LCK Book

Torco · Post by **Torco** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 6:23 pm

I wish I could upload some money... <sigh>

I wonder when it will be available on bittorrent
[just kidding xD]

Rodlox · Post by **Rodlox** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 12:10 am

I knew this thread had to be here somewhere.

Congratulations to Zompist!

I'm talking my local Barnes&Nobles, Borders, and Public Library into getting copies of your book (worst case, only one of them obtains it; best case, all three obtain at least one copy).

and I'm going to order a copy of my own as soon as I get paid.

Whimemsz · Post by **Whimemsz** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 2:45 am

Rodlox wrote:I'm talking my local Barnes&Nobles, Borders, and Public Library into getting copies of your book (worst case, only one of them obtains it; best case, all three obtain at least one copy).

We-e-e-ell...if it's distributed through a partnership with Amazon, I don't think any of those places would be able to distribute it, though I could be wrong.

I will note that when I looked up the ISBN in the Barnes and Noble (where I work) computer system the other day it didn't register--but I suppose that could be a time issue?

Post by **zompist** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 3:15 am

Whimemsz wrote:We-e-e-ell...if it's distributed through a partnership with Amazon, I don't think any of those places would be able to distribute it, though I could be wrong.

I will note that when I looked up the ISBN in the Barnes and Noble (where I work) computer system the other day it didn't register--but I suppose that could be a time issue?

Amazon has an "expanded distribution" that's supposed to let it be ordered from bookstores, but it takes some weeks to set up (so they say). So yeah, it may be too early. They are not very clear on how this is done, but presumably the bookstore will know.

As for the ISBN, thanks for the reminder to go register it with Bowker.

brandrinn · Post by **brandrinn** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 8:23 am

Torco wrote:I wonder when it will be available on bittorrent
[just kidding xD]

It's been on the internet for free for years. I assume it's been taken down now, though (checks) Holy crap! Zomp, I think I may have found a teensy flaw in your "exchange book for money" scheme.

Mbwa · Post by **Mbwa** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 9:57 am

It is certainly awesome. The Kebreni grammar feels like such a steal.

I did notice a couple of mistakes myself, though:

P. 69- A lot of the text seems to be carried over from the original web version. In the gender section, the example of how it can help free word order in Swahili is taken out, yet the reference to it is kept in at the bottom of the page.

There was another, but I forgot it. It's still an awesome book though. At the risk of sounding cheesy, it makes conlanging fun again.

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 2:30 pm

Ours is now on the way! Yay!

Whimemsz · Post by **Whimemsz** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 3:30 pm

Couple more issues:

*I think it would be helpful to have a glossary in the back for all the capitalized terms that occur throughout the book, especially for newbies who might not remember what a term means by the time they reach it a second time.

*The way the diagram on pg. 29 is drawn, the lips sort of make it difficult to see the teeth, at least for me. Or at least, they make it more difficult to realize what the teeth are. I'd suggest a diagram more like the one in the original web LCK, where the lips don't connect, but instead go "behind" the teeth, if that makes sense? (Otherwise, of course, the clarity of the book diagram is far superior to that of the web one, so don't change that!)

*Pg. 34, there's a typo near the top, in the definition of a retroflex r: "[s" instead of "is"

*Pg. 35: Strictly speaking, [ʎ] is of course a palatal l, not a palatalized one

*Pg. 36: I repeat my concern about mixing in different transcription systems. Your IPA chart shows [ʃ] and [tʃ], and you refer to [ʃ] as the sound of English "sh" on pg. 28, but here you use "š" and "č".

*Pg. 45, a typo: Mandarin for "mother" is mā, not mà

*Pg. 104: I'll just note for the record that I'm highly dubious of the sort of claims made in books like The Meaning of Tingo. I mean for languages like French they might get the situation about right, but "areodjarekput" doesn't look even remotely like an Inuktitut word, and the meanings offered for many of those look extremely suspicious. To me it's like, just another iteration on "the Eskimo have 50 words for 'snow'!"

*Pg. 120, it's not made at all clear that "vixen" is in fact related to "fox"; it's merely stated that it comes from a dialect that voices initial fricatives. For someone not already aware of this relationship, they might well not know what you were talking about.

*Pg. 182: I assume, based on the statement that "Omeguese voices initial stops in closed syllables", that the Omeguese reflexes in the first column should be "p/b", rather than "p/t"

*Pg. 185: I'd add mention of [j] to the discussion of palatalization, especially since the example you give from the history of Chinese in fact consists of palatalization before [j], rather than a front vowel.

*Pg. 186: there's an extraneous square bracket in the transcription of French bien: "/bjɛ̃ ]/"

*Pg. 188: The etymology of "woodchuck" is presumably specifically from Cree ocek (Proto-Algonquian *wečyeka, see here [PDF], pg. 56). I'm suspect the commonly-cited "otcek" (or "otchek") is just from some earlier publication, back when the normal Americanist practice was to use <c> for [ʃ] and thus <tc> for [tʃ].

*Pg. 196: For shame, the Hebrew text is backwards! Each individual word is written (correctly) right-to-left, but the text itself runs left-to-right, so it looks like it says "Maymon ben Moshe Rabi".

*In the sound change list of Methaiun>Kebreni on pp. 254-5, the lefthand column is fairly narrow, and unfortunately several changes get split onto two lines. This is most serious with the change "{s, z} > [+velar]", because the "[+velar]" part is moved down to the next line, and consequently onto the next page! It took me a long time to actually notice that's what had happened; I was pretty confused for a while.

EDIT: Uhhh...hrmmm. Forgot about thisssss. But this post isn't because I'm an enemy!

eodrakken · Post by **eodrakken** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 3:41 pm

brandrinn wrote:It's been on the internet for free for years. I assume it's been taken down now, though (checks) Holy crap! Zomp, I think I may have found a teensy flaw in your "exchange book for money" scheme.

The book is mostly new material, only parts of it are taken from the original web version. If that's all it was it would hardly fill up several hundred pages of a book...

Yiuel Raumbesrairc · Post by **Yiuel Raumbesrairc** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 12:40 pm

I now have the book.

Will take my time to read it.

Shm Jay · Post by **Shm Jay** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 6:31 pm

When’s the movie coming out? And the themed toys with a McDonald’s Happy Meal?

vtardif · Post by **vtardif** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 7:29 pm

Huzzah! I've received my copy. It looks great so far - a few small issues, but none that haven't been covered already.

Yiuel Raumbesrairc · Post by **Yiuel Raumbesrairc** » Wed Mar 24, 2010 10:30 am

Issues

p. 75 : French example has wrong gender for "victime". It should be feminine.

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 2:31 pm

Yay it finally arrived! (Only took it a full week, geeez)

eodrakken · Post by **eodrakken** » Sun Mar 28, 2010 1:52 pm

I think I've read all of it now (I skipped around a lot). It's very cool that you've added more stuff for beginners *and* info on more advanced topics that may be new even to experienced conlangers. Thumbs-up for that.

The one big gap I can see is that you didn't really explain glossing. (I thought there was a brief mention of it, but right now I can't find the page.) That's something beginners always get wrong, so if you do a second edition, I would add it in. Just an explanation of the one-to-one rule and the difference between using a hyphen and using a period would suffice, maybe with a link to the Leipzig rules on the resources page.

In short: Woot.

jal · Post by **jal** » Sun Mar 28, 2010 2:31 pm

So has anyone in Europe been able to get his/her hands on a copy?

JAL

Post by **zompist** » Sun Mar 28, 2010 4:01 pm

eodrakken wrote:The one big gap I can see is that you didn't really explain glossing. (I thought there was a brief mention of it, but right now I can't find the page.)

Oops, I didn't index that page— see page 250.

(I'll do a corrected edition at some point, but there's a fee for this, so it won't be for awhile.)

eodrakken · Post by **eodrakken** » Sun Mar 28, 2010 5:52 pm

zompist wrote:Oops, I didn't index that page— see page 250.

That's actually not the page I was thinking of. I think there's a part where you mention it in the context of pronoun glossing (3sm, etc.). My bad for not noticing it on p.250.

I'm glad you did explain it after all, but I think it could stand to be given a more prominent position than where it is. It's a pretty important point. Maybe that and a few other things mentioned in the commentary could be given their own brief section before the Kebreni grammar, as a general overview of how to organize and present a grammatical sketch. Then Kebreni is there as an example but the main points are also easy to review.

I know making revisions isn't free (I have a friend who makes a living from her self-published books), but it's something to consider for when you do get to that point.

jal · Post by **jal** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 4:05 am

zompist wrote:I'll do a corrected edition at some point, but there's a fee for this, so it won't be for awhile.

Well, you could have an on-line page with corrections (like for the problems pointed out here), so people can check whether something they mentioned is already found by someone else.

JAL

Aszev · Post by **Aszev** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 8:22 am

jal wrote:Well, you could have an on-line page with corrections (like for the problems pointed out here),

This is a good idea.

Colzie · Post by **Colzie** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 2:10 am

Shm Jay wrote:When’s the movie coming out? And the themed toys with a McDonald’s Happy Meal?

It's been here.

alice · Post by **alice** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 6:00 am

Would it be cheaper to ship a copy to Mexico City than across the Atlantic to Edinburgh? This may be a viable alternative for me.

Xephyr · Post by **Xephyr** » Wed Mar 31, 2010 5:15 pm

My copy just came in the mail today. I started reading it, but got angry and threw it against the wall when I found that the Swede of Webpages joke was gone.

Post by **zompist** » Wed Mar 31, 2010 5:36 pm

Aw. Just to console you, here's a picture of Connie the Contortionist Conlanging Conger Eel channeling Chico Marx.

Neek · Post by **Neek** » Thu Apr 01, 2010 2:16 pm

I've yet to purchase a copy... I'm which is shameful, but at the same time, I want a signed copy. Reckon I'll have to pack up the car and go for a roadtrip after I get it...