Re: Sim Conlang (Re: When is plural applied?)

>>> ThatBlueCat@AOL.COM 4/14/2004 1:10:16 PM >>>
Gary wrote:

<<What we need is something like "Sim City", a computer
program that could be programmed to simulate a bunch
of little people running around speaking our conlang
so we could watch evolve for a few simulated
centuries. ;-)>>

You have NO idea how many times I've envisioned exactly this!!!   To me, it'd
almost be like there were levels.   You'd enter a certain amount of words and
morphological info then hit "start", and the level would start.   There'd be
a bunch of people (e.g., someone buying food from a shop, the store keeper, a
policeman, a woman trying to park her car, passersby, a guy at a magazine
stand, etc.), and they'd just kind of act randomly and try to interact.   The
second there was a problem (i.e., they'd try to interact, but couldn't, based on
the input), one of two things would happen: (1) they'd inovate something, and a
log would record the inovation, or (2) if it was too serious, the level would
stop (i.e., you'd lose), and you'd be told exactly what went wrong.   That
would be AWESOME!!!   I would pay twice the suggested retail price for it.   I
wish I were rich, computer-brilliant, and had nothing else to do: I'd get right
on this.`

-David
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I too, would gladly and enthusiastically support this (ie., pay for it); it would
have to be ported to Mac (OS 9.x) though...

I think for it to be useful, you would need to supply it with your target lang's
morpho- and phonological rules as well as syntax, etc. With the right variables
you could create everything from densely polysynthetic to purely isolating
langs. I can't imagine controlling all of those variables, however (I am not a
programmer). You would almost need to ... create a world and populate it. :)

James