Re: CHAT: Hello

From: "David Peterson" <DigitalScream@...>
> In a message dated 5/1/01 7:10:21 PM, tb0pwd1@CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU writes:
> << I think it's a matter of working styles.  I do not approach my languages
> logically, but by emotional response.  The phonological shape arises from
> intuition before it is codified, and I see the entire language as a whole
> existing in harmony.  This is why I rarely finish a language; I often lose
> the thread, the emotional tone, of the language before finishing it.
>
> If, I've discovered, I translate a text inconsistant with the emotional
> tone of the language too early, I lose the thread earlier.
>
> Now, once a language is more or less solidly in mind, like, say, Hatasoe,
> I can translate anything I like into it and not be the least bit troubled.
> I've translated bits of the bible itno Hatasoe without any difficulty.
>
> But not Hrondu.  I can translate Buddhist things into Hrondu, because
> that's consistant with the flavor, but not Christian, not yet. >>
>
>     Now this, to me, makes sense.  I don't operate along the same principles,
> exactly, but I can definitely see where you're coming from, Pat.  As for the
> other...
It also has something to do with the problem that happens when the translator is
the conlanger.

A native speaker can't *invent* words[1] when translating to his language.  But
the conlanger is almost always inventing.  And it's a challenge [a very
difficult one, sometimes] to discern whether a word-concept that appears in a
'foreign' work *would have been* in the native culture already [and would
deserve a word] or not [and would have some other manifestation, such as a short
description] [2].

To take a quasi-real-world example:  the reconstructed ancestor of most European
languages, Proto-Indo-European, didn't [AFAIK] have a common word for 'lion'.[3]
Therefore the linguist working with PIE would (and should) have difficulty in
'translating' a lionned document into that language.  If a word for 'lion' is
discovered [through the relevant cognate action, etc.] then he can do it.  My
dilemma--and I speak here about my method personally, as I tend to be strict
with myself over these things--my dilemma as a conlanger is, not knowing the
whole of the conculture and -lang at once, being that I have to be in charge of
saying, ex cathedra, whether the word absolutely did or did not exist.

And as a conlanger being a conlanger I would probably be more inclined to
inventing a word that may not 'actually' have justification for its existence.

That's my take, anyway.  Or not.

     *Muke!
[1] Well, there's 'inventing' words by derivation/compounding/blends/whatever
and by phonaesthemes/onomatopoeia, but you can't just generally invent a new
root truly ex nihilo and expect clender use.
[2] A native speaker would, however, plausibly be able to borrow the word for a
foreign concept from the original.  This is possible in many conlangs also but
not, of course, all of them.
[3] I may be wrong and it may have had.  In such case, substitute this example
for a parallel one that would be true.