Re: vocabulary

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. 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 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'. 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.

--And.

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