Re: Has anyone made a real conlang?

This is a reply, but it's also a personal story.

From: "Joe Fatula" <fatula3@...>

> Anyone else out there have a "real conlang"?  I invite you to translate
the
> same passage and prove it.  (Though I have seen similar translations in
some
> of your languages and already believe that they are "real conlangs".)
That was a very good response. I too found the questions from Andrew loaded
(though not so much insulting, at least to me).

And it made me think too. I've been working on Tech since the mid 1980s and
it's NOT a real conlang. Not according to the definitions given earlier. I
have a phonology and a couple thousand basic roots -- but not a developed
grammar nor a real vocabulary (that is, roots plus stems plus definite
meanings). The reason I haven't offered much proof is because there isn't
any! Unless you want a bunch of radically altered Indo-European and Semitic
words...

It's because I've had a love-hate relationship with this thing. I get
something done, then I hate the results, and start all over. Or I "discover"
a new law about the language and culture, so I have to change the very
foundations. And I'm just lousy at finishing what I start.

So, I've decided to just have different "versions" of Tech, and Big Six IAL,
and the "subconlang" projects subordinate to Tech -- like Conservative (the
obligatory IE-based conlang), "Arabrew" (the Semitic counterpart to
Conservative), Neo-Sumerian (not so conservative) -- replete with numerical
and Greek letter version designations. I too am careful not to present to
you all a "fraudulent conlang".

But maybe I'm too self conscious...