a situation where it was bugging me was the rewrite the word if there's any accent marks without any accent marks and so like if you're looking at our Engála reference grammar, and you're in the Es, you may see like "emánu" and then in parentheses, you see it written without the accent mark over the A in that second syllable. And how did- Is there a story behind that in terms of- you just- or is it really just like I couldn't find terms when I was searching for them because I couldn't remember where the accent mark was or something like that? (42:36) David: Oh, it was me searching for a word I was almost certain that I had. I mean, I don't remember what it was at this point, but it's like I'm just doing the find and it's like, it's not coming up. And I'm like, I know I have this word, but I just couldn't find it. So I created another word for it. And then I found it later because I was searching, either with the wrong accent mark or without the accent mark and it just didn't turn up, which computers are very wonky about that. Sometimes it's like, you know, search for A, it brings up all the A's, including the ones with accent marks. And then sometimes not. And then sometimes you search for an A with an accent mark, and it's like, "Oh, that's not here," but then there is one there. Like- (43:16) Jessie: Since you're like clearly staring at the A with an accent mark. (43:21) David: Yeah, so I was like, You know what, forget it. We're- I could because I thought, I was like, "I'm- I'm using this most of the time. What do I care? Let's just put it in there." I mean, (43:33) Jessie: Yeah. (43:34) David: Just to make things easier for me. That's what I love. I love doing things to make things easier for me. (43:41) Jessie: Which I will say like in the moment, it can be difficult to remember all the steps. And I know sometimes I struggled when we were working on Méníshè, and you- and I was doing some entries. And like I couldn't remember all the time. Like, oh yeah, I need to make sure I put the little dot to separate, say, like a prefix from the root, just to show where the actual root is or things like that. And I, that to me like I would still have to look certain things up. And, actually, as I'm looking at our E entries... (44:21) David: Oh yeah, that- (44:22) Jessie: I have found a mistake. (44:24) David: Well, it's not necessarily mistake it's, I don't know what to do because this is actually a good point. This is about Engála specifically, alright. (44:33) Jessie: Yes. (44:34) David: It's hard to analyze it from the standpoint of- because I try to do it, how would, how would a modern native speaker analyze this? But it's hard to ignore the history (44:47) Jessie: Right. (44:48) David: So it's like, I'm sitting here thinking like, would they think this was the root? Even though I know it's not the root? (44:56) Jessie: Mm hmm. It was specifically, by the way, to fill out this conversation, you can look or just remember that *mbainu as a proto-root, which means "stump," because it was the that pre-nasalized "b," it ended up becoming "emáinu" So it has the little "e" out front through some sound changes. And so that specifically, should that "e" be separated from the "mainu," which is the actual base? And so I'll let you continue now just to kind of give that concrete example. (45:33) David: Yeah, so like with that one. What's the plural? (45:37) Jessie: "Tumainu," but not with stress on the "tu," obviously. (45:42) David: Okay, so, so here's, here's the conundrum, right? If you think about this as like, it's so difficult. But like as a synchronous native speaker of this language, who presumably doesn't have the knowledge of the history of the language, they look at that and think, oh, well, this part's the same- the "mainu" part's the same here and here. So, this one has a singular prefix. This one has a plural prefix--probably not in those terms. But it's like the idea is that it's separable where it's like, we know it's not (46:15) Jessie: Right. (46:16) David: You know what I mean? (46:17) Jessie: Right. (46:18) David: What do you do? And so if you see inconsistencies, it's because I changed my mind and I- and I'm still struggling with it. Like, if you think about it from a purely mechanical standpoint and from the standpoint of, we want to save space and save ink in this dictionary, the thing to do is to separate it so "e - dot - mainu." And then "comma tu- hyphen." That's the best way to do it, even if it gives a false impression about the history of the word. (46:58) Jessie: Right. (46:59) David: But- but then it burns me to do that. You know what I mean? It burns my very soul to do that. Because I know it's wrong. Like what do I do? Like it's even hard for me to think of those words is beginning with "e." (47:17) Jessie: Right, right. Well, and I know that was- that was something that we actually came up against a lot when we were working on Méníshè, which I believe we can talk about this openly right since it's all like been on air. Excellent. And there's like a Wiki with things on it and everything, but when we were working on the lexical entries- So if you think about the way you've seen the dictionary in Engála, because Méníshè had noun classes, we wanted to keep- well, you wanted, and I learned how to keep all of the words that were created from the same root in terms of, you know, here's the root and then you have, you know, like in this noun class, it means this. If you add this noun class marker, it means this other thing. And so all of that would be in one dictionary entry, but then came the time to figure out, we came up against this problem of how to alphabetize. Especially when sound changes left it so the root was something like ""iegh," but then the modern form is "yegh." And so we had this issue of where do we put it, because maybe that "i" still shows up in certain forms, because it was preserved if a certain thing came before it. But it otherwise wasn't, and so we still never landed on the perfect- And so I still just have to do the command-find. Like there is no- I don't think a good way to really keep all those intricacies without just creating eight entries and saying, "Look, it's cross referenced." (49:05) David: Yeah, so this is- if you're listening to this. What you're supposed to do is come up with a singular strategy and stick to it all the way through. That's what you're supposed to do. That's not what we did. (49:23) Jessie: Because, one, there's two people working on it partially in isolation. So even though we would obviously like get together and chat, there is still a good bit of it where, you know, I was- I was putting entries in or you would be. And so just those little different flairs that you don't necessarily think about when you're doing it, thinking, "Well, this is the natural assumption," and then you find out it's not. That somebody else would actually do it differently. And so I think that's one of the issues. But then the other big issue is that we changed our mind. I think seven times. Because we're like, "No, it makes more sense to do it by base" and then we're like, "Well, that doesn't make any sense" because now when we need to look it up, in our heads, it's like, "Didn't it start with a "y?" Why can't we find it?" And- (50:07) David: Yeah. (50:08) Jessie: It was- it was a big issue when we were trying to do translations and couldn't locate these words that we knew existed. (50:14) David: Yeah, but but also, I mean, let's not sell ourselves short. Part of it was us changing our minds and then part of it was us just forgetting what the heck we did. (50:26) Jessie: Yeah. (50:27) David: And then remembering the wrong thing. "Oh, I think we did this." It's like, "Oh, yeah, yeah." (50:33) Jessie: And then we just- we didn't verify it. We didn't verify that, mind you. We just went with it, like, "Yeah, that sounds like- that sounds right." (50:39) David: Yes. Yes, we did. So, but- (50:43) Jessie: Well, and I just want to say there's another, there's another part to that. Because the other part is that we were on a time crunch. And so I think our brains were just in overdrive with "We have to get all this stuff done." And so you think, right? You think that you can remember a decision you made two days ago until you've made 340 other decisions in the same language two days later, and that one decision now is not such a memorable thing. And so I know that was also a huge issue for me. (51:18) David: You're right. Oh man, I would love to just like- I wish we could have videotaped ourselves working on it so that then we could just watch it with popcorn right now. In fact, I also wish that we could interact with our former selves. Just make fun of us. "Hey, hey! Why don't you take a break? You look pretty tired." (51:37) Jessie: It could be like The Mystery Science Theater. With the eating popcorn. "Did you see that? That's going to come back later to haunt them." (51:48) David: It's like, "Oh, that's where that mistake happened. Don't tell them. Let them figure it out." (51:54) Jessie: Probably during one of the calls that ended up going to like my time two in the morning. And so I was half loopy and like, "I'm still good. We got this." (52:03) David: Oh, yeah. (52:05) Jessie: Probably, probably didn't have it. (52:10) David: So I would point out, though, that this- the example with Engála, to come back to our topic, why you don't do morphemes. Our main topic. (52:25) Jessie: That was obviously the reason for today's, yes. (52:28) David: I mean, look at the history of that language. It's hard to say that "e" is not a prefix. Right? That occurs exclusively with the singular. And yet, there's absolutely no way it could be a morpheme. Absolutely no way. (52:48) Jessie: But why can't "emáinu" be a morpheme and then "tumáinu" just be like the plural form? (52:55) David: Okay. "Emáinu" is a morpheme that is both a prefix and a base. (52:59) Jessie: There is no prefix! It's just "emáinu." (53:01) David: A prefix. (53:02) Jessie: It doesn't have to be a prefix. (53:05) David: If it's a prefix- (53:08) Jessie: You'd think it is. Well, you didn't say it was a prefix for "enáigu." (53:13) David: It's so obviously a prefix, though, I mean- (53:16) Jessie: Although that one may be- That one may be because for some reason it's a zero plural. Oh, probably because it's edible, and the plural form of that didn't end up adding anything. So there's nothing added for that plural. So maybe that's why you decided not to add the little bullet point? (53:32) David: Yeah, because- Because here's the thing. If you did add the bullet point right and then afterwards, let's say you put like a zero, what it would mean- (53:44) Jessie: And then you'd think- (53:45) David: Yeah yeah. (53:46) Jessie: Naigu. (53:47) David: Yep. (53:49) Jessie: Okay, so there was a method to your madness, but it's not consistent. (53:53) David: Definitely not. No, I'm not gonna not gonna defend that. I defend nothing. (53:59) Jessie: They give the- the look. (54:04) David: They may say- Let me tell you, I'll tell you one thing. There's a fox in my backyard. (54:14) Jessie: And it's gorgeous. And this is interesting. So you felt the need to point out that "e" but then in the "f's"- Maybe I entered these. Okay. This could be my fault because I know at point I had gone through and entered a bunch. And I don't think I knew what to do with the F's that went from like "feli" to "emhéli." With, like a complete change. And I'm like, so does it need a dot, or is that considered one form? That happens with "emhíka," too. So that may, in fact- yeah, I did the food entries. So I look longingly. You may need to check my work, David. Again, the problem of two different people thinking "This is the most reasonable way to mark this," and... Whatever. (55:13) David: By the way, just a little bit of a flex. Erin is making pizza tonight. (55:18) Jessie: Oh marvelous! (55:20) David: Pizza is so good. It's so good. (55:23) Jessie: I also make pizza for- for my family time to time. I made it last week, though, so not this week. Also yeast is getting really hard to find and I'm like, I'm not sure. I can probably make two more pizza nights and then like until I can find yeast again, it's over. (55:40) David: Talk to Erin, she- she found a cache, I'll just say that (55:45) Jessie: Okay, okay. (55:46) David: I'm not going to say where or how because this podcast is going to get heard by a lot of people and you know. (55:53) Jessie: And I need to make sure I get yeast to before they do. (55:56) David: Yes, you do. (55:58) Jessie: I'm literally writing myself a note right now. "Yeast cache. Where do I find it?" (56:07) David: Just, just text Erin that (56:09) Jessie: Tell me more. (56:11) David: That'll be enough. (56:15) Jessie: That is awesome. (56:17) David: Before before we got too far away, I did want to mention ConWorkshop. It's not Conlang Workshop, it's ConWorkshop. That is the website and it does kind of like have a template for you to follow. I don't like it because it's too restrictive. But many, many people use it. And I think especially if you are stuck, it can be good. It can be a good thing for you. (56:41) Jessie: Yeah, yeah. And I'll actually make sure I remember to put a link to it whenever I post this particular podcast. (56:50) David: Yeah, you can put a link to that, a link to- a link to Polyglot, maybe another link to the- to our template, even though we already have a link to it, but- (57:01) Jessie: Where is- oh, well, I'll have to- I'll talk to you afterwards to make sure I know where that link is for our template. (57:07) David: Yeah, I put it up. Remember, it was like after our first episode. (57:10) Jessie: I thought it was just a shared document or something. I didn't realize there was an actual link. I did not pay enough attention because I already had the template so (57:18) David: Ah. (57:22) Jessie: So yes, that will be included, too, and of course a picture of my, what you will admit, is a beautiful spreadsheet dictionary. (57:35) David: Yep. (57:37) Jessie: Okay, that was not enthusiastic. That's okay. (57:40) David: No, yeah, I love it. It's- it's, uh, like, the best thing I've seen. I love it. (57:48) Jessie: Like a Van Gogh. Or as the Dutch pronounce it "van gogh." (57:57) David: Yeah. (57:58) Jessie: I can't really do it, don't, don't judge me too terribly. (58:03) David: You know who actually- if you're talking about a spreadsheet, you know what you want to say is like that other guy, you know, that dude not Kandinsky but the other guy, you know, that dude that does like the [waves arms in vertical line patterns]. (58:15) Jessie: I am so lost right now. (58:17) David: Okay, so he's like an abstract artist, and everything he does is with red, yellow, and blue and black on a white canvas. Right. And it's just straight lines. (58:26) Jessie: Straight lines. Yeah, sure. I've seen if not that artist's work, something similar. (58:32) David: Yeah, okay, hold on. Say some stuff. I'm going to try to find it. "Abstract artist..." (58:40) Jessie: Okay. Can I remind you, though, if you're going to speak aloud, Zoom switches back to record, whoever speaking loudest and so if you want me to speak, you need to stop. We're gonna confuse the whole transcript process. As it goes back and forth, which, by the way, it already gets confused and apparently. Thank you. He- he just signed sorry to me. Apparently, because what I do is I work from the auto transcript that Zoom gives me and then I make it better to make it actually match and I format it. It's a whole thing. But anyway, it sometimes thinks you are me and I am you. And I find that very interesting because I never thought our voices sounded the same (59:31) David: Evidently they do. (59:32) Jessie: And apparently there's some- whenever it's us- so it's fine if one of us is talking for a long time. Or if we each say like a full utterance in between. But when we start talking, and there's any overlap at all, it gets confused which one of us is talking. (59:50) David: Okay, let's, let's give it a challenge. I'm going to say a word. Then you say word. I. (59:57) Jessie: Am. (59:58) David: The. (01:00:00) Jessie: Best. (01:00:01) David: At. (01:00:03) Jessie: Everything. (01:00:06) David: Is. (01:00:08) Jessie: So. (01:00:10) David: Obvious. (01:00:13) Jessie: -ly. (01:00:18) David: The. (01:00:20) Jessie: Truth. (01:00:24) David: Said. (01:00:26) Jessie: Jessie. I really wanted the adverb form and you gave me the adjective "obvious." (01:00:41) David: I know. It keeps. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to get a single page to load this entire time. (01:00:46) Jessie: Oh, that's unfortunate. And after you get the name of this artist, we're gonna wrap up. Okay. Oh, yes. Yes, Pier Mondrian. (01:00:59) David: Yea. Pier Mondrian. Oh, Piet. Piet. He's Dutch, he's Dutch! (01:01:06) Jessie: Oh, awesome, and I have seen- because isn't, isn't that the MOMA, the MOMA artist? (01:01:13) David: Yes, and the movement he started is called De Stijl. Remember we talked about, because that was the name of the White Stripes album. When we were talking about Dutch vowels. Wow. (01:01:28) Jessie: That is good information to have. That makes me happy. Okay. (01:01:34) David: Well, I'm glad. Okay. (01:01:36) Jessie: So we're gonna wrap up. What sage words do you have for us, David? (01:01:45) David: Dictionary. (01:01:52) Jessie: That one word says it all. With that, he's not gonna say anything else. So I'll say now, enjoy your dictionary making and stay grammar.