Re: creating words (was Re: "Language Creation" in your conlang)

Hallo!

On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 12:44:44 -0800,
JS Bangs <jaspax@...> wrote:

> Jörg Rhiemeier sikyal:
>
> > Hallo!
> >
> > [trouble finding words for my conlangs]
>
> This is also my problem. Yivrian has been around for nearly a decade now,
> and is yet to breach 1000 vocabulary items.
And yet you managed to compose a creation myth in it.  I was deeply
impressed when I saw it!

>      The Weekly Vocabulary lists
> have been a great help in this respect, but my vocab still grows slower
> than I'd like. However, I'm reaching the point where my vocabulary is
> starting to accrete on itself and grow more quickly--I have enough roots
> that I can make new etymologically plausible words quite quickly, and
> compounds and expansions of existing words can cover a lot of the
> subtleties.
Finding roots is the most difficult part of word-creation, I think.
I have ample ideas for interesting etymologies that fail to materialize
because I simply can't settle on those goddamn *roots*!  I guess that
once I have a list of several hundred lexical roots covering most
realms of discourse, things will start moving more swiftly.

> > Hence, I find it easier to come up with a posteriori languages
> > such as Germanech; but on the other hand, I have numerous ideas
> > I want to use in my languages that don't fit into an a posteriori
> > scheme based on something I know (essentially Germanic and Romance).
>
> Since historical development is a big part of my conlanging, my future
> language projects look more and more like a posteriori projects based on
> my current langs.
My conlanging also involves historical development.  I am currently
working on Proto-Elvish, from which the individual Elvish languages
will be derived.  I expect things to be real fun once I have set up
the protolanguage and carve out as many daughter languages as I like
(the ancient Elves were great mariners and set up LOTS of trade posts
along *both* sides of the Atlantic, so there could be many Elvish
languages in Europe, Africa and the Americas), but as for now,
I am struggling to come up with enough Proto-Elvish roots to
get things started.

Greetings,

Jörg.

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