Re: A question and introduction

On Thu, Jun 13, 2002 at 10:29:30PM -0400, Andy Canivet wrote:
> >From: "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>
[snip]
> >(I'm of the opinion that the best method to construct an artlang is to
> >invent a conculture -- everything in the language is driven by the
> >culture, which gives the language a deep, internal consistency, sorta like
> >how a fern leaf looks like a miniature fern, etc.. It just *feels* right.
[snip]
>
> I completely agree - but I find it gets a bit "reflexive" - you can only go
> so far with the culture before you have to start working on the language,
> and vice versa.  You kind of have to "evolve" the two of them together step
> by step - kind of like the way real languages and cultures work I suppose...
>  I've been working on a culture (for purposes of fiction) and their
> language as well - but nothing so radical as an alternate universe with
> different laws of physics.
[snip]

Well, I created the conculture before I even had the thought of making a
conlang for it :-)

Perhaps one day I should sit down and write the external history of the
conculture... it has rather interesting, divergent roots (which may
explain some of its oddities :-P), pieced together from scraps and
fragments of ideas I had from time to time. The physics part was conceived
independently as a result of pondering over what-if's in physics and
chemistry. Then, for a period of time, I had this tendency of borrowing
ideas from this con-physics into various fictional stories I made up,
often without much thought as to how it would fit. Eventually, I sketched
a very long timeline covering several long eras, just to account for
everything.

The conlang, OTOH, was very meticulously planned to fit the conworld. The
conworld by that time had developed quite a bit, and I wanted every little
part of the conlang to integrate into it seamlessly. After I got started
on the conlang, though, I found that it was helping me work out details in
the conworld, and vice versa. So I guess you could say they are "evolving"
together now.


T

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