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

Hallo!

On Tue, 9 Mar 2004 19:46:27 +0000,
Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

> 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.
True.  They were designed to be *unlike* human languages.
My statement that they are less imaginable as human natlangs than
Quenya or Sindarin is not meant as a criticism, it is merely an
observation.  My point was that Quenya and Sindarin look very human.
But this observation is, as I said, not really what matters here.

> > 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,
Though it *can* show interesting features if the author finds a way
for them to evolve.  See the initial mutations of Brithenig
for a good example of this.

>       but I do not (with
> maybe once exception) find them very interesting.
It is your right to find them uninteresting.  I too find certain
conlangs less interesting than others, without making a judgement
of them.  My interest lies chiefly in well worked out naturalist
artlangs.  For example, I find Tolkien's languages more interesting
than Lojban or Klingon.  Other people are interested in other
kinds of conlangs than I am.

>       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.
My first conlangs (largely forgotten by now) were pretty much
Euroclones,
too, with grammars crafted along the lines of German, English and Latin.

> 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.
Very true.

> >  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.
Yes, Brithenig is an excellent experiment, and one of my favourite
conlangs.  It also inspired me to carry out a similar experiment,
namely to reconstruct a Romance language that might have evolved
in Germany if that country had been Romanized.  The result is Germanech.

> > 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.
It is at least an attempt towards the latter.  I constructed it by
applying the sound changes that transformed Common Germanic into
High German to Vulgar Latin, though with much guesswork and fill-in
where my knowledge of Vulgar Latin and the phonological history
of German was insufficient.  So Germanech is to German what Brithenig
is to Welsh, more or less, even if it doesn't reach the high quality
of Brithenig.

> 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.
Indeed.

> 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  :)
Exactly!

Greetings,

Jörg.