Re: relay participation

 --- Camilla Drefvenborg skrzypszy:

> I would like to pose this question in a more general way, especially to
> those of you who have brought more than one language to the point of
> general usability. that is; do you consider there to be some discrete
> point from where it is a good idea to start participating in relays and
> translation exercises with one's fledgling language? and if so, what
> defines this point?
As for the size of your language, you mean? Well, let me first say that relays
and translation exercises are not the same to me. Translation exercises are
fun, and a helpful tool in developing your language; you post them to Conlang,
people will read them, and you go on with your language. Nothing stops you from
radically changing everything since you posted your message.

A relay is, at least in my approach, a more serious thing. Whatever you produce
will appear on a special website. My feeling is that in order to participate in
a relay, your language must have achieved a certain degree of maturity first,
which means that the whole grammatical structure should *basically* be fixed.
Whether or not a reasonably-sized vocabulary is a prerequisite, I don't know. I
would tend to think so, but I also know that people with small lexicons have
prepared marvellous contributions to the relays. Speaking for myself, I
wouldn't do it with a language of less than a thousand words, because I hate it
if I have to think about every second or third word. But that is also because
word creation is not something I do easily.

Returning to your question: I think you yourself are the only person who can
define the point.

> for certain, there is nothing like actual use for expanding one's
> dictionary and honing the grammatical details. but starting too early
> has its own dangers, such as producing lexical entries and morphologic
> or syntactic mechanisms which are too much geared towards solving that
> particular problem.
True. Well, you can always practise! Translate newspaper articles, children's
stories, the text on your pack of choco dippers, or anything else that pops up
in your mind. My experience is that that helps enormously in forming your
language. Already after two sentences I found out what things I liked and what
things I didn't...

Jan

=====
"Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones

__________________________________________________
Yahoo! Plus
For a better Internet experience
http://www.yahoo.co.uk/btoffer

Reply