> [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf Of R A Brown
> > .... was never codified on paper.
>
> All mine were :)
My interest in conlanging started when I first encountered Esperanto
back around 1980-1981. The idea of constructing a language appealed
to me and I immediately came up with "improvements" to E-o that
could be considered my first attempts to make a language though it
was little more than a relexified and rephonemized E-o.
> > ....
> But my extant notes on Voldapeko show that, despite the obviously
> Volapük influence of the name, the morphology of the language was
very
> Esperantine, including accusative case and noun-adjective
agreement as
> well as the whole battery of participles. Indeed the actual
endings were
> practically the same, the main difference being that /j/ was
spelled
> |y|, not |j|!
>
> The improvements? I got rid of the nasty /x/ sound, and gave the
> language the 'nice easy' English sounds of /T/, /D/ and /3/ -
written
> |þ, ð, ö| respectively. Oh, the folly of youth!
Interesting because my first changes to E-o were similar. I never
removed any phonemes so I kept the /x/ but it was orthographically
changed to <c>. < c c g j h s u > became < ts tš dž ž c š w >. I
added /T/ and /D/ using edh and thorn as you did. I took it furhter
into a Germanic direction with the addition of front vowels like / {
y 9 / which were spelled < æ/ä y œ/ö >. I also loaded the lexicon
with a lot of Low-Germanic words and changed most of the suffixes
likewise so that adjectives were marked with <-ik> rather than <-a>,
nouns were unmarked, and plurals took <-(e)n>.
These early beginnings are relfected today in Deini which still has
mostly Low-Germanic vocabulary though less than my early tinkering
with conlangs which tended to resemble Anglo-Saxon or Frisian.
Grammatically it's become a more isolating language.
> [snip] ...
> >> Indeed - right throughout history people have used natlangs (or
> >> internalized natlangs) as auxlangs, e.g. Akkadian, Aramaic,
Koine Greek,
> >> Medieval Latin etc., etc
> >
> > Yes. And English is the current leader, and much more of a
> > world language than any language before. It is the de facto
> > standard of international communication worldwide. I have
> > once heard of a linguist who predicted that English will
> > become the sole language of humanity somewhen in the middle
> > of the millennium (but I doubt that).
>
> I doubt it also. People do not easily give up their own languages.
I don't necessarily see it becoming the *sole* langauge, at least
not that soon. I do see where in the next 200-300 years it will
become universally known to almost all humanity, and by 500 years it
will be the L1 of most humans though I'd expect some small pockets
where local languages will still be in use. I can envision a time
further down the road though were the local languages will
eventually erode away but 500 years just seems like too short of a
period. Meanwhile English will evolve during all of this and will
probably not be intelligible with the language we are using here.
http://conlang.dana.nutter.net/index.php/Li%C5%8Bgl%C4%B1s
>
> [snip]
> >>> At least it is alive. Don't despair; many projects
> >>> happen to turn out somewhat differently than originally
> >>> intended. But if a project goes into the wrong direction,
> >>> there is usually the option of saying "Stop!" and guiding
> >>> it back onto the right path.
> >> ...which is what I'm attempting to do at the moment ;)
> >
> > Sure, it isn't always easy. Often you have things in
> > your project where you don't know whether you should
> > change them or not.
>
> Very true - and asking other conlangers doesn't always help as
advice
> from different individuals tend to be contradictory - but that's
the fun
> of conlanging. Heck - if it was easy, it would be boring, wouldn't
it!
Which is why I like to make auxlangs. There's a challenge to making
something that has to fit within the mold of being useful rather
than just making up *whatever*. I am on the Auxlang list and do
support the concept of using a planned auxlang, but realistically I
know it's futile so I have no expectations that any of my auxlangs
will ever be used by anyone.
> [snip]
> >
> > AFAIK, while Lojban is not originally intended as an
> > auxlang,
>
> My understanding is that it was originally intended as a
development of
> James Cooke brown's Loglan, i.e. a language based on formal
logical in
> order to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
>
> > the suggestion that it be used as one finds
> > support from a sizeable part of the Lojban community.
>
> So i believe - but I'll not get into an argument as to whether
that
> would be a good idea or not. There are theoretically many features
of
> English that make it unsuitable as an auxlang, but that doesn't
stop it
> being so used.
Not so much "unsuitable" because it's obviously serving that
purpose, it's just not the optimal choice given it's quirks,
irregularities and cultural bias.
> [snip]
> >> Even Sindarin or Quenya could be
> >> expanded to serve as an auxlang if UN so wished it (now there's
an
> >> interesting alternative history ;)
> >
> > I have seen such proposals at least for Quenya.
>
> That doesn't surprise me one bit.
Me neither given that Klingon has been brought up too. The only
problem with these are they are artistic creations so not really
designed to be easy to learn and use.
> I remember several years back some auxlanger asked on *this* list
for
> our top three (or was 10?) conlang candidates to serve as a global
> auxlang. The request annoyed me, as I thought it inappropriate for
this
> list, and made sure none of my candidates were any of those that
had
> actually been designed by their authors as auxlangs. IIRC my
> top three were: Quenya, Tepa, Kinya :)
And of course if I took that poll, I'd choose all my own auxlangs
like Sasxsek, Ingli and maybe even Esperingle. I don't see any real
problem with asking such a question but it's better directed to
Auxlang as it's one that will almost certainly invite the usual
bickering among the different auxlang factions.