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Re: Humans & Humanoids [WAS: Back!]

From:Herman Miller <hmiller@...>
Date:Thursday, July 22, 1999, 2:44
On Wed, 21 Jul 1999 15:51:59 -0700, Jim Grossmann <steven@...> =
wrote:

>70,000 years ago, a mysterious tribe LIVED. With tens of thousands of >years of prehistory, why not just write a conlang for cave people?
Strangely enough, I had a language for cave elves (Kaltani / "Ancient Elvish"), but none for ancient humans (unless you count the Kobolds, who are distant relatives of humans).
>Our understanding of evolution is incomplete; our current speculations >about extraterrestrials are wrong. Just as the echidna (monotreme) can >resemble a hedgehog (placental), aliens could resemble US.
I used to have a similar explanation for the Mizarian rodent-people: not actual rodents, but alien beings from another planet who happen to = resemble rodents. It's amazing how many generally "rodent-like" prehistoric = animals there were, like the tritylodonts and multituberculates. I took that as evidence that "rodent-like" beings might easily evolve elsewhere. But I later decided that was unlikely, and that the Mizarians were actual rats that had been genetically engineered to be intelligent humanoids.
>I prefer making languages that are artificial in their fantasy contexts =
as
>well as reality, but that's just my taste.
Rillintel was a language of that sort, created by the Olaetyan explorer Edhlyt Narlend. My Dwarvish language Zarkhand was also invented in the fictional world as well as the mundane one. -- languages of Kolagia---> = +---<http://www.io.com/~hmiller/languages.html>--- Thryomanes /"If all Printers were determin'd not to print = any (Herman Miller) / thing till they were sure it would offend no = body, moc.oi @ rellimh <-/ there would be very little printed." -Ben = Franklin