Re: hi brethren

> > hi brethren,
>  >
>  > how do we get to where we're from ?
>  > evolution tells us we changed already
>  > but our dreams cling back to permanency.
>  > don't tell me you don't feel what i mean
>  > 'cause i know you're fellow conlangers.
>  > move on with verbs
>  > keep on with nouns
>  > live up with adjective.
>  >
>  > mathias
>
>  Are you on drugs?
no. i didn't ever had one puff of cigarette
and a single glass of alcohol makes me sick :-)
i just really "feel" the lines you quoted above.
sorry if it sounds "high" or simplistic to you.
i go hide and lurk again.

mathias

Don't be discouraged, Mathias.   No one can write poems that everybody
likes.   As for your poem, I don't quite get the rhythm, but I can
understand the comparison between the struggle to write a coherent grammar
and the evolutionary struggle to survive, at least on an emotional level.

The experience that your poem calls up in my mind is the endless temptation
to change change change the basic grammar as you work through it.   Last
summer, I spent many  hours converting my own Palo into a register tone
language--quite an undertaking and not strictly necessary, but I felt driven
to do it.

I think a better language resulted, because adding tones allowed me to beef
up the system of derivations (combinations of tone alternation and vowel &
diphthong alternation specify word-classes in Palo).   Still, I feel a
little guilty about making such changes, because part of me wants to "cling
to permanency."

Jim