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Re: Has anyone made a real conlang?

From:Jeffrey Henning <jeffrey@...>
Date:Sunday, April 27, 2003, 20:25
Andrew Nowicki skrzypszy:

> By the way, most vocabulary sizes listed in LangMaker.com > are exaggerated, sometimes by several orders of magnitude!
As others have pointed out, not all elements of a lexicon are online. I've actually had people who underestimated or left it blank, and I sometimes do a quick line count on their vocabulary to determine the number of items. If someone claims to have more than 10,000, I usually look for some evidence of this, because that's so unusual. There are six such languages: http://www.langmaker.com/db/mdl_index_lexiconsize.htm#10179 BTW, if you haven't seen LangMaker.com in the last six weeks, I've revamped the home page and made a bunch of other changes to the site, to raise the bar a bit in response to constructive criticism from some of you. Eamon Graham wrote:
>Is it Jeffrey Henning who coined the term "model language"? I >believe that is a great term for what you are discussing. A model >language would be the rudiments of language used to create names for >a fictional universe or to give a few lines of dialogue in a novel.
Yes, but since I hadn't heard the term "conlang" yet, I intended "model language" to mean any constructed language. Since we already have plenty of terms for generic conlangs, of course, "model language" in that sense isn't a useful distinction. If pressed to make a distinction, I think Eamon's is a useful one: I would say that a model language is a language sketch or small artlang -- often created to illustrate a key point or two, without much further development. Those tend to be the types of languages I dabble in. Quite humble languages, and I stand in awe of Teonaht, Talossan and Tepa. Dirk Elzinga comunu:
>the vocabulary of Miapimoquitch is meant to deal with the world >of a preliterate, puebloan culture.
I was on vacation in central and northern Arizona last week, and went again to Montezuma's Castle and the different Wupatki ruins. And I thought to myself, "I really wish Dirk would publish a description of Miapimoquitch." OK, I actually thought "Mia-... mia-... neo-Tepa", not being able to remember the name. I did remember it was actually set in southern Utah, but felt I was close enough in spirit. So if enough of us tell you plaintively that our conlanging lives will not be complete until we see a full description of Miapimoquitch, will that be encouragement for you to continue documenting it? Mia Soderquist scripsit:
>I do virtually all my work on paper. I have notebooks >of every size and shape.
So nice to hear from you, Mia! I wish I lived close enough to you to have a chance to peruse one of your notebooks. Warm regards, Jeffrey

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Dirk Elzinga <dirk_elzinga@...>