Re: Has anyone made a real conlang?

On Tuesday, April 22, 2003, at 03:28  AM, Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> En réponse à Andrew Nowicki :
>> It seems to me that most of the languages discussed
>> in this mailing list are not languages at all, but
>> names of languages that exist only in the imagination
>> of the person who invented the names. I doubt a
>> language can be used for simple everyday communication
>> unless it has a vocabulary of at least 1000 words.
>> Has  anyone in this mailing list made a real conlang?
>
> Well, I was wondering how long it would take to Andrew to show again
> his
> arrogance and his complete disrespect towards us ;))) . I guess it
> didn't
> take that long...
>
> But as for Conlangs that are big enough for everyday communication:
> Teonaht, Kerno, Brithenig, Denden, Ilaini, Tokana, Tepa (sorry, but I
> can't
> spell the new name :(( ), Keleñ, my own Moten, have all enough
> vocabulary
> for everyday communication (although my Moten lacks some things, it is
> so
> also because of its concultural background). And that's only a small
> sample
> of such "real" conlangs.
Thanks for the compliment! (It's Miapimoquitch, by the way; I can give
you an etymology if you'd like.) However, Miapimoquitch is far from
being "big enough" for everyday communication. I have around 600
vocabulary items, which seems to be below anyone's threshold for
"completeness" (whatever *that* means). More importantly though, the
vocabulary of Miapimoquitch is meant to deal with the world of a
preliterate, puebloan culture; I wouldn't expect it to be able to
represent things from the modern world. So like your Moten, there are
cultural reasons for its lexical "deficiencies." Currently, it's
grammatical deficiencies far outweigh any lexical shortcomings it may
have. The sketch on LangMaker.com is out of date, and doesn't bear much
resemblance to what's on my mind these days.

I'll respond separately to some of the issues which are bouncing around
as a result of Andrew's post.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga
Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie

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