Re: THEORY: questions

Nicole wrote:
>Hi,
>I'm new to the listserve but here goes:
>Though I am presently inventing my own language, I'm also
>doing a linguistics project on constructed language making.
You lucky bastard!

>I was wondering if those of you who have made up your own
>language would be willing to answer some questions:
>-how did you go about creating your language?
>for example: the first word I created was ponatova (which
>means language or song of words) and originally I
>concentrated on coming up with words and then later went
>back and started coming up with rules (like putting 'froge'
>before a verb makes it past tense and putting 'thare' before
>a noun makes it possessive)
>-what components are necessary for the plethora or words and
>rules someone just made up to be considered a language?
Hm, first word? It's really hard to say what was the first word for
Tairezazh, as some words are salvaged from earlier projects (which were
pretty much a mix between Swedish and English Grammar with mostly a-priori
words - never took on any stable form). The earliest word I created
specifically or Tairezazh is, I think, _zapost_ "weapon".

I've mostly worked in a kind of holistic way - vocab, grammar and phonology
has developped together. I find it hugely dissatisfying to test out new
grammatical concepts using Swedish (or English) words, and I can't decide
what endings I will use without nowing what phonemes are available. A
phonology pretty much demands that I create words to see what effects a
given rule has. I guess I could do only vocab, but that'd be like creating a
relex - not a proper conlang at all (not to mention that without grammar I
can't create compounds, agental formations etc etc!).

Today, Tairezazh's phonology is pretty much fixed, and the basic grammar is
set out. It'd need a larger vocab (it's only a couple houndred entries in
the lexicon as yet), and a more complete grammar to be fully functional.

                                            Andreas

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