Re: Help desiging a minimal conlang?

Sally>>>>>>
Paul Bennett wrote:
>
> Years (literally) ago, there was a group effort towards making a 20-word
> isolating language for Birds.
Really?  I thought that was only months ago!  And I thought I was the
one to suggest it!  Not the 20 word isolating language, but that it was for
birds! I even gave a teeny lexicon which a few listers revised.  Do you mean
years in bird terms?  Or was there a bird language essayed, human years ago,
that I unwittingly replicated?  <G>
<<<<<<

Yeah I think it was your idea, and I think was the version we all settled on.  I
think I joined the conversation halfway through, at the point where a possible
bird language turned into a 20-word isolating lang.  I think there was something
in there about dolphins having a consistent 14-word language, plus (matronymic?)
personal names, although dolphins probably have additional methods of
communication.

I'm pretty sure it was slightly over two years ago, or it could be slightly over
one, I suppose.  ISTR it was in august/september, anyhow.  I can't find it in my
mail archive, so there must be bigger gaps than I'd thought.  Egroups is of no
****ing use, as usual; I get 47 messages containing "bird", all from within
about the last 3 months.

Come to think of it, it was right at the very start of my subscription to the
list.  By a relatively simple deductive process, this has to be after our
internal email system became an external email system, which happened at some
point after January 1998.  I'd say that means it was nearer one year ago.

Tal?  How big is the larkhive these days?  Does it go that far back?  I think
it'd be usefull for me to find this original thread and apply some of the wisdom
to this project.









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