Re: Aesthetics

Den 16. okt. 2007 kl. 02.56 skrev Edgard Bikelis:

> I was wondering: as we surely are guided by some aesthetic
> principles in our conlanging, what are those principles we use?
> Maybe it's not a fecund subject, but let's give a try : ). As it's
> all subjective, care is needed when commenting, but it would be
> nice to hear what other people think is beautiful, and about what I
> think... or rather feel.
Aesthetics is not first priority for me, because my main aim is
realism and letting the Urianians themselves (represented mainly with
the names from the imaginations in my youth) having the final say in
the shaping of the language. And since they are largely a brash,
belligerent lot, they don't care too much for daintiness. But even
the wildest barbarians have their own form of rough aesthetics, and I
find some charm in Urianian now and then. Shaping your statements
well always is a matter of pride whatever the nation, and Urianians
are not less preoccupied with songs and poetry than others. In fact I
have given Urianian poetics a good deal of thought.

Suraetu (aka Gaajan) is more specifically designed to be beautiful,
at least in its phonology. Again I am more concerned with
functionality and plausibility and allowing the speakers to have
their own say than beauty, but since the Suraetuans are especially
preoccupied with songs, singability is a really major concern.

Of course, what features I introduce into my languages, just like any
of my creations, is strongly influenced by what I like or not, which
is often identical to what I find beautiful or not. I find it hard to
imagine an aesthetic principle; the perception of beauty is so
subjective. Of course we have the golden ratio and other ratios, the
real da Vinci code. And of course our perception of beauty is
influenced by our instinctive, subconscious or conscious perception
of utility or suitability for a particular purpose.

> 1) On phonology, good vowels are [a@eEioOuy]; not sure about
> nasals. Good consonants are velars, alveolars, and labials (both
> dental and bilabial).
I don't have many preferences in phonology, but I can see that I
liked exotic things in my youth as my Urianian names have plenty of
c's and z's and a few x's, but curiously no q's. I tend to prefer a
flowing pronunciation, stops should add to the flow instead of
getting in the way. In Suraetu I have removed /4/ and /r/ from the
protoforms in certain positions to make it more singable. I cannot
help liking the /f/, as it's part of my name. (Does anyone dislike
phonemes that are part of their names?) I have f-endings, too in
Urianian, not Suraetu. They occur both in the highlands, where the /
f/ is from IE /bh/, and in the lowlands where it's from IE /w/.

> 2) On morphology, I can't help liking indoeuropean morphology, but
> the more regular the better. Ancient Greek is a mess, not so Latin,
> Sanskrit just a bit. I can't think about much more here...
I like irregularity, which perhaps is the reason why English is the
only imperialist language I have cared to learn anything about. I
find it fascinating but a little paradoxical the way completely
regular sound laws produce beautiful irregular paradigms in many
cases. I like the exotic too, but since I decided at an early stage
what affiliations my languages should have, I cannot introduce just
any exotic feature that I might fancy.

My celtophile heart is singularly attracted to the VSO syntax, and I
considered using it for Suraetu, but decided on the more typical
Caucasian SOV.

LEF

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