Re: How do diacronic conlangers work?

Hallo!

On Tue, 8 May 2007 12:25, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:

> I have been thinking lately about how 'historical
> conlangers' go about their work, and am thinking of
> eventually turning the thoughts into some kind of essay. I
> would appreciate what others who are into that line of
> conlanging think of what I've come up with so far.
>
> Apologies to those who get this message multiply, but I want to
> reach as many as possible.
>
> - People usually have one language or dialect which was
>    there first in real time, and which often remains central
>    to the whole edifice, from which various imaginary
>    ancestors, daughters and siblings (what I call "stages" or
>    "nodes") radiate.
>
>    - It is notably often *not* the protolanguage (the highest
>      node in the linguistic family tree) which was there
>      first in real time, but some later form which gets
>      labeled "classical" or some variety thereof.
This describes exactly the way I do it!  The central language in my work
is not Proto-Albic but Old Albic, a "classical" language that is spoken
about 1000 years after Proto-Albic; it is reasonably close to Proto-Albic
but not the same.  Old Albic is currently the main focus of my work, and
the other languages will be derived from it - the modern South Albic
languages forward from Old Albic (which can roughly be equated with
Proto-South Albic), Proto-Albic backwards from it and the North and West
Albic languages forward again from there.

> - I make a terminological distinction between 'versions' in
>    real time and 'stages' in imaginary time meant to provide
>    orientation when exploring the development through real
>    time of the imaginary history of imaginary languages,
>    where one has to deal with two dimensions of time:
>
>    - Effectively any piece of linguistic creation by an
>      historical conlanger has to be placed on a coordinatde
>      system where one axis is the conlanger's lifetime and
>      the other axis the history of the imaginary universe
>      where the stages are spoken.
>
>    - It is not necessarily or usually the case that what I
>      call a later version of one language represents a break
>      or fresh start relative to any or all earlier versions.
>      A new version need not be a rewrite, but probably a
>      conscious revision as opposed to a tweak or a bug fix.
Yes.

>      :-) Changes and differences may be gradual, cumulative,
>
>      abrupt or whatever.
In my case, the changes have so far mostly been gradual from the point
when I decided that my languages are NOT based on Tolkien's (the whole
shebang started as "Nur-ellen", a descendant of Sindarin); that was
a big abrupt change, actually a complete redesign of the language.

>    - "Stages" may go through various "versions" or
>      "revisions", often without all the stages being
>      revised at the same time, although a revision in some
>      place in the family tree -- especially a major one --
>      may of course have larger or smaller repercussions
>      throughout the tree.
>
>      - Some stages are revised more often and/or more
>        extensively than others.
>
>      - The "central" stage tends to undergo less revision
>        than other stages.
>
>      - Changes to the "central" stage are likely to have more
>        and heavier repercussions on other stages.
>
>      - The protolanguage, being primary in imagined time but
>        secondary in real time actually tends to get revised
>        more, usually with a view to make it more plausible as
>        a common ancestor of sibling nodes lower in the tree.
Yes, in my case.  Classical Old Albic is very stable; Proto-Albic
is also reasonably stable though less so than Old Albic; the rest
is pretty much in flux, I am not even sure how many modern Albic
languages there *are*, and I have already broken up one of them
(Macaronesian) into a set of four closely related languages,
because I felt that that would make more sense.

> -    Unlike real language history the protolanguage is a
>           secondary product made to fit its daughters.
>
>    - Should I use the term "node", as on an imaginary family
>      tree, throughout instead of "stage". What do native
>      English speakers think of these terms (stage, node,
>      version) as I use them?
I'm no native English speakers, but I speak of "nodes" in the
Albic family tree and "stages" in the development of the languages
in fictional time; a "version" is an incarnation of the family tree
in real time.

> Thanks in advance for your comments!
At your service.

... brought to you by the Weeping Elf

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