Re: Language Lessons

In a message dated 7/30/01 8:27:21 PM, LordDM@CARDIFF.AC.UK writes:

<< One of the biggest problems I have found with constructed languages

is that the guides to them are hardly user friendly. To clarify what

I mean, I looked at the "chapter" titles of a few conlangs - they are

scary to the non-dedicated linguist, e.g. it was stuff like "more on

adjectives", "use of the dative", etc. This is sure to to scare off

all but the most dedicated of linguists and conlangers.


To compare, I looked at mine - mine's hardly attractive -

"Mutations", "Verbs", "Pronouns", etc. So I looked at what was

attractive, by pulling a few "Teach Yourself" language books off my

shelf - the chapter titles are much more attractive (no scary

grammatical words for the non-linguist/non-conlanger!!), laid out

with such titles as "greetings", "shopping", etc. Perhaps by putting

conlangs into situations like that into the mouths of imaginary

speakers would assist making langs more fun?


The great difficulty with creating a course is sustaining its

creation - I have seen conlangs that peeter out after lesson two or

three, with no further additions. Is there a template for writing

courses? >>

    Excuse my clipping the whole thing, but I think that would be really
neat.  In fact, my grandpa just bought me a TY Serbo-Croat language book from
1963 at a library book sale (those things are INVALUABLE), and just reading
through it, I was so excited to learn it!  And I've never had any interest in
any language up there other than Russian, and even that interest was small!
I really love the layout of the book.  Everytime I pick it up I want to sit
down and start learning, like a language class at school.  I have one
language that might be advanced far enough to do this, but it'd be so much
work...  Very interesting, nonetheless.

-David