Re: New member with a few questions.

Hello again,
 Ok.
 The language isn't necessarily an ethnic language or a logical but is a
somewhat integral part of my creatures social identity.
 It's difficult to explain without being well versed in the history of my
world.
 But as an example, take the name of a city: Bel-ani.
 "bel" being light or illimunation, "ani" is a directional word, meaning
down or to descend. Thus bel-ani means "sunset." Another is example is the
pronoun "jek" which can mean either friend, enemy, or stranger (not quite,
but it's the closest English approximation, transliterated it would be "of
unknown quality"). It takes one of three words (usually used as emotions) to
make it something functional.
 I hope that helps.
 -John

 On 11/1/05, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> wrote:
>
> Hallo!
>
> John Schlembach wrote:
>
> > Hello all.
> >
> > Let me preface the bulk of my by apologizing should I be going about
> this
> > the wrong way.
> >
> > Where do I start?
> >
> > First of all, I'm an aspiring novelist who knows what I want out of the
> > language my characters are to speak. However, I have no idea how to go
> > about doing it.
> >
> > I'm looking to create an a priori language based around two sets of
> words.
> >
> > Empty words are words with an implied connotation. A word can seem to
> > mean "light" but until it has the proper qualifier in the form of a
> suffix
> > bound word it has no meaning.
> >
> > Bound words are just that: adjectives or nouns that allow function to be
> > known and implemented.
> >
> > The difficult part is getting this language to be precise. I've created
> the
> > bare necessities so far as they relate to several stories I'm working
> on,
> > but I want more than just token words to provide an exotic feel.
> >
> > I've read interviews here and there, but information on the subject of
> > conlangs is difficult to come across.
> >
> > Is there any advice you all would be kind enough to give?
>
> Some fruitful advice, such as reading Mark Rosenfelder's Language
> Construction Kit (which I warmly recommend, too), has been given
> by others here.
>
> One issue that ought to be added:
>
> If you are about to design a fictional ethnic language, you should
> look at real-world ethnic languages as models rather than "engineering"
> a language to be logical, unambiguous, theoretically elegant, etc.
> I don't know, however, what you are going to do with your language.
>
> Greetings,
>
> Jörg.
>