Re: Workshops Review from Yitzik the Snakie

Isaac Penzev wrote:


>Robert B Wilson eskribiw:
>
><<<how about one for other IE conlangs?>>>
>
>Info for dear friend Robert and other interested persons:
>
>IE langs are widely covered in workshops:
>
>- Germanic languages are discussed at
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/germaniconlang
>
snips et seq.
>So, for now the only gap is in Indo-Aryan area.
>
>DOES ANYBODY WANT TO START A "SUBCONTINENT CONLANGS" WORKSHOP for
discussing
>Indo-Aryan and Dravidic langs? I'm not quite competent to moderate it (and,
>besides, i think, one group is enough - i also have Real Life), but I'll
>eagerly join it at least for review purposes. Plus, one of my conlang
>embryos is inspired by Tamil.

The interesting thing (or not, depending on POV) is that there are so many
Dravidian langs., with such varied and amazing phonological developments,
that a Dravidian based conlang might very well end up looking a lot like
some real Drav. language.  Same with Austronesian (malayo-polynesian), and
that has always kept me from trying to create a MP-type conlang.  It's hard
to  improve on reality........
Anyway, an AN-Conlang list would probably only include me, K.Jensen,
M.Lasailly and B.Garcia, so we might as well continue talking to each other
here......unless there are others lurking out there-- maybe in
Indonesia/Malaysia/PI/Fiji/Samoa there's a budding sci-fi author creating
languages....

There are, however, some almost-conlang type discussions taking place
currently on the Austric list, and the Austronesian List-- both Yahoo
groups, sorry I don't have the URLs handy.  Basically, a couple of people
are trying to show that Austro-Asiatic (Mon-Khmer/Viet/Munda and lots of
others) are/are not related to Thai, Austonesian, or lots of others (take
your pick in the area).  These are certainly  viable _hypotheses_ if only on
geographic grounds, and not as wacked out as Proto World, or even Nostratic,
but still it requires a lot of ...mmm, flexibility... as to what one
considers "cognate".  So far, the discussions haven't reached the "Hitler!
Nazi!" stage.....yet.  :-))))))))))