Posted by Martin G. on July 14, 1999 at 15:51:56:
Subtitled: "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus"
Since there's a lot to this, I will break this posting into parts.
There has been some interest in Pao generated here - all to the good. Terry, thnaks for your comments; as for Vance restricting himself only to vocab, I cite Chapter 9, Pao, page 80 in my Underwood/Miller edition. To be more correct, Vance does mention phonetics and grammar too (the phonetics is an interesting usage). I quote:
"The syllabary will be rich in effort-producing gutterals and hard vowels. A number of key ideas will be synonymous; such as 'pleasure' and 'overcoming a resistance' - 'relaxation' and 'shame' - 'out-worlder' and 'rival'. Even the clans of Batmarsh will seem mild compared to the future Paonese military".
The above is why I say Vance concentrates on vocab. The phonetics is interesting, but (I think) wrong; think of the Hawaiians, with a huge number of vowels, very few consonants, a very liquid-sounding language, lots of reduplication - you might say the Haw. lang. sounds very relaxed and peaceful, and so it does. Yet the Hawaiians were very fearsome and hard warriors.