Re: Conlanging as a personal thing

----- Original Message -----
From: "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>

> Ebisedian is different enough from English that a lot of English concepts
> are currently inexpressible in Ebisedian. But OTOH, the reverse is true:
> there are a lot of Ebisedian concepts which are very difficult to express
> in English! I've already mentioned _i're_ in another thread; its cousin
> _kreme_ [kr&m&] (not [kri:m]! :-P) is another example. And of course, the
> (in)famous _gii'j3li_, of which I've mentioned several times already in
> the past.
I've missed, obviously, some very interesting threads.  Nomail is the
culprit.

> >  But I think that an equivalent for "interest" in T. will have to
> > include the concept of "significance."  Something is interesting only
> > insofar as it is significant to you, right?
>
> Raises an interesting question... that of consistency of a new word with
> existing vocabulary. One of my problems with building Ebisedian's lexicon
> is my perfectionist insistence that its words must result from its own
> culture, rather than be mappings from English. As a result, there a large
> gaping holes in the vocabulary, even though I already have such obscure
> distinctions as _be'jh_, to give a personal gift; vs. _thech'_, to pass
> something to another (like in a ballgame);  vs. _nge'jh_, to carelessly
> throw something towards someone in an off-hand way; vs. _th0're_, to hand
> in, or submit a document.
Admirable.  I'm struggling with the same challenge.  You'd think that the
more roots I had the easier it would be to produce new vocabulary.  To some
extent that is largely true, but now I have become super conscious about not
making everything in Teonaht an equivalent with everything in English, and
lexicon-building has become so much more laborious.  There is not just a
word for vegetables, the Teonaht lump fruits and roots together in one
category, and stalks and leaves in another.  A farlarop is a hurled thing
(just to note your last example!), but also someone hit by the hurled thing!
Both have connotations of the stupidity of temper tantrums and how what goes
around comes around.  So farlarop can also mean "bad karma."  (It has no
relation to phalarope, a very nice waterbird, I think).  And then the
non-volitional and stative verbs give all sorts of meanings that don't have
exact equivalents in English: like what is non-volitional giving?
Relinquishing?  Not exactly.  It has a more positive connotation than that,
but one that is done in a state of inactivity.

> > And remembering them all, of course.  T has a pretty good-sized lexicon
> > for an invented language, but they are not in circulation.  The only
> > thing that will make me remember all of them, and give me the
> > communicability that I want, is to write it, write it, and write it, the
> > way Mao does. And about different things.  I can't think it, think it,
> > think it, the way Paul does.  I'm still in the writing stage.
> [snip]
>
> I have the opposite problem. I can easily think in Ebisedian grammar, but
> I stutter and stumble over the limited vocabulary that I can remember.
How can you think in a grammar without the words?  Teonaht has a big
vocabulary that takes practice remembering, and a backwards syntactical
structure with lots of exceptions and idiomatic phrases that are difficult
to work out even in an English transcription.

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."

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