Arlo Barnes

Láadan

Hi, how are you? I've seen that you speak Láadan and I would like to ask you whether you could possibly translate the first chapter of Salute, Jonathan! to that language? The first chapter of this story has been translated to different conlangs, as you can see here. Thanks. -- Caro de Segeda (talk) 12:02, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Wil sha! Amazing, I love massively parallel texts, and Dave MacLeod has picked a good basis for this one (I peeked at Chapter 4 :P). I have started my translation at Multilingual Wikisource, and will chip away at it this week. -- Arlo Barnes (talk) 19:48, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I am sorry for bothering you but I would like to ask you how did you learn Láadan. How did you find about it, why did you choose it instead of other conlangs and which course did you use to learn it? -- Caro de Segeda (talk) 23:18, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

It's no bother. I'm not sure how I found about it; could have been jan Misali or maybe from a list of female conlangers. I tried to learn typical starter conlangs (epo, tok) with little success. Láadan was the first to hook me long enough to gain some proficiency, perhaps because the grammar was sufficiently different from English that my birth language skills did not intervene. Also, it's quite fun. I use a combination of wikibooks:en:Láadan and http://laadanlanguage.org, and when away from a computer I have a print copy of the dictionary & grammar, 3rd edition. -- Arlo Barnes (talk) 20:13, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. I have had a look to the grammar and it looks more difficult than other conlangs, and not many people speak it, that is what I asked you. Also, I have found there is a Wikipedia in Láadan here. I don't speak the language but, if you would like to create a Wiki, I can help you by adding templates, images, categories and creating simple articles that just need to change data (like countries or municipalities). I have done it already with a lot of Wikipedias like the Jamaican one, in which I collaborated with a speaker of the language and we manage to get the Wikipedia out of the Incubator. If you are interested, please let me know. -- Caro de Segeda (talk) 06:08, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

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Yes, that page exists; unfortunately the incubator is locked so no other pages can be established. I understand that LangCom is hoping to develop a more consistent approach to conlangs, and I imagine the outcome of tokwiki discussions will set the tone for other incubated `langs. For ldn, a RfNL lurks in the wings, and another wiki also exists outside the WM sphere. Currently I believe the community lacks a suitable 'home base' online, with both language resources and discussion being spread across many sites...which leads to a chicken-and-egg problem for organising that community around a project such as an encyclopedia. -- Arlo Barnes (talk) 07:19, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

I didn't know about the Incubator Plus wiki. Anyways, I suggest using the Incubator, not the Incubator plus. If they want us to change, they can let us know. If you know of anybody that knows Láadan and would be interested in helping out, it would be great if you could contact them. I also remember that the Kotava Wikipedia started like that (actually, I was the one starting the project) and now it has some people working there every day. It is a matter of spreading the message.

The problem with Toki Pona is that is a very limited language, not like Esperanto or other conlangs so it is not a very good example, even if it it has a wiki of its own.

Would you be interested in trying to add more articles in Láadan and trying to create a wiki? As I said, I don't speak the language but I can add small articles and I believe having that would help promoting the language (as it happened with the Wikipedia in Lingua Franca Nova, many people learnt about the language due to the fact that a lot of articles have a wikilink to their LFN version). -- Caro de Segeda (talk) 08:45, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that an encyclopedia would be a good way to attract extant speakers and new learners, and I would be interested in contributing to such with your help (congrats to you and others on the work of starting the Jamaican creole and Kotava wikis, by the way). If you are handy with programming bots, perhaps there is another task useful to conlangs in the Wikimedia world: importing P&C episodes to Wikimedia Commons. I have done some by hand, but to keep it updated some automation is needed. -- Arlo Barnes (talk) 18:31, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

I have to say that sadly I have no clue about bots. Regarding contributing to the Láadan Wikipedia, I will be posting here phrases and words for you to translate so that I can start creating articles and templates, would that be ok for you? If this is something you are not interested to do, please let me know. -- Caro de Segeda (talk) 22:13, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Sure, I have notated below. By the way, Láadan has a concept called 'evidentials', and I wonder if they might not be useful for the equivalent of {{cn}} and other templates. -- Arlo Barnes (talk) 21:36, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

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Hi, how would you say in Láadan?

• list of articles all Wikipedias should have — todo, use oth

  I don't understand what you mean by this. -- Caro de Segeda (talk) 11:52, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  Apologies, that is a note-to-self that I plan to edit later. Arlo Barnes (talk) 11:56, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  Hi, did you manage to translate the sentence? If not, maybe we can use something like "Vital articles" or "List of important articles". --Caro de Segeda (talk) 09:57, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

  Hi, did you manage to translate the sentence? If not, maybe we can use something like "Vital articles" or "List of important articles". Caro de Segeda (talk) 20:49, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

• biography — eniná
• philosophy and psychology — ehen i elith
• religion — ehéeda
• social sciences — elolin
• language and literature — dan i ethod
• science — needs specification; earth sciences are eDoni
• technology — ehed
• arts and recreation — alehala i elash
• history and geography — eri i ehoth

-- Caro de Segeda (talk) 10:02, 22 October & 14:55, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Does Láadan use capital letters for countries, proper names, the first letter of the first word on a sentence and after full stop? Caro de Segeda (talk) 09:13, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes. You can see the capitalisation pattern in this Babel text: wikisource:mul:Dórawedeth dan; For example, 'Shinaresha' here is Shinar, a proper noun. Arlo Barnes (talk) 17:42, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi, are you still interested in creating a Wikipedia in Láadan? Caro de Segeda (talk) 06:41, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, although my immediate focus this weekend will be on creating a directory for ldn projects; I'll link it here when it is up. Arlo Barnes (talk) 13:48, 14 December 2023 (UTC)