Re: vocabulary

On Dec 13, 2004, at 5:46 PM, Roger Mills wrote:

> # 1 wrote:
>
>> How did you make to create a complete vocabulary?....(snip)....How do
>> you
>> create a whole lexicon? Particulary if you want it to not be as
>> another.
>
> Quick and dirty method: pull words out of the air. You should have at
> least
> some idea of what constitutes a permissible "word" in your language, so
> you're allowed e.g. /bik/ and /brik/ but not /bnik, bzik/ etc.
> Make an alphabetical list of these, with the associated meaning.
>
> Vastly better: create the phonology and rules of syllable structure.
> Then
> generate a big list of possible words-- there are said to be ways of
> doing
> this with computer programs, and I hope others will suggest some--
> otherwise
> you can do it by hand.  I recently hand-created a list of all ±40,000
> forms
> for a CVCV ~CVCVC language; it didn't take that long. Of course if
> you're
> creating Neo-Georgian with a complicated phonology it might be a
> little more
> difficult.
> Then you can assign meanings at random and as the spirit moves you.
I think it's an open question which method is best. I also generated a
list of phonotactically acceptable forms to use as roots in
Miapimoquitch. I pick and choose as I need them. The advantage is that
I know ahead of time that the forms "fit", but the disadvantage is that
I'm pretty much locked into those phonotactic patterns (if I want to be
consistent). Of course, there's nothing to prevent me from going
outside the canon and making up oddly formed roots, but if I'm going to
do that often, there really isn't much point to generating the list in
the first place.

The first method, pulling them out of the air, *I* think has the
potential to be vastly better, since it allows the language to grow
organically, at least phonologically. When a sufficient number of
vocabulary items have been created, you can then see what the
phonological patterns are. It seems to me that this can be very
self-revealing, letting you know where your own phonological
inclinations lie. And has said before that some of the best projects
out there are done by people who are linguistically very sensitive, but
otherwise not formally trained. The reason, as I understood him, is
that there are no preconceived notions of allowed or disallowed
structures to artificially constrain the language. I think the same is
true for vocabulary generation out of thin air; there are no
preconceived phonotactic patterns which must be adhered to, only the
emergent patterns which are discernable with sufficient items. Of
course, it takes a long time. I've been working on a new project off
and on for about two years now, and I have about 20 words to show for
it. But they are gems!

> There are also vocabulary lists, usually grouped together in some
> logical
> way (Carsten Becker recently posted one; there are others-- IIRC the
> Langmaker site links to the "Universal Language Dictionary"); but it's
> just
> as simple to think of, say, colors, kin terms, verbs of motion, or
> household
> items, and just start free-associating. One thing leads to another.
> It's
> basically how I created the Kash vocabulary, now approaching 5000
> words or
> so.
This is probably a good tool for vocabulary generation ex nihilo as
well.

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga
Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie

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