Re: (1) I'm Back!!! (2) Thank You All!! (3) I Need Your Help!

Hi David. Welcome back. Congrats on UCSD, AFAIK it's a very good dept., not to
mention a nice town & climate.

I believe we've recently heard mention of Conlang Classes being held at U.Texas
and Harvard, of all places; I think Tom Wier is aware of the instructors' names
(trwier@uchicago.edu I think works); he also mentioned there's a colleague at
Chi. who wants to give one, but the fuddy-duddy dept. won't approve.

Sally Caves' article on conlanging/conlangers would have some references, but there
isn't much in the how-to area. Sorry, I just deleted the URL. Yaguello's book
apparently takes a negative attitude; Eco's "Search for the Perfect Language"
apparently is a little more philosophically inclined. If you've been lurking
here recently, you may have seen her Survey (lots of answers in the Archive);
she seems to be planning to do something with it.....

Futher to Jeff Henning's suggestions-- don't forget Pablo Flores' good page on How to
Create a Language; I'm nor sure anymore of his web-address; but he just signed
in on Conlang, so if he sees this perhaps he'll reply. Also, look in on Daniel
Andreasson's http://home.swipnet.se/escape/conlanglinks/
for some useful links.

Incidentally, many disagree, but I think the Langmaker program has its uses, esp. for just
generating word forms within the constraints of a given phonology.
  DP  What's more, he wants me to suggest topics of study and assignments, 
 1.) Are there any books we could use? I can think of parts of many books
that'd be helpful to photocopy, but there's no real conlang textbook (yet).
 RM As Jeff Henning said, there's probably enough material already on the web
to make a textbook of sorts; just a matter of getting it all into one place.

 DP 2.) It looks good to the guys giving the grants if we can use
technology--especially web-based technology.

  RM I'm not the person to advise in this area......;-(

  DP  He suggested making a font-creator over the internet...?  

 RM I'm not at all sure that would work, or how; it seems to involve
manipulating bitmaps etc. It helps to have a scanner, or access to one....
There are several programs available (mentioned on D.Andreasson's site I think)
but they all (?) cost money. The one I like (High Logic's Font Creator Program)
has a free 30 day trial version, but it goes dead after the 30days. Costs
$50.00, one of the cheaper ones I think. Maybe the grant could pop for one of
the programs.

 DP I do know there was that one website where you could draw squiggles with
your mouse and it would automatically generate an alphabet, adn that it would
then create a font which you could download,

  RM That's http://alphabet.tmema.org/.  It doesn't impress me.  Squiggles.

 DP so I know it's possible, but something where *you* could actually do the
designing would be preferable.


  RM As any sensible person would prefer :-)

 DP 3.) Anybody have any ideas for assignments? The big one is to create a
language, of course, and I have idea for perameters (obviously it's not going
to be a full language, but one should be able to bring it to some point by the
end of a quarter, and the perameters I have in mind would be looking for just
that).

 RM It might surprise you, what can be done in 10 weeks. Question-- what would
be the level of the students?

 DP Some other ideas I've had: A relay (possible?); translating the Babel Text
(or some other text);

 RM Certainly some translation; or dialogues, stories, whatever. As we know
from this list, relays can drag on.......maybe it would work as a small group
project, with the participants readily available, and someone riding herd...(it
does assume a fair amount of vocabulary, which could be a problem in a short
course)

 DP analyzing real (or created) phonologies, and commenting on them (are they
natural? why? was that the goal?)

 RM That should probably be included, and lord knows, there are tons of created
and natural phonologies available; first and foremost Klingon-- despite it's
orthographic horrors, it's an interesting creation.

  DP historical reconstructions,

  RM might be a little much for beginners.... .  

  DP A kind of puzzle set.  So, for example:

  Change /kone/ to /tS2:n/ in 4 steps.

  Possible answer:
  1.) Umlaut *kone > k2ne
  2.) Final vowel deletion: *k2ne > k2n
  3.) Compensatory lengthening: *k2n > k2:n
  4.) Palatalization: *k2:n > tS2:n


 RM That works both dia- and synchronically. Leads to the topic: What is a
"natural" sound change? What causes "irregularities" (i.e. morphophonemic
alternations) in languages? (Will the students be familiar with rules and rule
ordering?)

  DP but I thanks for reading this far (if you have), and I look forward to any and all responses.

  RM Well, I got this far.....(Sorry for the length too).  It sounds like a very exciting project.
 As examples of Really Well Done Conlangs, they should look at Brithenig;
M.Pearson's Tokana; D.Elzinga's Tepa; David Bells Amman Iar (ergative!); Jan
van S.'s Hattic and Wenedyk (sorry for misspellings) and maybe <teeny-tiny
print> Kash???? But as we know, there's hundreds more, and I apologize for not
mentioning them all!!

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