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Re: CONLANG Digest - 12 Sep 2004 to 13 Sep 2004 (#2004-256)

From:Ph. D. <phild@...>
Date:Wednesday, September 15, 2004, 2:16
Tamara Woodcock wrote:
> > I'm working on my first conlang. I write sci-fi as a hobby, and I > decided that my xeno civilizations simply must have languages to go > with the cultures. So this will be the first of a few languages for > my own use. But I want to do it right, not just the occassional > word or two like you usually find in sci-fi. I want a "real" > language. > > In roman ornthology (is this the right word?), the consonants are
Perhaps you are looking for "orthography"?
> [snip] > > What I need to learn to create is the rest of the grammar structure. > Would it make sense to have verbs to be also simply compounds of the > roots? Is it necessary to have pronouns or indicators for > adjective/adverb, tense, etc. How would a langauge that is context > driven (without these written indicators) evolve to be used by a > high-tech society, with a rich written history? I'm familiar only > with English. My 3 years of Latin Studies in high school were > merely to have a nice afternoon nap. And my Spanish consists of > ordering beer when I go to Juarez for the occassional weekend.
It's not necessary to have pronouns or tense. Natural languages use many different methods to indicate such things. It is helpful to learn a little bit about languages in different language families to see how they handle such things. May I suggest the books _Languages_and_ their_Speakers_ and _Languages_and_their_Status_? Both books are written for the general reader. Each covers several languages each in a different family. Not the entire grammar is covered, but just some aspects. Both books are edited by Timothy Shopen and published by the University of Pennsylvania Press (ISBNs 0-8122-1250-9 and 0-8122-1249-5 respectively). -Ph. D.