Re: Bootstrapping a cooperative conlang

--- Mia Soderquist <happycritter@...> wrote:

<snip>
> It's possible that a collaborative conlang might (if the planets were
> all aligned properly) develop a micro-subculture of its own as people
> work out what they mean among themselves.
<snip>

>
>  At some point, if the language is used and abused thoroughly
> enough, people may reach a point where they have a shared concept of
> "zanisa" that may or may not map 1:1 to their native language. They will
> have effectively joined a linguistic subculture that they grew
> themselves in the Petri dish of their shared communication channel
> (Probably an email list  or forum? Maybe with a Ventrilo or Teamspeak
> server. OOOh. That would be fun...)
>
> But, of course, this might require some of those things that seem hard
> to come by, like long term participation and a willingness to make
> mistakes in public.
>
> Mia.
>
Very nicely put. I agree wholeheartedly.

As for motivating people to participate, it occurred to me that there might be
a better chance of success if the group of participants shared some common
interest other than language creation. If discussions in the conlang were all
centered around the conlang itself then the language might become too heavily
biased toward the discussion of linguistics. But suppose the group has some
other focus, say mythology, or magic and alchemy, or bronze age art, or
whatever. Then the discussions themselves would center on this other shared
topic and the evolution of the language would be an incidental side effect of
their desire to communicate about Vulcan culture or fairies and leprechauns.

--gary