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

On Wed, Mar 10, 2004 at 12:59:24AM +0100, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> Hallo!
>
> On Tue, 9 Mar 2004 10:08:07 -0500,
> "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...> wrote:
[...]
> > 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.
I guess I've followed in their steps by creating an entire universe to
situate Ebisédian in. :-) Although it was more the con-world that needed a
conlang, rather than a conlang seeking a con-world, in this case.
Whichever way, the existence of a cultural backdrop for a conlang
certainly adds a lot of uniqueness to it.

[...]
> > 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 true, but since I intended the speakers of Ebisédian to be
(more-or-less) human, there's a limit as to how strange it can be. In
terms of vocabulary, sure, it can be as alien as I want it to be. This
should not be surprising, since if humans were to grow up somewhere
significantly different from Earth, their vocabulary would reflect the
alienness of that place too. However, in terms of language *structure*,
there are limits as to how strange it can be. It has to be at least
plausibly human, in terms of grammar and phonology (although I am of the
opinion that "human" does not necessarily imply "has a natlang
precedent").

> > 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.
Thanks :-) Nevertheless, I kinda feel that the way it is realized in
Ebisédian is perhaps a bit too far. Deriving meaning solely from the
juxtaposition of different cases seems a bit far-fetched. In Tamahí, I can
probably replace these occurrences with adjectival predicates. I also feel
that the introduction of the topical marking in Tamahí is probably a more
plausibly "human" realization of the Ebisédian case system.

[snip]
> > 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.
Well, Ebisédian's system seems in retrospect obviously contrived:
	G  x  N  g  k  k_h
	D  T  n  d  t  t_h
	Z  S     dZ tS tS_h
	z  s        l  r`
        B  P  m  b  p  p_h

And also:
	h  H  w

plus other "smooth" onsets (I'm still unsure how to represent these in
IPA).

> >       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.
I'm still not sure if Tamahí phonology is more "naturalistic"... it has to
*somewhat* resemble Ebisédian, being a descendent lang, although I've
taken the liberty to introduce such sound changes as:
	H -> G -> g
	h -> x -> k_h

[snip]
> > 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.
Right, but the point behind the proverb is that innovation builds on
previous achievements (even if it merely uses said achievements as a point
of departure).

[snip]
> >       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?
Exactly.

> 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.
If people are speaking of the *vocabulary*, then I fully agree that
Ebisédian is totally off-the-wall. Not its own fault, really, it's just
the odd universe it exists in. But in terms of *typology*, to me it's not
really that strange, just that the case system happens to run contrary to
accusative modes of thought.


T

--
But of course, I am *the* most humble person in the *whole* world!

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