Indo-European : European Union’s National Language

The last version of A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, 1st Printed Edition, has been released after some corrections in its content and design (now version 3.20):

- Some mistakes in design have been corrected.

- The frontpage slightly modified, using vector images and .tif background image.

- Minor syntax and translation changes, as well as other corrections, have been applied to the content. Some information has been added.

- Machine translations of the whole text have been added, either as already translated text (to facilitate the quick reference in the most used languages) or as links to Altavista/Google/Tranexp web translation engines.

Thank you for your comments and corrections. The printed copies will be available in 15-30 days, after the editor and the printer have agreed on the final changes. The first donations of printed copies to European libraries will probably begin in september.

Your Indo-European Language Team.

The Gramática del indoeuropeo moderno is the translation into Spanish of the Preface and Introduction sections of A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, the main work of the Indo-European Revival Association.

Translations of those introductory sections into French and German are also being prepared. The rest of the book is deemed too specialized (and sometimes subject to future change) to spend our time and effort translating it - the book is, however, licensed under GFDL - CC-by-sa, so that anyone can translate it into any possible language, and then redistribute/publish it elsewhere.

There are also some Wiki Websites prepared to host the translations of the book, apart from other relevant information about the Proto-Indo-European language and its revival as a modern language, namely Indo-European (in English), Indo-Europeen (en Français), Indogermanisch (auf Deutsch), indoeuropeo (in italiano), etc. (visit europaio.org and sindhueuropaiom.org for more languages)

Your Indo-European Language Team.

The title states the three main reports this week:

1) We are currently adding some new resources, not only on the Proto-Indo-European language and about its reconstruction, but also on other old Indo-European dialects, to help students of Indo-European languages get free online resources more easily. For example, we added yesterday Monier’s (Public Domain) Sanskrit Dictionary in PDF.

2) About the public subsidies the Association is applying for, we have also requested some financial help to take part in some European education and language fairs this year. We want to promote the project, the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction, and indeed the common culture and linguistic heritage of the majority of Europeans, and the Internet cannot be the only way to do so if we want to succeed in our Indo-European language revival project.

3) We are experiencing some bandwidth problems, due to the unexpected number of visits - from little more than 5.000 visits a month since December, we got more than 12.000 visits on April and May, and around 50.000 visits in June. We haven’t still promoted the website among university students, but seeing our difficulties in keeping a good upload rate for all visitors, we will wait (at least) until August to begin a wider promotion. Meanwhile, we’d like to see those who already know it discuss the possible changes to be made this summer, about every possible aspect of the Associatin and its work.

We expect to get a better connexion soon, hopefully thanks to private donations. If the visitors’ rate keep increasing as in the past months, we’ll have to begin thinking about using Google adsense (or other ads’ company) and hire some more professional expertise, though, because normal donations and friends’ work won’t be able to cope with our needs.

Your Indo-European Language Team.

The latest version of A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, 1st Printed Edition, has been released after some minor corrections (now version 3.15):

- The printed design has been improved

- The frontpage slightly modified

- Minor syntax, translation, and corrections have been applied to all chapters.

Thanks to all of you for your corrections and comments. The Final Version is due for next week, after the editor and the printer have agreed on the final changes. The frontpage is being adjusted to vector images (with Adobe Illlustrator), and the final text for print will be corrected for b/w digital print with Acrobat and Distiller.

Your Indo-European Language Team.

The latest version of A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, 1st Printed Edition, has been released after some major corrections (now version 3.10):

- The printed design has been improved, the frontpage modified and the PDF size adjusted to the real size of the printed edition (22×17cm)

- The Notes show more accurate reconstructions of modern IE (mainly Anglo-Latin) words.

- Minor syntax, translation, and corrections have been applied to all chapters.

- The Noun Declension system has been adapted to a more Graeco-Latin scheme (i.e., the First declension is equivalent to Latin a or first declension, and to the Greek alpha-declension, and so on).

- The chapter on verbs has been slightly improved.

- The Appendix on Phonology, especially on the palatovelars’ question, has been corrected. The syntax Appendix improved.

Thanks to all of you for your corrections and comments. We hope to keep publishing minor corrections and newer major versions with your inestimable help.

Your Indo-European Language Team.

Almost 2 months after the public release of version 2.00, a new major version 3.00 has been published, A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, 1st Edition, with its own ISBN and Legal Deposit.

Unlike the more informal v.2.00, firstly called Europaio:A Brief Grammar of the European Language, Vol. I, 1st Revised Edition, and then 2nd. Edition/A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, this release has been prepared with an expert in Indo-European linguistics and will have a printed edition, B&W paperback, with a size of app. ISO B5, with a cost of 20€ before VAT. The first 100 copies printed will be donated to different European libraries, and the editor will offer the ebook to download for free from its website, too.

The following major changes have been made:

- The writing system has been symplified to the older v.1.00 one (i.e., without Satem-Centum distinction), and the reasons for such a decision are explained in the First (Phonetic) Appendix.

- The first chapter has been completely revised to include other Indo-European dialects of Europe and their main linguistic and/or archaeological features.

- Minor syntax, translation, and corrections of MIE forms have been applied to all chapters.

- The Noun (hence also Adjective and Pronoun) Declension system has been finally left as a complete 8-case one, giving the most common reconstructions for it, as well as notes about the usual dialectal differences.

- The chapter on verbs and especially the Modern Indo-European conjugation system have been completely rewriten thanks to Prof. Dr. López-Menchero, who has made two divisions, the first into two main conjugation groups (Athematic and Thematic) and another, more complex one into 8 Thematic and 4 Athematic subgroups, giving thus twelve different groups of verbs (with a general group of ‘irregulars), therefore helping IE being still more difficult to learn

- As Modern Indo-European syntactic details are difficult to ascertain nowadays - at least to be able to write a second thorough volume - we decided to include an Appendix on Proto-Indo-European syntax, which follows mainly Lehman’s findings with subsequent corrections from newer manuals (viz. Friedrich, Mendoza, Beekes, Ramat, etc.).

- The etymological notes have been written at the end of the book, instead of in the middle of the chapters. This style correction is a great improvement for the printed book, but in turn causes problems for the correct use of internal links. All bookmarks will have to be corrected one by one; we will try to correct it completely for the next minor release.

- As expected, only an English version has been finished. We hope this edition is correct enough to be able to work some months on translating the book into (at least) French, German, Italian and Spanish, without having to substitute them for newer corrected versions…

Thanks to all of you for your corrections and comments.We hope to keep publishing minor corrections and newer major versions with your inestimable help.

Your Indo-European Language Team.

The Dnghu Association, with the collaboration of the University and some high schools within the region of Extremadura, has elaborated a project to promote the teaching of a more general subject in the high school, “Indo-European languages of Europe”, to substitute the current general subjects of “Latin”, “Greek” and/or “Classic Culture”, in 10th and/or 11th Spanish school years.

Such a subject should obviously still include Classic Languages and Culture, but also an approach to the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language and its dialects, especially those of Europe, viz. Germanic, Celtic, Baltic, Slavic, Greek and Albanian, as well as an introduction to the features of Indo-Iranian and Armenian.

Our first pilot experience is planned for next semester, and for the moment two schools and some University professors have agreed to participate. We want to study especially the differences in knowledge as to European languages and culture, between the students who follow the course and those who don’t, to prepare a thorough research to be sent to the Spanish Ministry of Culture, to the European Union and to Switzerland if - as expected - students who have received the lessons on Indo-European show a greater linguistic comprehension and knowledge of European cultures.

The deadline for us to send the project is next week, just in case you have some changes you want us to make in the general idea - no details will be published for the moment, though.

If you want to participate with us in this experience, either for your school or other public or private institution, or maybe as a (paid or voluntary) professor, please send us your request to oinion@dnghu.org. We will probably accept such changes made until September 2007.

Your Indo-European Language Team.

To all of you well-minded Esperantists and the rest of artificial languages’ supporters:

First of all, thank you for your interest in Proto-Indo-European language revival. We appreciate your critics, whether constructive or (as usual) just annoying mails. To answer you all (we won’t do it individually),

• No, we are sorry, but we didn’t unite at Dnghu to support languages different than Proto-Indo-European or other natural Indo-European languages or dialects.
• No, we don’t think your games/experiments are usable, or fit, or even languages in the strictest sense, no matter the great critics/success/support/number of speakers/history/etc. you think it has or had.
• Either yes, we knew about your great inventions, or no, we didn’t, but anyway we are not interested in learning or supporting them, however great you think they are.
• You can read more about the usual questions emailed or posted to Dnghu about linguistic inventions in the Indo-European language blog by a co-founder.

Dnghu was created and works to discuss, talk, administer, give support, etc. to the widest variety of (Proto-)Indo-European studies possible, with the main objective of supporting PIE revival for the European Union, in the form of a Modern language. Please, don’t think we haven’t considered your old alternatives before trying to accomplish such a difficult and ungrateful task.

We are here to gather people to work together on our aim, not to convince you one by one about the advantages of reviving PIE.

Yours sincerely,

Your Indo-European Language Team.

P.D. - Obviously, how Wikipedia, Digg or other collaborative websites classify (or write about) Proto-Indo-European or its revival is not necessarily what we actually are or are doing: You shouldn’t trust any content outside dnghu.org without reading what We say we are doing in our association.

Yes, almost a year ago our project of an official DNGHU GROUP began, after the publication of the first - now almost seen as an amateur start - “Europaio grammar”.
We are now preparing ourselves to release its revised edition of that - mainly prescriptive - work, what will be a thorough Modern Indo-European Grammar.
In our new edition, some major changes have been made, but especially minor aspects (like lots of tiny etymologies, interesting vocabulary, dialectal differentiation, language history, etc.) are improved to support a natural Proto-Indo-European revival, as a Modern Indo-European language, instead of the simplified (for some almost artificial artificial) language system we have developed until now.
Because this was our first year, instead of releasing minor changes as new grammar versions, we wanted to develop diverse approaches to experiment and see what people liked and disliked the most. We think it was a good idea, and now we expect our improvements to let us begin using Modern Indo-European immediatly, instead of just waiting for more linguistic regulation.
We will whoop it up in a few weeks with the official inscription of the already incorporated Spanish Association - hopefully the first of many independent organizations worldwide -, the public release of a (really) free-licensed Indo-European grammar, new projects, major web changes, etc.

Your Indo-European Language Team.

Dnghu Adsoqiation (or “Language Association”, in English), is about to be legally incorporated in Spain under the name Asociación Dnghu. It is not the happiest day for Indo-European Revival Group, as our intention was always to obtain enough funds to create a private Foundation, but it is indeed good news for the future of Indo-European as a spoken language.

We have been working for almost a year already as ‘Dnghu Group’ or simply ‘Dnghu’, without any legal status, thus losing the few opportunities we had to obtain public subsidies for cultural institutions. It was not important, however, as there was no important community behind our projects.

But, enough is enough, and we cannot live just on tiny scholarships, always awaiting a change in the general mood toward our projects, and - having ahead the deadline of 2007’s regional public funding for cultural institutions - we deem it our best option right now to have a legal, non-profit organization applying for them.

We expect to receive public subsidies from regional, national and European administrations, and also investments and funds from banks and other private institutions; and we hope to control at the same time the problems that an association may pose on organizational and budgetary matters…

Your Indo-European Language Team.

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