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proposed conlang database

From:Garrett Jones <alkaline@...>
Date:Wednesday, March 13, 2002, 16:50
http://conlang.alkaline.org

hey everyone, i have been in and out of the conlang community for the last
couple of years. While there are plenty of pages with long lists of links to
conlangs, i decided i wanted something better. Those lists are generally
non-categorized or are only categorized under basic categories, and since
they are under the control of one person, are notoriously outdated much of
the time. What i propose to do is create an automated conlang database. Each
conlanger will register themselves, and then they would be able to add,
delete, and modify entries on their conlangs as they see fit. Also, the
database would have a powerful search feature that would allow you to sift
through the languages based on particular classifications.

What i would like:
1. To know the interest in actually having this done, the need for it, how
many people would refuse to put their conlangs in the database
2. Specific suggestions on the data to be collected on each conlang (listed
below)
3. Suggestions on how the whole database system could work

1. Basic information:

language name
previous language names
author's name
world location of author
webpage url
language creation date
date added to database
date db entry last modified

2. Current language status:
current development status
estimated fluent speakers
estimated familiar speakers

3. The language in use:
writing system
example written sentence
pictorial sample of script
audio sample

4. Language classification:
basic description
language family
vocabulary source
syntactic system
morphological system
design motivation

Here are some more details on the different parts of the language
classification:

A. Vocabulary Source
single modified natural language
single modified artificial language
blend of related natural languages
blend of unrelated natural languages
a priori, categorical
a priori, non-categorical
mixed a posteriori/a priori
unspeakable

B. Syntactic system
word order (SVO, SOV, etc)
cases used (nominative, accusative, ergative, etc)

C. morphological system
isolationism vs agglutination

D. design motivation
personal
artistic: fictional, sci-fi, fantasy, historical
auxiliary: international, reform, simplified languages
experimental: logical, hypothetical, unspeakable

the syntactic categorization system needs the most work, as i don't know
enough about the possibilities. Here is how i am planning the registration
to work: At the beginning users will enter their own conlangs in. I will
enter in a few of the bigger ones (esperanto, klingon, etc) and be under
control of them myself. Later there will be the possibility of entering in a
conlang with "unclaimed" control, so the owner of that conlang can register
him/herself later and claim it for his own so that he can modify it.

For now, the webpage will have the latest developing categorical list based
on the suggestions i will have received at that time.

http://conlang.alkaline.org

Replies

Antonio WARD <antonio_ward@...>
Dirk Elzinga <dirk_elzinga@...>
Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...>
M.E.S. <suomenkieli@...>