Re: Isolating, Inflected, Word Building, ETC.

Hi!

Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> writes:
> These are some really fascinating topics that make me wish I had
> majored in linguistics instead of engineering. ;-)
:-)

> But all this makes me suspect that the best way to arrive at a
> really naturalistic conlang is not to build it from scratch to
> completion in one step, but to evolve it, step by step, from some
> starting point, either an existing natlang, or a very rudimentary ad
> hoc proto-language. If one started, for example, with the few dozen
> words from the language of the movie "Caveman", and applied, a few
> hundred years at a time, ten thousand years worth of mutations, it
> would seem that the result would be a very plausible imitation of a
> non-existent natlang. Assuming, of course, that the mutations
> applied at each step are plausible.
YES!  This is a heck of a lot of work to do, but it often results in
really great conlangs, yes. :-)

I have never managed to do this so far due to the endless work in
front of me and my limited knowledge (due to lack of interest, I
think) of (linguistic) history and instead sticked to
engelangs/artlangs that were constructed according to what my computer
science back ground dictated. :-) Even that takes so much time (->
writing the Lisp grammar).  E.g., S11 needs more work.  I'd finally
like some example sentences, I think!

**Henrik

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