Re: Conlanging with Dick and Jane

Gary Shannon <fiziwig@Y...> wrote:

>The solution occurred to me when I was sorting through
>some boxes of old books and came across a handful of
>children's early readers. Suppose one took a first
>year reader like "Fun With Dick and Jane" or
>"McGuffey's Eclectic Reader" and began on page one
>with "See Spot run." and "The cat sees the mouse." and
>translated the entire book, sentence by sentence, into
>the new conlang, discovering vocabulary and
>grammatical principles as they were needed.
I have toyed with the idea of presenting my conlang Senyecan in the
style of a Berlitz language book.  I read them all when I was a kid.
Today I only have the one for Russian.  They all followed the same
pattern.  Chapter One is entitled "What is this?" and the words for
pencil, book, paper, pen, box & key are introduced.  Sentences are of
the type: this is a pencil; is this a pencil; no, it not the pencil,
it is the pen; etc.  Chapter 2 deals with clothing.  Etc.  I would
just have to introduce the appropriate Senyecan grammar where
applicable in place of the Russian.

P.S. The book has a copyright of 1951.  I'm sure there have been some
developments in Russian in the interim!! :-)>

Charlie

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