Re: Lexicons and Langauge Borrowing
| From: | Herman Miller <hmiller@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Tuesday, March 16, 1999, 5:03 |
|---|
On Mon, 15 Mar 1999 12:14:10 -0500, Michael Mouatt <arcangel@...>
wrote:
>Also, is it considered bad form to borrow too much from real languages?
>I'm creating some conlangs based on the Scandanavian and Germanic
>branches. So far I've borrowed heavily from Icelandic phonology.
I think borrowing phonology is perfectly fine. Even borrowing words =
within
limits is okay with me. Tolkien borrowed "nar" from Arabic and "velike"
(velikii) from Russian, for a couple of examples. But unless you have a
specific fictional reason for the similarity (e.g., is your fiction set =
in
an alternate-history Scandinavia?), it might be better to create your own
words if you want a realistic fictional language.