Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

quantitative meter, accent and verse form

From:William Annis <annis@...>
Date:Wednesday, April 10, 2002, 19:58
        I've recently been reading "How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of
Indo-European Poetics" by Calvert Watkins.  While it seems that
syllable counting schemes were the most basic metrical forms for the
earliest IE poets, the role of quantitative meter in several of the
early IE languages also developed quite early.

        I'm curious to know:

            1) if anyone has created any languages where vowel
quantity is significant;

            2) if so, was stress or pitch accent employed, or none at
all; and finally

            3) has anyone tried to work with formal verse forms in
their constructed languages?  Successfully?

        While I'm quite fond of Vaior in many respects, I can't see
anything but syllable counting schemes working well for Vaior verse.
The variance in word length, and this stress patterns, seems too large
for other sorts of meters.

        I'm tempted to sketch out some language in the Greek mold, at
least phonetically, to try out some of these ideas.  Now, I have no
plans to start composing odes in dactylo-epitrite strophes, but it
might be fun to pop off with a few heroic hexameters, a feat none of
my current languages could handle.

--
wm,
wondering suddenly if the tolklang people ever looked closely at elven
meters

Replies

Dirk Elzinga <dirk_elzinga@...>
jesse stephen bangs <jaspax@...>
And Rosta <a.rosta@...>
Dan Jones <dan@...>
taliesin the storyteller <taliesin@...>