Re: where to begin
| From: | Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, January 19, 2004, 4:09 |
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Marty Rosenberg wrote:
> First of all - and I don't remember who this was too,
> as I don't have the old digests anymore -, when I said
> an interesting orthography doesn't make for an
> interesting language, I didn't mean that orthography
> was useless or boring in any way. In fact, I create an
> a sound set first, immediately followed by the
> orthography. If I can't create an interesting
> orthography for something, I start over.
Personally I tend to use simplest possible orthography. Sound is more
important to me than looks. But, of course, it's all a matter of
personal asthetics. :-)
> Second, I don't know where to place the language in
> it's surroundings. At what point in time do I place
> it? (McWhorter: Latin didn't just become French. It
> had to go through "Fratin".) What place, or dialect?
> What point on a potential dialect continuum? Should I
> decide this before or after I create the language?
I'm not sure what you're asking.
> And fourth (yes, fourth :-D), where should I start?
> Creating roots? Words? Sound set? Orthography?
> Grammar? Which part of the grammar? I'M SO CONFUSED!!!
> :-s *Breathes deeply*
Well, I usually start with a basic idea of what I want, e.g., basic type
(isolating, inflecting, agglutinating), what kind of genders, if any,
what types of things are inflected, then I come up with a basic sound
system, and orthography, and then work out gramatical forms and words.
However, this isn't a simple step-by-step process, as at any point in
the process, I can, and, early on, often do, go back to modify what I've
already made. For example, I might decide that I *do* want a length
distinction in vowels after all, and so add that distinction, randomly
lengthening vowels. Or I may decide that I don't want stop-nasal
combinations, and ban those, modifying any words accordingly. Or maybe
I'll decide that there was a /ti/ -> /tSi/ change (and /tS/ is already a
phoneme), so then I'll change any /ti/ I have to /tSi/. Nothing's ever
set in stone, *especially* not early on.
>
> Sorry to be such a burden... Thanks in advance for all
> the help! ;-)
>
> Marty Rosenberg
> Ah, the power of the word cheese.
>
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