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

From:Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
Date:Thursday, November 13, 2003, 21:14
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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JS Bangs <jaspax@...>