Forum:Rosetta stone

A thought I had, who would want here who make their own orthography attempt creating a rosetta stone with our scrifts? Same text, translated and written in it The Emperor Zelos 16:53, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

Sure, I'm game Adagio burner 20:19, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

Mine is currenlty in development but finally starting to take shape, other than the obvious "All these languages say the same thing" what should we include?

Well, the Rosetta Stone was written to declare the divine rule of Ptolemy. Is there a specific purpose for this "stone"? If it's just for display, you could recite linguistic constants. Razlem 21:37, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

That doesnt sound very realistic, something plausible and culturally neutral would be nice The Emperor Zelos 16:11, September 14, 2010 (UTC)

Can't go wrong with Human Rights :P Razlem 16:43, September 14, 2010 (UTC)

You can

I suggest more a hypothetical story about a cataclysmic event taking place affecting all cultures and hence gives them a reason to write it down "in stone". The Emperor Zelos 16:51, September 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) My language isnt for humans
 * 2) One language I am working on is with a culture where the concept of "rights" in that form is non-existent
 * 3) Its too focused on human culture especially western.

A plague maybe? For any other disaster, one wouldn't have time to write it in stone. And if one did, the stone would probably be destroyed. A volcano is one, but it's not necessarily a catalytic event. Earthquakes are sudden. And if catalytic, no one would be around to scribe. A dying sun, but the resulting nova would obliterate the planet and certainly any stone on the planet (unless you somehow manage to send the stone at warp speed, but then you wouldn't need to stay on the planet). A tsunami, but same deal with the earthquake. Civilizations generally don't have time to document worldwide catalytic events- they're too busy running. Idk. Maybe I'm not understanding your reasoning. Razlem 17:08, September 14, 2010 (UTC)

I was perhaps going with volcano because it is local, survivable from distance, viewable aswell and cause extreme damage. Perhaps one went of like Krakatau? Loads of peopel survived it to document The Emperor Zelos 19:41, September 14, 2010 (UTC)

What I have noticed is that almost all civs have creation theories and/or stories (Exceptions are like Piraha), so maybe each can add a creation story with a slight variation? Rostov-na-don 10:05, September 15, 2010 (UTC)

The idea of a rosetta stone is that all say the same thing so if its found you can solve the others with some effort The Emperor Zelos 10:08, September 15, 2010 (UTC)

I know, but you'd still have some variation, like an alternate approach that is more common? Rostov-na-don 11:02, September 15, 2010 (UTC)

You translate the same text to the ebst of your ability in the conlang. The Emperor Zelos 11:06, September 15, 2010 (UTC)

Another Necro because what the hell. If people are interested in this, why not whip up something that implies co-operation between languages as opposed to something written independantly? Possibly referential to this wiki; declaring something like a union of languages or paying homage and law to Conlang Wikia [or some pseudo Empire derived phonetically from the name]. Or if we really want to capture the essence of what the Rosetta stone was at the time, why not the rules/policies of this very wikia?

-Fauxlosophe (talk) 18:25, September 8, 2012 (UTC)

I like this a lot too. Why wasn't this ever done? (My guess is because no one could agree what the stone would say.) I can understand Zelos' argument that some languages weren't intended for human use, etc, and that translating something like the Declaration of Human Rights would require new vocabulary or entire concepts that would be foreign to the speaker of a language, but why not have it quote a list of several simple sentences we can all agree on or that show how grammar is handled in each langage. Eg: the same sentence in several moods or in several voices. --TheWrittenWord (talk) 14:15, September 19, 2012 (UTC)

What you could do is have a basic treaty and then if some of the concepts don't occur in a conculture the person translating it could tweak it slight but without changing any of the grammar and so wouldn't need to make up a load of vocab that is irrelevant in their conworld.  Pá mamūnám ontā́ bán  07:58, September 20, 2012 (UTC)

How about something like a mission statement for this wiki? Like nothing too literal like rules but a sort of vague ideological manifesto.

"We here gathered who take this oath may speak in countless tongues but do so now with one voice.

Together we may gather these languages with a single purpose inorder to strenghten them and preserve them and grant them longevity.

Fellows as diverse as the languages they bring united by a single goal...

etc, etc.

We could maybe do from the perspective of a speaker of the language entering into a pact. It might be a little odd to have gathered iron age humans, contemporary interlangua speakers and alien specifics all for one treaty but that shouldn't really matter from the perspective of the Rosetta stone itself.

--Fauxlosophe (talk) 02:20, October 31, 2012 (UTC)