Re: Introduction, and a Couple Questions

Hi!

Parker Glynn-Adey writes:
> Hi there, my name is Parker Glynn-Adey. ...
Welcome to the list! :-)

>...
>    -Why do most people start their work on a language with their phonology?
I started with grammar in my first language, but because I needed
words, I made them up as I needed them, without rules.  This lead to
some very peculiar phonotactics, which had to be retrofitted to what I
had.  Therefore in later projects, I started with the phonology in
order to get a more consistent set of words.

>...
>    -I notice that a lot of people have conlangs that take the form of pretty
> PDF files, is anyone here a LaTeX user?
I used LaTeX for Tyl Sjok (second language) and for Fukhian (first
language).  To make the font, I used Metafont for the Fukhian font,
which resulted in very nice fonts, I think.  However, I encountered
problems because my fonts had complex typeset rules (ligatures,
overlapping, etc.), which was very hard to do in LaTeX.  For Tyl Sjok,
which uses a logographic script, Metafont could not handle the complex
stacking rules, so I used an own program to produce PostScript files.

Another problem was publishing: HTML is the convenient format for Web
publishing.  latex2html was a pain in the bottom because it changed so
much.  Therefore, I abandoned LaTeX for subsequent projects in favour
of HTML.  It wasn't a problem, because the following few conlangs had
no own fonts and were happy with Unicode.

Still, I am using Metapost for a new font that is not yet completed
(it is inspired by on Ethiopic (Ge'ez)).  Metapost lets you use
Metafont syntax (which I generate with Perl) with its high level
operations and equation solving and produces very simple PostScript
files.  I am hoping to be able to read those files and to create .ttf
files from the result, which would be compatible with a lot of
applications.

**Henrik

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