Re: CHAT: Conlang Cycles

On Sat, 7 Dec 2002 10:54:58 -0500, Keenan <makeenan@...> wrote:

>Jeff Jones wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> First, welcome back to Sally and Duke(*), and glad to see Daniel
>> Andreasson "active" again. Also welcome/welcome back to anybody else
>> I've missed. This paragraph actually ties in with the next part.
>>
>> I while back, I started reading the earliest available list archives, at
>> about the rate of one week of old messages per one week of new ones. The
>> old ones are about 50 months back. I've notived something funny.
>> Sometimes I don't know if I'm reading old or new messages. In the old
>> messages, Duke and Daniel just joined the list, and they've just come
>> back now. There are more parallels of that kind. Also, back then, they
>> just finished a survey or two, and now, likewise.
>>
>> So does anybody think the Conlang list is cyclical?
>>
>> Jeff Jones
>>
>> (*) A note to Duke: I'm not a popular guy myself. I remember looking at
>> Ok before, since brevity is one of my interests.
>
>Its true about cycles. I remember thinking as I was writing my most
>recent self RE-introduction; "where have I seen this before"
>
>Every time I get back on the list I assume that no one will remember me.
>I just don't post that often. So,I go through the whole schpiel, what my
>langs are, where they are, what they're about etc,etc,etc.
>
>Personally I actually like OK. But its kind of like showing your six
>year old's art work to the local art critic, They smile and then change
>the subject. :)
>
>Ok is basically a relex. It covers the same morphemic space as English.
>I started Ok before I knew anything about linguistics. And, truth be
>told, I just wanted a quick vocaubulary to see if the thing would fly.
>Ok is a lablang (Is that the correct usage people?). It has very few
>interesting features to the folks on the list.
"Lablang" is what I use when I bother to use a term. Most of my languages
are lablangs.

>As far as popularity, If I can manage to keep from doing something
>stupid, maybe I can avoid the torch bearing pitchfork wielding
>list-mob!    ;)
If anyone seriously objects to this sort of thing, we could probably move
the discussion to Engelang.

>The last time I was here I posted HTML to the list and pissed off
>Irina.  :(
>It wasn't fun.
A lot of people have trouble with HTML mail. Irina must have gotten her
reply off ahead of the pack or you would have gotten more. It's the
subtleties that get *me* in trouble.

>Brevity? I got into conlanging largely because of Speedtalk.
>
>I'm going to do it! I am doing it right now. I'm using Heinlein's
>decription of the language as guidelines to create a speedtalk version.
>
>Every one is now saying "But wait! That's what you did with Ok. I
>thought you said it wasn't possible Duke."
>
>Recently as I was lying in bed, halfway between sleep and wakefulness,
>(This is where I get all my best ideas) I realized that it can be done.
>It can be done from the *speaker's* stand point. Nobody will have a
>chance in hell understanding it but......well, I don't care.
Unless of course they're able to sing, whistle, chew gum, play chess, hold
their breath, and fly a kite simultaneously -- while riding a bicycle
underwater.

>Right now I've got about 450 vowel sounds. I rounded up all the vowels I
>was familiar with and stretched that number using nasalization, tones,
>pitch, duration and combinations therefrom, Ala Heinleins description.
>
>I did the same thing with the consonants, where possible, and I have 75.
>This makes for a really vowelly language. Is vowelly a word? The ratio
>right now is about six vowels for every consonant. This maybe some
>people's idea of beautiful, but I like to have something to chew on in
>the pudding. I'm trying to arrange it so that words represented by
>consonants are the frequently used ones.
That last sounds like a good idea.

>Simple addition tells us thats not enough words for *anything*.
About 525 phonemes is around half the number Heinlein mentioned.

>I hope that if I use the English trick of letting words change their parts
>of speech I might get close to the number of words in Basic English. Then
>I can start making compound words.
Heinlein mentions something about not distinguishing between nouns and
verbs, doesn't he? I suspect you'll have to scrap the one-to-one
relationship with Basic English and use Basic English only to check for
semantic gaps. But I haven't looked at Basic English in a while.

>Anyways, this is the saturday I wanted to get to work on it and here I
>am writing E-mail.
>
>so,
>Bye everyone! see ya in a bit!
>
>-Duke
Sure thing (can't say "OK" in this context!)

Jeff

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