Re: Aesthetics

I'm a bit late entering this thread, but I'll add my twopenceworth.

Edgard Bikelis wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I was wondering: as we surely are guided by some aesthetic principles in our
> conlanging, what are those principles we use?
Sorry to disappoint, but aesthetic principles don't figure in the three
(work in progress) Conlangs on my website:
http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Briefscript/
http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Loglang/
http://www.carolandray.plus.com/EAK/

They are very much determined by other principles. Indeed, I am not
over-fond of the phonology of Piashi, but anyone who has followed the
tortuous development of 'briefscript' and the Brsc over the years will
know why it finished up the way it did. It was dictated by the way I
understood its objectives and design principles:
http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Briefscript/ObjAndDesign.html

> 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.
I haven't really analyzed this. Maybe one day I'll get around to a
'pure' artlang. Who knows? I prefer Quenya to Sindarin. Like Tolkien, I
find Finnish beautiful but, unlike Tolkien, I also like Gaelic. I rank
Italian as the most aesthetically pleasing of the Romancelangs.

> 1) On phonology, good vowels are [a@eEioOuy]; not sure about nasals.
[@] a good sound? Nah. I find the mid central vowel the less pleasing.
Give me the cardinal vowels any day    :)

> Good
> consonants are velars, alveolars, and labials (both dental and bilabial).
> Until recently I hated palatals... now I'm rather convinced that they are
> allowed to exist ; ).
But palatals are lovely.

> Glottal stop sounds very rude. Bilabial fricatives are
> prettier than labiodentals. I like aspiration. Alveolar tap is much better
> than retroflex.
No, no - the only proper rhotic is trilled    :)

> Retroflex consonants are hard for me to pronounce, but I
> think I like them, anyway...

> 2) On morphology, I can't help liking indoeuropean morphology, but the more
> regular the better.
Not for me. The less familiar and the more non-IE the better. But that's
probably nothing to do with aesthetics but rather because I find the
non-familiar much more interesting.

> Ancient Greek is a mess, not so Latin, Sanskrit just a
> bit. I can't think about much more here...
Aw - Greek is great. Latin can have a rugged sort of beauty, but it's
somewhat stolid compared with the exuberance of the ancient Greek
language with all its diversity.

[syntax snipped]
>
> Did anyone here ever wrote an 'aesthetic credo' before starting a conlang?
No. But I do have fairly strict guiding principles in designing a
language. These must be there otherwise I find myself at sea, so to speak.

[snip]
>
> (After an epiphany on φθάνω, χθές and the like.)
Ah, but how do you pronounce them? The modern way, ['fTano] [xTEs] or
the ancient way [p_ht_hanO:] [k_ht_hes], the former with high tone on
the first vowel? The combos [p_ht_h] and [k_ht_h] were probably [pt] and
[kt] with simultaneous aspiration of both plosives.

--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Entia non sunt multiplicanda
praeter necessitudinem.

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