Re: vocabulary

--- James W <emindahken@...> wrote:

> >>>> H. S. Teoh<hsteoh@...> 12/17/2004
> 12:37:55 PM >>>
>
> [snip on-topic stuff :)]
> >> Yes.  I agree that a feeling for language is
> useful in conlanging, but
<snip a lot of interesting observations about music
theory, etc.>

I have a tendancy to be suspicious of rules.  My
reasoning is that grammar is a description of a system
figured out by trial and error by a bunch of
uneducated commoners over a period of hundreds or
thousands of years.  Granted a few few geniuses
cropped up from time to time who used the language
with unusual inventiveness and skill. The masses tend
to copy those usages and incorporate them into the
language adding something more than just blind
ignorance to the mix.  But the "rules of grammar" are
really just a half-baked attempt to describe what was
created by a combination of common instinct and
occasional genius.

Likewise the rules of music theory are an attempt to
describe what was accomplished by composers who did
not stop at studying the prior generation's rules, but
went beyond the rules to create truly new sounds
outside those rules. Later theorists were then left to
make up "new rules" in order to "understand" these
groundbreaking works.

I guess that's why I've decided to take a more
"mindless" approach to creating conlangs. I'd rather
fly head first into the language and later see if I
can dream up any rules to describe what I've done,
instead of write all the rules first.

When I write the rules first, which I have done from
time to time, I end up "drawing pictures of airplanes"
instead of putting on my crash helmet and really
flying.  I do enjoy drawing pictures of airplanes, but
I think it's a lot more fun to actually fly. That's
why my next conlang will not be designed, but will
sprout and grow through actual usage, with as little
forethought as possible (i.e. my first grade reader
translation idea.)

The sound of the language will arise from the words I
discover, not the other way around. That's the plan
anyway.

--gary