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Re: A conlang idea rolling around in my head

From:Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...>
Date:Wednesday, December 3, 2003, 5:54
Gary Shannon wrote:
> Obviously inflections are > not an option, but what other implications might there > be?
You can have characters that represent inflections. For example, the Japanese -tachi suffix, which marks plural (more or less) has a character, otherwise with a meaning of "achieve", oddly enough. I'm not sure if it was simply a "borrowed" character or if there's an etymological connection. You can also use diacritics. But, another possibility: suppose your language started out as an isolating language, and then as words became inflections, the characters would be kept (possibly simplified thru frequent use). Also, it's possible that the inflections simply wouldn't be written, and you'd have to figure them out from context. I don't think grammar would be any different. Writing doesn't change our grammar. It may change the people's *view* of the language, but writing is secondary to language. -- "There's no such thing as 'cool'. Everyone's just a big dork or nerd, you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." - overheard ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42