Re: CHAT: Three questions from a lurker

Beorn - wulf wrote:
>
> Hi all list people.  I am generally a lurker, but I have to ask: am I the
> youngest conlanger on this list?  I'm 16 and have made five languages.
I'm 16 also. I have only made one language, which I've been doing for
years. It has a small vocabulary (30-40 words?) because I keep on
forgetting what words I previously used so I invent the same words over
and over. It has an English-like grammar because I found cases and
non-SVO
word order too hard for my English brain to parse, and because I don't
know enough linguistics to do much else (BTW, what is a clitic?)...

> Right now I'm working on one based on Welsh.
I'm monolingual, though I know about three words each in several
different languages... not enough to carry on a conversation. And
I'm hopeless at phonology so using dictionaries is useless because
I never know how to pronounce them. So basing my language on languages
(other than English) is too hard for me.

[snipped]
> How do you decide on your vocabularies/morphemes?
I borrow them... or I just make them up a priori, normally by putting
English words backwards, rearranging letters, stringing random
syllabless together...

> And what computer program do you use.  I use Excel myself because of
> the ease of alphabetizing.
My brain, and occasionally pieces of scrap paper.

> Well, I'll go back to lurking.  Thanks a lot.
> David
Simon Kissane.