Re: Retranslation

i don't avoid the "problem", because your "problem" is both auxlangs' problem
and hoaxlangs' fun. i'm very disappointed that Mr. Rosenfeld bent over so low as
to consider auxiliary languages. until now i liked verdurian as a unique sample
of what a french 12-year-old conlanging pupil learning latin and german would
come up with (something still very unlikly in my own school where pupils
learning german would rather learn classical greek as i did.) now let me tell
you the true story of the tunu hoaxlang: after two decades gathering "useful
concepts" while learning nonfrench langs (because of: german mesmerizing power
on french elibourgeoisie, english imperialism, khmer family, indonesian best
friends, japanese clients and israeli fiancee) and translating them (gaijin
ragging/hazing in japanese law offices is pretty harsh and long), i decided one
random day that i was tired, that the list was up, fixed the CVCV pattern,
counted how many vowels and consonants were needed, selected the ones all my
friends around the world could pronounce, let the loony Tomato Charles (God
mercy his cats' souls) generate the lexicon, claimed this to be the language of
a fancy people convinced this is the best lang they could be endowed with. so
what's wrong with that, Junge? and one more thing: i speak my own conlang quite
fluently now--do you?--however "problematic" this is for Mr. Rosenfeld. this was
altogether good news for conlanging me: half a whole life proved enough time to
pick the basic vocabulary and settle the main syntactic rules to make my own
conlang.
actually i'll tell you something Mr. Rosenfelder may not have told you: there
are really two kinds of root concepts: those pertaining to the realm of the Real
World and those pertaining to mental activity. concentrate on the realm inside
you. make a word for "judge" and one for "concern" and one for "assess" and on
for "consider", etc. the depressing news are that there are not so many of them.
once you'll have named all your brain and heart's activities, you'll realize
that you're halfway the Webster and halfway the Jouyou Kanji list. and by the
way, did you ever experience glottolaly? my fiancee did. but still, yeah, i
saved some "maneuvering room for future expansion" because i am french and
cartesian and thought i'll need them when i'm retired. this being said, could
you please never ever call me an auxlanger anymore?
Mathias


Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@g...> wrote:
>>
> in tunu, all "lawful" CVCV combinations mean something, so that tunu
> people think that their language perfectly reflects the universe
Hm, this brings to mind this part of Mark Rosenfelder's Language
Construction Kit:
"Resist the temptation to give a meaning for every possible
syllable. Real languages don't work like that (unless the number
of possibilities is quite low). Even if you're working on a highly
structured auxiliary language, you'll want some maneuvering
room for future expansion. And the speakers of your language
shouldn't have to throw out an old word whenever they want
to construct a coinage or an abbreviation."
How do you avoid this problem?
Cheers,
Philip
--



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Mathias
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