Re: Conlanging techniques

On Tue, 3 Apr 2001, Bjorn Kristinsson wrote:

> First of all, you've been great! :D Must be the friendliest list I've ever
> subscribed to :)
>
> Now to my question, I was wondering if you had any conlanging techniques to
> share. Like, do you use computers much and what software do you use? Do you
> follow the now-surely-famous The Language Construction Kit guidelines? Or
> what? I personally have found it very difficult making up a whole phonetic
> system with restrictions and the lot before starting with the actual
> lexicon, and likewise I find it difficult forming a grammar after making up
> a lexicon, but then it's not easier at all doing it the other way around :P
>
I have used a database with a CGI interface for lexicons for some time;
before that I had a few scripts that used grep(1), but I've spent the
last two years, not conlanging, but developing a tool for the compleat
conlanger: kura (http://www.valdyas.org/linguistics). It includes
modules for lexica, texts and so on, and I now working on a docbook xml
exporter.

However, people tend to find it a challenge to install Kura and
everything it depends on, even on Windows. Nevertheless, I'm quite
prepared to talk anyone through an installation. I'm now helping a
real linguist working on Beiyou to get Kura to install on Redhat 7.0.
I've never seen a version of Linux that broken before. It reminds me
irresistably of SCO.

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.valdyas.org