Re: Con-prescriptivism

Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> wrote:

> The recent flameskirmish (I don't think it's quite a *war*, more like a
> brief skirmish) around prescriptivism, etc., as well as a joking remark
> by someone about having a "haughty" register in conlangs got me to
> thinking about conprescriptivism.  I seem to remember that Elet Anta has
> a fictional language academy, but does anyone else have one?
Drasele'q doesn't have a language academy, but in the
largest cities there is usually a school where rich
people can learn rhetoric and "proper" grammar rules.
These people are probably those who'll end up in the
court of the Qlonenqgron (the Great Lord of Thaqulm)
or the local Dhidenqgrig (the Provincial Lord). Not
that you can't enter without this kind of language,
but if you do everybody will probably look down on you.

In the kingdom there are several dialects, and the only
one considered "proper" is the central dialect, _rithelde'q_
as spoken in the province of Rith and the Throne city,
Thaqarion. The southern dialects, with a lot of influence
from the desert people's languages, are considered
substandard. The northern coast dialects are quite changed
too, but in ways that follow the trend of the language,
so to speak: where Standard Drasele'q has elided vowels
and produced assimilation and metathesis, the northern
dialect, usually referred to as _edhmaquart_ (the bay
dialect) has gone even further. For example: Standard
Drasele'q tends to decline like this:

bram- stem "to fall"
_bramar_ "a fall", genitive _bra'mares_
_bramas_ "something that is fallen", gen. _bra'mases_

while Edhmaquart goes

_bramar, bramres_ (syncopes the middle -a-)
_bramas, brama"s_ (umlaut + haplology, /ases/ > /&ses/ > /&s/)

Standard D. infixes the accusative mark -n in weak nouns
(which have a common ending, like -as):

_qanas_ -> _qanans_
but _gep_ -> _gepn_

but Edhmaquart goes

_qanas_ -> _qanans_
_gep_ -> _gemp_ (infixed -n- + assimilation of POA)


However, Edhmaquart is more respected because it's the
commonly used dialect of the noble houses of the north.
While the southern dialects are different = gross, the
northern dialect is different = exquisitely excentric.


--Pablo Flores

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
 The trouble with the rat race is that even
 if you win,  you're still a rat.
                                             Lily Tomlin