En réponse à Harald Stoiber <hstoiber@...>:
>
> And this is the key question I think. In their wonderful introductions
> to conlanging, Mark Rosenfelder and Pablo Flores warn the reader not to
> re-invent the English vocabulary. But actually, I am positive that we
> can safely read this as "do not re-invent the terms and concepts of your
> own culture". And that's what literally hit me yesterday. To make it a
> really original language it would help a lot to put up a really original
> culture alongside. A lot of language seems to be about culture itself.
>
Something all conlangers have to realise one day or another :)) .
> I am convinced that language can never entirely leave the space of
> culture. Thus, culture-independent or culturally neutral languages
> actually don't exist. All they do is creating a new cultural space that
> wraps up, combines and somehow harmonizes all the cultures from which
> the language should be independent.
>
Very true.
> My own project is a highly inflected grammatically complex
> latin-sounding (but not at all being) language based on predication (for
> mere derivational purposes - not at all because of logic or
> disambiguation) that could well be an elaborate proto-language which may
> then be simplified over many centuries, giving birth to another couple
> of languages (conserving previously inflected forms as stems etc.) -
> like Proto-Indo-European did and Latin did, too. Additionally, I have
> designed the language to be "the language in favour of what is written"
> (as I would translate its native name). It is primarily designed for use
> within books and scriptures. It can be read out loudly in a solemn
> fashion. It cannot be spoken or used for casual conversations because
> there is no reliable built-in self-segregation of words. It could be the
> formal literary language of scribes, high priests or scholars. It could
> be the language of something that a historican may find in a noble
> ancient library.
>
Seems to be interesting. Care to share a bit of its grammar?
> Who knows right now... I am still designing it but one thing is clear: I
> cannot put it in the context of the twentieth century just to spare the
> effort of inventing a culture, too. Wow, that sounds like work! *ggggg*
> And it magnificently looks like fun!!! :-)))
>
You should think of joigning the Conculture list, an offspring of Conlang which
is devoted exactly on that subject: culture creation. The address of the group
is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conculture/. It doesn't have nearly as much
traffic as the Conlang list (as an average, it has a monthly traffic equivalent
to the daily traffic of Conlang ;))) ), so you can safely subscribe to it
too ;)) .
Christophe.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.