Re: lexicon

David Peterson wrote:
>For instance, my first language (on the computer; my Mac--the
most superior machine out there, no matter what those eunuchs say!) has over
100 pages of words--my dictionary.>

Drat, yours is bigger than mine.  Kash runs to a mere 48 pages, I think
about 1500 head words, though most entries contain several derivatives.  The
list of potential forms (not all possible forms, which runs to the millions)
contains about 4500, so there's still plenty to draw on, and I don't always
resort to it anyway.  That list was generated with the Langmaker program,
which seems to work best with relatively straightforward structure like
CVCVC; obviously the phonology and word structure came first.  Others here
have mentioned their own programs, which is nice if you can do it.

I made long lists of words-- adjectives & their opposites, body parts,
things around the town/house/farm etc., verbs in various semantic fields
etc., then assigned Kash forms pretty  much at random, though some biases
toward certain sounds crept in unconsciously(?).  Plants and animals get
short shrift-- this is an alien world, and it's tiresome to have to keep
defining things as "similar to...."
One thing leads to another, and the culture starts to build itself.

So-- David, Yoon Ha and me.  That makes 3 who admit to enjoying
word-creation.  After all, what's a language without words? :-)

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