Re: How to start to make a language?

On Tue, Aug 06, 2002 at 10:08:23PM +0200, Christian Thalmann wrote:
[snip]
> It would be a good idea to start with the phonology of the language.
> Decide which sounds you want to use, and how you are going to write
> them in Latin letters.
Hmm. I was considering a new conlang which would have to be written in
non-Latin letters, because its sounds would be so cumbersome to be written
as such. As it is, Ebisedian already suffers from vowel constipation
because its 9 vowels and 27 consonants just do NOT fit into the Latin
alphabet. Fortunately, with my Orthographic-LaTeX tool, I can now view
sane renditions of Ebisedian with the help of multiple diacritics and
other such markings. :-)

I'd say, don't worry about Latin letters right from the start; get your
phonology going first, and *then* consider what's the most straightforward
way to write them in Roman letters.

> Try to keep the notation as simple and effective as possible --
Seconded.

> sowing unnecessary apostrophes and accents everywhere doesn't do any
> good to a language.  Unless, of course, you want your language to
> be as weird as possible, which is something only seasoned
> conlangers like Christophe Grandsire can pull off without going
> crazy.  ;-)
Oh, Maggelity will drive one insane unless he already is. ;-) (j/k,
Christophe.)

> What exactly do those diacritics in Mäpnéet and Mapnêt mean?  If
> they are not really required by your phonology, you might be better
> off without them.  Too many sci-fi writers "invent" alien languages
> just by adding ap'ostr'phe's or äcçénts to the written words without
> even pronouncing them differently.  =P
[snip]

Yeah. My approach is still to invent the sounds first, and perhaps even a
native script, and *then* consider how a group of explorer-linguists might
transcribe this language in Latin letters. Obviously, they will choose the
most straightforward, clearest system they can think of.

Unless, as mentioned above, your goal is to create an Indo-European
language with spelling conventions dating several from mythological times,
shoe-horned into a modern language whose pronunciations have *nothing* to
do with the spelling at all. Like Maggel. :-P (OK, I'm kidding. Maggel at
least is regularly written. But its regularity is the kind that will drive
your brain all irregular. :-P)


T

--
I am a consultant. My job is to make your job redundant. -- Mr Tom

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