Re: vocabulary

>How did you make to create a complete vocabulary? This is not only very
>long, but I'm also unable to create a way to make it logic and clear.
[snip]
>How do you create a whole lexicon? Particulary if you want it to not be as
>another.
Neither of my conlangs- the current project Xinkutlan, nor my aborted
earlier attempt Lauranthea- had what I would call a *complete* lexicon.  A
vocabulary is one of those things that will grow over time as you add new
words to it.

>If I create each word separatly it risks to has two same words and worse,
it
>could loose the logic I want to keep.
However, that's similar to how I generate vocabulary.  I keep an
alphabetised master list of all the words in my language (and their
meanings) on my computer, for ease of searching,  and carry around a
language notebook for jotting down word/grammar ideas that come to me, and
I just keep in mind the overall "sound" I want my language to have and then
pull words out of the air.  I play around with different sounds and pseudo-
words until I find one that I like for meaning X.
As for generating the meanings, picking a topic and brainstorming works for
me, though I do think about the spectrum of meaning of different words and
try to make workable clusters of meaning.  Eg Lauranthea had 3 or 4
different words for "to turn": 1) to revolve or spin, 2) to turn back, 3)
to change direction (as in "turn left") and I think I'm forgetting
another.  But Xinkutlan has only 1 word meaning "speak", "say" and "tell",
and shorn of its verb affixes, the same word means "speech" or "language".

Generating the vocabulary is IMO one of the most fun parts of conlanging!

>Would you conseil me to translate each esperanto words(wich vocabulary is
>already logicly divised)?
No.  Make your own words according to the internal logic of your own
language.  Otherwise you end up with something similar to a cipher of
whatever language you appropriate the vocabulary of.  Having said that,
though, don't let the fact that another language has an interesting word-
concept (there are numerous examples- one of my favourite words from
Lauranthea meant "the feeling you get when you look into someone's eyes and
know they're feeling the same as you" :) ) stop you from borrowing.  Just
don't do it wholesale.

>At least I have the rules I have to respect in my vocabulary to keep my
>language as clear I want...
Yes.  Keep that in mind, and exercise your own creativity...

Geoff

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