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CHAT: Anglicisms

From:Chris Peters <alpha_leonis@...>
Date:Thursday, June 3, 1999, 1:28
     Out of curiosity, how aware are any of you of any Anglicisms in your
conlangs, whether in grammar, phonology, or otherwise?  Or otherwise, if
your L1 is other than English, how much does your native tongue tend to crop
up in your project?  I find myself almost unawares favoring certain English
sounds, or Japanese grammar, in Ricadh when I try to avoid it.  In a sense,
Ricadh grammar has ended up as a kind of "reverse Japanese" ...

     A few years ago, I managed to contact Marc Okrand with a few questions
about his Klingon language.  For those who don't know, Mr. Okrand had quite
extensive experience in several natlangs before he was hired to create
Klingon.  (His field of study was comparative linguistics among and between
Southeast Asian and Native North American languages.)  So he told me, if he
created a Klingon rule that, by chance, was the same as a Burmese rule, then
he consciously went _against_ Burmese for his next addition.  The result was
one of the best developed "non-human" conlangs out there.  Sure makes me
wish I had the time and money to get a PhD in the field, like he did!  :)


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