Re: Concosmic Conlocation (was; Re; Back!)

>On Sun, 18 Jul 1999 23:56:38 -0600 Adam Parrish <myth@...> writes:
> >        I'm curious as to how other conlangers have solved the problem
> >of cosmic location, since it does seem to be rather vital to an
> >important part of a language's vocabulary.  It seems to me that most
> >of
> >us have languages set in an Earth with a different social history
> >(extreme: Tokana, where civilization never took place; less extreme:
> >Brithenig, where history diverged hundreds of years ago; even less
> >extreme: Elet Anta and Teonaht, which make no modification to history
> >except to suggest the presence of secretive subcultures).  An almost
> >equal proportion have chosen to locate their creations on distant
> >planets (the Kolagian languages, many of Nik Taylor's creations, and
> >the
> >ubiquitous Star Trek languages).  I'm not satisfied with either of
> >these
> >options.  Have I missed anything?  Is there a middle ground?
>
> >Whee, I've rambled long enough,
> >Adam
>
On related note (because I personnally don't know where this middle ground
may lie), how do you (pl.) justify having humans on another planet speaking
your conlang?  I, too, have been unsatisfied with these options; the best
seems a distant planet, but I don't like outrageously violating the human
"innate grammar" / "universal grammar" / "typological universals" or
whatever you want to call it, and separate evolution of human stock seems
farfetched. I recall that the Yisians, who lived on the distant world
Okainai, orbiting a star whose name I forget, were mostly human-looking, but
they were descended from kidnapped early humans who had been the victims of
genetic experimentation by a more advanced race. Lame, I know. It's the
"poor man's science fiction" approach. Sigh. I know someone out there has
come up with something better...

Jennifer


_______________________________________________________________
Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com