Re: OT: What makes a good conlang? (was Re: Super OT: Re: CHAT: JRRT)

Hallo!

On Tue, 9 Mar 2004 10:08:07 -0500,
"H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 09, 2004 at 02:50:59AM -0500, David Peterson wrote:
> [...]
> > Now, I don't disagree.  In fact, I agree with what you wrote
> > here--especially when you consider universalists, who've taken the view
> > that not only can all languages be systematically described, but they
> > can all be systematically described in basically the same way, with a
> > handful of language-specific stipulations (which usually amount to, IMO,
> > the language itself).  The counterexample to this would be a linguist
> > who assumes that a language can only be understood within itself, and so
> > the linguist attempts to discover the systematicity of the language on
> > its own, rather than on comparing it to other languages, or trying to
> > make it conform to universal constraints.
>
> In my view, a language expresses the culture that produced it, not
> necessarily in a superficial sense (eg. in the precise phonemes or word
> endings), but certainly within its deeper fabric. While it may certainly
> be possible to extricate a natlang from its cultural context and use it in
> a utilitarian way, my opinion is that doing this deprives the language of
> its unique identity. What sets a language apart are its idioms, unique
> way(s) of expressing something, and idiosyncrasies. Without these, it
> might as well be an auxlang. (Not to be perjorative, but I find auxlangs a
> bit too mechanical and inorganic.)
I whole-heartedly agree, being the naturalist that I am.  In order to
have "life", a conlang must have a backdrop of culture and history
associated with it.  As I have pointed out before, Tolkien is a good
example of this: as we all know, he created Middle-earth as a backdrop
for his languages, and this in turn is part of the "magic" of the
languages he created.  Many people on this list endeavour the same,
though not necessarily in the same large scale.  The "Ill Bethisad"
shared world has this in common with Middle-earth: it primarily
exists as a backdrop for the participants' conlangs.

> [...]
>
> > From a design point of view, I think one should consider realistic
> > anachronisms.  Just because something can't be explained systematically
> > doesn't mean that it should be totally off the wall.
Irregularities in a conlang are a good way of introducing a sense of
virtual time depth.

> Right. Which is why, after I started to gain more conlanging experience, I
> realized that some aspects of Ebisédian went a bit too far.
Well, given the alienness of the Ferochromon universe, there is ample
room for strangenesses in Ebisédian.  It is a language spoken in a
place utterly unlike the world we know; why shouldn't it be utterly
unlike any language we know?

>       That's why I
> started working on Tamahí before Ebisédian was developed enough to my
> satisfaction. (My original plan was to complete Ebisédian, or at least
> bring it to a more-or-less "complete" state in the sense And described,
> before I work on any other conlang.) Nevertheless, I didn't---and still
> don't---feel that the case system was too off-the-wall. ;-)
The Ebisédian case system is unlike anything I have ever seen, but
it makes sense in its own way.  A respectable achievement.

> [snip]
> > [...] a plural, some have the standard form, whatever that may be.  Now
> > you've got a rather unsystematic (fairly), completely nonproductive,
> > universal-violating anachronism in your language, but it's more
> > believable because it gives the hint of a previous status, i.e., it may
> > be indicative of a productive process from the past.
Yep.

> That is what I've tried to do in the Ebisédian lexicon. Although most of
> the entries are more-or-less arbitrary, I did try to give an impression
> that there is some internal, unseen consistency; eg., I would recycle
> suffixes, infixes, etc., to give the impression that they are vestiges of
> an ancestor lang, although in reality there really isn't any consistent
> pattern.
Yes; many languages have opaque derivational affixes, which have meaning
#1 in word X and meaning #2 in word Y, while the same meaning is
expressed
by different affixes in different words, etc., and it can add a sense
of history to emulate it in a conlang.

> [snip]
> > With a phonemic inventory, let's say you had...
> >
> > p t k
> > b d g
> > m n N
> > f s x
> > v z G
> > w l j
> >
> > It'd be particularly strange if you had, in addition to these, a voiced
> > lateral fricative.  It'd be totally out of left-field.  It'd be less
> > strange if you had /q/, though.
>
> Now as far as Ebisédian phonology is concerned, it is strange not because
> of the presence of off-the-wall sounds, but because it has an overly
> consistent set of sounds. It has the full range of velars, dentals, and
> labials (voiced/unvoiced fricatives, nasal, voiced/unvoiced/aspirated
> stops) and an almost full range of postalveolar affricates, plus [l] and
> [r`].
Why not?

My Old Albic system, then, is perhaps also a bit too regular:

  p  t  k
  b  d  g
  m  n  N
  f  T  x
     s     h
  w  r  j
     l

But at least, /s/, /l/ and /h/ stick out, and the semivowels do not
fit their positions perfectly, so I think it is OK to have it in a
naturalist artlang.  I have seen natlang systems which are just
as regular.

>       Not that having such a rich inventory of sounds is odd, just that I
> basically catalogued all the sounds I could pronounce at the time and just
> threw them all into Ebisédian.
Some of my earlier conlangs were like that, too.  The result was a
phoneme inventory that was a union of the inventories of German (my L1)
and English, and pretty much the same in all my conlangs.  Only later
I learned to be more systematic about phonologies.

>       The complete lack of vowel glides and
> diphthongs was also strange, especially with the admittedly artificial
> device of inserting glottal stops between every pair of vowels. I tried to
> remedy this unrealistic situation in Tamahí by dropping out many of the
> sounds (most of the fricatives were elided, and the all-too-prevalent
> glottal stops were completely gone... and there are now nice diphthongs!
> :-P).
Yes, it is fun to change a language into a typologically different
language.

> [snip]
> > So, what I would say is that a knowledge of linguistics and typology can
> > still give you an idea about realistic unsystematicity.
>
> As they say, before you can break the rules, you have to first know what
> the rules are.
Yes.  Though if one doesn't know the rules, one can inadvertently break
them, of course.

> [snip]
> > Joerg wrote:
> >
> > <<People who follow their intuition often create better and more
> > realistic art than people who try to be exact.>>
> >
> > The only caveat I'd add to this is that, with visual art, for example,
> > there's little chance of someone being influenced by anything other than
> > their own intuitions if they choose to follow simply their own
> > intuitions.  In conlanging you run the risk of emulating your L1, or any
> > other language you know.
True.

> OTOH, one should be careful not to go on an anti-L1 binge, which usually
> produces frankenlangs like Ebisédian. :-P :-P
Also true.

> > So I'd say it's important to draw a distinction between the instinct of
> > what sounds right/makes sense, and what sounds right/makes sense
> > *within* the framework of the language one's inventing. After all, I
> > think we've all probably seen examples (and, indeed, I've *been* an
> > example) of someone doing something because they think it sounds/feels
> > right, and what they do ends up emulating English, or some other known
> > languages, almost exactly.
>
> Totally agree. A realistic conlang, IMHO, must be consistent within its
> own framework, both linguistically and culturally.
I agree.

>       Strange as the result
> might have been, when I was designing Ebisédian I felt that it would be
> stranger if a language spoken in such an alien universe had an Earth-like
> vocabulary.
Sure.

>       So I allowed the perceptions of the Ebisédi to be molded by
> the universe around them---perhaps a bit too much in retrospect, but
> nevertheless---and thus, indirectly, through the culture that the Ebisédi
> formed, the language was influenced to a large degree to reflect the
> con-world. The result may make one cringe, but I do feel quite happy with
> many parts of Ebisédian that I feel match the con-world beautifully, much
> more than would have been possible if I had simply transplanted a Terran
> language (or Terran-like lang) into the con-world.
Agreed.  Strange worlds give birth to strange languages.  Why in the
world
should Ebisédian have a word for "star", for instance, if there are
no stars in Ferochromon?  The result is the dreaded relay-killer that
Ebisédian is famous for.  But it only makes sense that way.
So I would say that Ebisédian is indeed a good conlang.

Greetings,

Jörg.

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