Re: vocabulary

And Rosta wrote:

> Dirk:
> > 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.
>(snip)
> I in fact don't have any clear of idea of what the reason is. But
> my hunch is that your conlanger schooled in linguistics tends to
> invent the language description rather than the language proper;
> they tend to design rather than to 'discover'.
Guilty as charged :-)))

They tend towards
> the rationality of design and away from the intuitiveness of art.
> I also tend to agree with the opinion you generously impute to me.
>
I don't disagree that pulling words out of the air can be a good thing; but
L1 and other smatterings of language tend to influence things, I think.  Or
else there's _too much_ regularity.

My very first effort at age 13-14 was very Latinate, with a dash of Sanskrit
I'd picked up from the encylopedia. (There was a "bh", but also "mh"
[aspirated m].) It amounted mainly to about 10 pages of verbal conjugation.
All I can remember of it is that the infinitive ended in -anoi, and the
1-2-3 person pres. indic. active endings were -mi, -si, -ti.

The second effort got much further, with quite a few religious texts. It
also had an amusing writing system, somewhat Thai-like, mixture of single C
and V, assorted miscellaneous syllabic characters, plus one or two polysyl.
ones; I recall that -ainigi was one character, and served as the dative
ending. The writing system somewhat constrained the word forms........

I remember, but will not translate, bits of it (for proper effect, should be
chanted):

Munane Itha Theno, fekerud inekadrud mundei iminane deniei....

E bhlithe, ikimorithaz bhlishu bhlithe....  (note bh again!!)

At least it's certainly not an Engl. clone, though someone might detect a
bit of deformed Latin. Actually, 'tis pity it got lost.

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