Re: Survey (a new one!)

On Wed, 30 Sep 1998, Pablo Flores wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm starting a new conlang and I was curious:
> what are your first words in these cases? Do you have
> a special "test bed" for your conlangs, such as a text
> to be translated? Where do your words come from?
>
> (Take your time to answer, if you want to. This is like
> a little survey and we've had one just a few days ago --
> forgive me, Sally, for I've taken thine ideas :)
Not at all!  Where do my words come from?  Well, it's been a while since
I thought about making up a new conlang, since Teonaht is my passion,
so new words for me come out of a combination of old words.  If I have
to start from scratch, they come out of something mysterious.  I can't
quite put my finger on it.  I think of the object, and then I think
of various sounds to "describe" it until they "sound" like the object
they describe.  Granted, this is completely unsystematic, but I have
a whole host of vocabulary that has been generated that way.  As the
lexicon grew, so did my data-base, and I could start combining things and
working with roots.  It's easier to add to vocabulary when you have a
strong relationship with your invented language.  Teonaht words tend
to be multisyllable--very few of them are monosyllabic.  A few months
ago I was fiddling around with a bird-language based on single syllables,
trying to put them in some kind of new syntax.  They were so un-Teonaht
that I lost interest.  I should pursue it, I suppose.

Sally

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Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html

                        Mr. Book: "Shut it down!"
                        _Dark City_

                         Christof: "Cue the sun!"
                        _The Truman Show_

Tehwo tsema brondi laz obil hea nomai pendo
"Summer like a white sword hangs over the land."
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