Conlang beginnings

        How do other conlangers create their languages?  Me, I'm not exactly
new, but still quite inexperienced in the art.  To date, I've never
created what I would consider a "complete" conlang ... mostly I've
played around with certain linguistic features to see where they would
take me.  I've looked around briefly at certain nat- and conlangs I've
had access to, studied a couple of them a bit more in-depth, and off and
on I read this list (mostly off ... I just came back after about a
year's absence).

        My current project, called Ricadh, is about the most complete project
I've ever worked on.  I used Jeffrey Henning's Babel Text as a source to
get my mind focused on one particular set of rules that I could
legitimately call a language.  It's gone through quite a few revisions
in the process ... what I have now is very different from what I started
with, especially in phonology.

        What I find the most interesting ... disenheartening sometimes ... is
the fact that many rules that I've created for Ricadh, which I thought
were original (I _did_ come up with them independently), already exist
in some natlangs.  And in general, I've come to understand that my
"creative ideas" are more or less standard fare in the art.  But, I keep
going, and for the first time I have pages worth of documentation for my
first Real Conlang [tm].  (Nope, no web page, unfortunately ... I'm in
the process of moving between countries.  But it's certainly mailable to
anyone willing to critique.)

     -- Chris


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