Jan van Steenbergen wrote:
>> What would "full" communicability be?
>
>Simple: if you can have reasonably long conversation by e-mail (or
telephone,
>for that matter) without having to create new words. I'm mean, if you want
to
>write: "I just received your letter and found it very interesting", and
have to
>create five new words for that, than a language is clearly not ready for
>communication yet.
Ah. I thought maybe you meant having the grammar necessary to communicate
any concepts *once you plug in any needed words*. But if it's just a
question of lexicon size, then you're probably right about very very few
reaching that level.
>But don't ask me how many words a language must have to be communicable in
this
>way. Some will say 2 000, others will argue 5 000 or even 10 000.
I would put it up at 10 000 or even higher. Rhean has over 2000 words but I
still don't think there's been a translation I've done for which I didn't
have to make up a few more.
>One possible solution BTW would be that both writers are equally entitled
to
>create new words. In such case, the language would become a true group
project.
Or to go even beyond that: that both writers may create new words, BUT that
any person who does so must also make three cognate or related words (i.e.
from the same root) or other words with concepts complementary / related /
opposite to the new word. That way, every new word would seem to have
related words or concepts in the language PLUS the lexicon would grow that
much faster.
I'm on another list which is trying to revive a comatose group project
("Akilo"). I'm going to suggest this rule there.
M
P.S. Are collaborative conlangs prone to failure as a rule? I've been
involved with two that both stalled after a short time.