Re: Conlangs in History

On Sat, 19 Aug 2000, Thomas R. Wier wrote:

> I've usually been unimpressed with the conlanging that goes on in
> most scifi/fantasy books.  Most of them, like Allen Dean Foster's
> series _The Damned_, seem to think that all you have to do to add
> alien flavor to a book with nonhumans is add a few apostrophes here
> and there.  Considering that alien physiologies are not necessarily
> going to have any similarity to their human counterparts, I'd expect
> a little more thought put into it.
You'd probably *like* Diana Wynne Jones' _The Tough Guide to
Fantasyland_, which isn't strictly conlang, but it's a satire on various
*bad* fantasy stereotypes, and one of them is the Dreaded Apostrophe
Syndrome.

I think another factor in fantasy at least is that most writers look at
Tolkien's work and think, God, I'll never be able to do that.  <sigh>

YHL