Re: conlang survey part 2

--- yscreus la Heather Rice
<florarroz@...>:

> 2)  For being lovers of words, their origin,
> and their use, conlangers sure are dry when it
> comes to anything actually written in their
> languages.  Only 31% had anything written in
> their language, other than translations (I
> didn’t count these in my calculations).  43%
> had absolutely nothing written in their
> language.  Why this is so I am still wondering.
Possibly because, while it's all well and good to
consciously invent a system, it's much harder to
think in it and write in it with any speed. I
have the good fortune to be able to think and
write fairly quickly in Kerno - and indeed I've
posted in Kerno quite a few times - which I
ascribe to having some training in Latin, French
and Spanish, the latter of which I can actually
understand and speak in at need. On the other
hand, I can't do Talarian without the lexicon and
grammer immediately to hand.

It's a time consuming thing to write long texts
in any language - English included! - and we may
also feel a little practical about it. Should I
write out my conculture's scripture in the native
language, which only I could read and most likely
would need a dictionary ready; or should I write
it out in English so everyone else can read it
and only write out a little in the conlang? I've
toyed with doing the former, but ended up doing
the latter. And I don't feel at all guilty over
not doing up the whole thing in a conlang.

There's also the matter of the fluidity of most
of our conlangs: what you read in a text today
may change radically tomorrow or next year. It's
a bloody pain to have to change everything to
reflect new realities - especially when we'd
probably have to do it three or four times in the
life of an average conlang. The more texts we
write, the more we'd have to change.

> Thank you all for your responses.  I enjoyed
> reading your answers to my survey and
> unfortunately, I can't include everything I
> have found and learned.  I am both humbled and
> proud to be part of such a incredibly creative,
> diverse, enjoyable group of conlangers.
Now you've got to put it all up on the Web
somewhere so we can see it all!

Padraic.


=====
beuyont alch geont la ciay la cina
mangeiont alch geont y faues la lima;
     pe' ne m' molestyont
     que faciont
doazque y facyont in rima.

.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com

Reply