Re: Uber newbie-conlanger conlang

Sally Caves skrev:
> How kludgy do you want it to be?  I mean, I can go back as far as my
> pubescent days, with absolutely NO knowledge of linguistics.  Is the kludgy
> conlang by someone who's had a taste of other conlangs?  Or is he a conlang
> VIRGIN?  Here are a few mistakes I made at eleven, peppered with naivetes
> I've seen in some of the nineteenth-century conlangs I've been studying:
Let's see what I did at eleven (or somewhat later).

> 1)  Make it a TOTAL calque of English.  Or French.  Or whatever your native
> language is.  Even the homonyms match:
>
>    Can  I      put  this  in the can?
>    Sens eep tupa eda do ra  sens?
Nope.  I was bilingual enough not to fall into that trap.  At least I
remember distinguishing "know" and "feel" à la German and not merge them
as in Swedish.

>
> 2)  Having been exposed to Spanish, however, or French, on an elementary
> basis, make a few adjustments in syntax.  Have the kludgy conlanger be
> impressed by a new word order:
>
>      Not can    I    put   this  in the can.
>     Poni sens eep tupa eda do ra sens.
Did that, including having verb-final secondary clauses.

>
> 3)  Have the kludgy conlanger invent words that are phonically similar to
> words in his native language, borrowing shamelessly from function words in
> Spanish and French:
>
>      Go I     to the field  of  poppies?
>      Ag eep a  ra   fleea de  paparon?
>
> (Poppies are good, since they're the state flower of California, which may
> or may not have survived the Apocalypse.)
I did almost that.  I had a mangling scheme borrowed from a "pig latin"
type language, which I complicated further.

> 4)  Having been exposed to Spanish and French (and perhaps German), and
> impressed by the diacritical marks, add a little orthographic flair to the
> conlang:
>
>     Go I to the field of poppies?
>     Ach íp â r'Flia de Päp'ron?
I did use some random diacritics after exposure to Tolkien.

> 5)  Decide that every "s" sound is going to be expressed by |x|, and every
> "p" is going to be expressed by |ph| to lend more "exoticism."
>
>       Not    can  I   put   this   in the poppy.
>       Phon' xenx íp tûpha èda do rá Phäpro.
Check.  I used |j| for /S/ since I thought that was what French did.
I also used |ch| for /x/ untill I realized I could use |k| for /k/
and use only |c| for /x/, |x| being /ks/ of course!  After my father
corrected me WRT French |j| (and thought me to pronounce [Z]) I
decided all |j|s were /Z/, and started introducing |ç| for /S/.
At first I used |z| as a random variant of |s|, later to decide
that it was |ts|.  BTW |tj| remained for /tS/ -- or was it /s\/? ;)

An early auxlang of mine had only those consonant phonemes
which occur in Swedish but used strange mappings for some
combos, notably |z| for /ds/ -- there was no /z/!

>
> 6)  Having suddenly discovered CASES, make about twenty of them to cover
> every preposition you can think of:    with the poppy, to the poppy, by the
> poppy, on the poppy, in the poppy, over the poppy, away from the poppy, of
> the poppy, alongside the poppy, under the poppy, after the poppy, before
> the
> poppy, behind the poppy, into the poppy, out of the poppy, during the
> poppy,
> without the poppy, etc. and attach them as suffixes.
Ho hum.  Now you are tickling my current lang Sohlob.  I guess that's
why it is in danger of losing all its cases...

>
> 7)  Having picked up a book like Comrie's, decide that you're going to make
> it ergative, and that you're going to get rid of the verb at the same time.
> :)  This will take some planning, so it's a clean erase, and back to the
> blackboard.
>
> Is this kludgy enough? ;)
Sure.

--

/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se

         Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
                                             (Tacitus)