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

On Tuesday, March 9, 2004, at 01:50 AM, And Rosta wrote:

[snip]
>
> I too would prefer a brief sketch, or nothing at all, to a humdrum
> Euroclone.
Almost anything is preferable   ;)

> But I still don't find the brief sketch *realistic*,
> unless one redefines realism as the art of creating realistic
> descriptions (-- I do like that too, though: it's something about
> Tepa and Kinya that particularly appeals to me).
Tepa and Kinya - yep, they particularly appeal to me (as I've said more
than once :)
It seems And & I share similar tastes in Conlangs
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On Tuesday, March 9, 2004, at 04:46 AM, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:

> Hallo!
>
> On Tue, 9 Mar 2004 01:50:38 -0000,
> And Rosta <a.rosta@...> wrote:
[snip - and still talking about Tolkien languages]

>> I meant that the languages taken out of context are realistic.
>
> I agree.  One could pretty well imagine them to be spoken somewhere
> on Earth.
Yes, I agree.

> It is more difficult to imagine the same for, say, Klingon,
> Ebisedian or Tirelat (the latter would at least require a different
> set of colour terms), let alone Ithkuil, Lojban or Morneau's language.
But none of these were intended to be naturalistic, i.e. realistic as
natlangs.

> But what is more important in judging them is whether they live up
> to the intentions the author had - which they do.
Yep.

[snip]
>> I too would prefer a brief sketch, or nothing at all, to a humdrum
>> Euroclone.
>
> As opposed to a language that is a "Euroclone" because the basic idea
> behind the language requires it.
I'll leave And to make his own reply - but I would not make that
opposition. A con-Romancelang must be a Euroclone, but I do not (with
maybe once exception) find them very interesting. OK - I guess many of us
cut our teeth on Euroclones. Many of us have constructed the almost
obligatory Romance Conlang. Many of my teenage compositions were just such.

I don't belittle them as starting points, but they aren't exactly the most
demanding constructions and after a while the sameness of the things get a
bit tedious.

>  My conlang Germanech is very similar
> to German and French and could be called a Euroclone, but that makes
> sense because that is what one would expect from a Romance language
> that evolved in the heart of Europe in intimate contact with
> Germanic languages.
Like Rumansch  :)

I'm not familiar with Germanech, so I cannot comment on it.  But
occasionally something novel & interesting does come along. I think of
Andrew Smith's Brithenig. That is a Romance conlang - but unlike the usual
run of things, it's an attempt at genuine linguistic reconstruction: it
attempts to construct the language that might now be spoken in modern
Britain if the Romanized urban life of Britain had not disappeared under
invasion and settlements of Saxons & their fellow Germanic cousins, i.e.
if the Vulgar Latin of Britain, which undoubtedly existed, had survived.
This makes the experiment interesting IMO.

> If I had thrown in, say, ergativity, I'd have
> to explain how that feature arose.
No, no - that'd be too obviously contrived. To my way of thinking, it
depends on how you go about the thing. If it's a Romance basis with a lot
of German elements just thrown in, then I'd not be very interested; if,
however, there is an imaginary diachronic development behind and it can
shown how the changes took place and the changes are supported and not
just thrown in on the whim of the inventor, then it's more interesting.
That's why I find Brithenig a more interesting "Euroclone", the things has
been well researched and thought through and all the changes justified -
it has an imaginary history of development. It's a _realistic_
reconstruction.

I repeat, I'm not making any judgments on Germanech - I'm not in a
position to.

In any case, the main thing is that you like it. Conlanging is, after all
is said done, just a hobby for most of us  :)

Ray
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