Re: Talossan dictionary online!

Jan scriveva:

> 30,000 words, that's really something. There can't be many conlangs
> with such an impressive lexicon.
I haven't found many at all outside of the auxlang sphere.

> What I'm just curious about is this: I saw that Talossan underwent
several
> stages, which means that there are different versions of the language.
Can this
> 1997 version be considered final?
Yes, the 1993 (first) edition of the dictionary and the 1996 grammar
form what one could consider the "final" version of the language.
Everything since then has just been either adding new words to the
vocabulary (the 1997 dictionary contained in the PDFs added to, but did
not change, the lexicon contained in the 1993 dictionary) or refining
certain grammar points, orthographical questions, etc., which came up as
people like myself have actually been learning and using the language.

I've seen it written that some people consider the lack of a regular or
standardized "master plan" for Talossan derivation from Latin to be a
defect, but I rather like all the oddities and inconsistencies in the
Talossan vocabulary. I think they give it character. And I know Ben
Madison (the language's creator) considered it important to embrace the
language's history and "natural" development over the last 20 years and
keep most of the old vocabulary, rather than revising it all to make it
more "plausible" or replacing non-Romance lecixal items with
Latin-derived terms, even if that means you have old words which are
basically "English with -eu at the end" or odd lexical borrowings from
Icelandic, Albanian or Latvian beside newer words which are more
carefully derived from North African Latin or Sardinian.

Sometimes, though, when I look at the dictionary, I can't help thinking
that if I had only worked steadily on one language since I started
conlanging, I could have a 30,000 word dictionary now too. :-/

But at least I can finally say a big "HA!" to those conlang websites out
there that say things like "Talossan is rumored to have a huge
vocabulary, but nobody knows for sure..."

Thomas / Tomás