Re: Data and Musings...

In a message dated 9/29/01 12:46:36 PM, alfredhw@EUDORAMAIL.COM writes:

<< Anyway, ob-conlang:  I hadn't thought of it before, but now I'm wondering
what my language-learning choices have to do with my conlanging.  (Thanks
again to Tom for this seed of contemplation.)  There's only one non-IE
language on there (Japanese, so as to aid in learning Go); most of my
"serious" conlangs beg, borrow and steal liberally from IE languages.  (I
actually feel sort of guilty about it.)  Do most Conlangers borrow freely
from the languages they know, or try mightily to separate them? >>

    Before I get into this question, let me just say that I envy your
collection, and am wondering where the hell you got some of those!  Could I
borrow some...?
    I did borrow freely from languages I knew, but not languages I knew well.
 The influences in order of language creation:

Megdevi: Arabic, Esperanto (I mean, it's triconsonantal.  Also, I wasn't
familiar with the idea of
    actually TRYING to make languages irregular; you all introduced that idea
to me. :) )
Gweydr: Latin, Gothic (the latter which I know nothing about)
Sunshine (later Shali): Chinese, Japanese (probably why it didn't work, since
I know neither Chinese
     nor Japanese)
Dangelis: Hindi (I was also highly influenced by a discussion on the list
about marking agents, rather
    than working with ergative/accusative languages)
Wivoys: Swahili, Tok Pisin (I know no Swahili)
Zidaan: Arabic, again (on the back burner)
Mbasa: Swahili, again, Inuit (there was an example in my Pidgins class of
Inuit which really got me
    excited about creating a polysynthetic language.  I'm going to post
something about it as soon as
    I take a shower and go to the bathroom)

Other (barely) language sketches...
Beep: ??? (this was my attempt at a one-word language)
Color: Megdevi, Wivoys (I came up with the idea of assigning one of four
colors to each sound, and
    making it so that you had to combine words via different colors; e.g.,
for red verbs, you formed
    the past tense by adding a green vowel.  Once I realized how small my
inventory of syllables
    and words was going to be, I gave up on it.)
Future English: Tom Weir? (I forget who was talking about how he seriously
advocated a respelling
    of the English language because of how much longer it takes children to
learn it, and how much
    higher are rate of dyslexia is.  Anyway, so along with a respelling
system [and by the way, I
    think I've got one that looks REALLY GOOD.  It looks like Old English
mixed with Irish, rather
    than Germanic], I tried to imagine what English would be like in the
future.  I set up a system by
    which all the coding was built into the pronouns rather than the verbs,
and that each verb had
    only three forms which agreed with the pronouns. I posted this to the
list, but, like Tr:pang,
    Czhang, no one said one solid thing about it.  I was so discouraged that
I gave it up.  Not the
    spelling system, however; I now take notes in it; really speeds things
up.)
Fanglutsen: AmerInd languages (Dare I mention this, lest someone from the
Arda project see it?)
Dai: AmerInd languages, again (this is a language I created for someone for
money; it's all right)

    Wow...  So, aside from a couple exercises I created in made-up languages
to help my girlfriend understand the German case system better, that is my
entire conlang career.  It hasn't quite been a year yet...  I started in
either late October or early November last year.  Anyway, now for showering...

-David