Re: Language Change

On Wed, 5 Jan 2000 13:26:41 +0200, Dan Sulani <dnsulani@...>
wrote:

>    CCC (Compulsory Conlang Connection  :-)  )
>In our postings, we tend to focus on what our conlangs _can_ do.
>Would looking at what is difficult for them to do give us
>an insight into writing poetry in them? (Paring rtemmu sentences
>down to haiku level, for example, would certainly prove a challenge!
>Maybe I'll look into it.)
>    And would this also apply to the semantic/cultural aspects of
>language as well as to the phonological/morphological/syntactic aspects?
I can see certain meters being easier for some languages, or even
impossible for others. A language that always stresses the final syllable
of a word would have a harder time with dactylic or trochaic meters, for
instance (the end of every line would have to be an unstressed one-syllable
word!). Haiku would certainly be easier for a language like Jarrda (or
Klingon, for that matter) with lots of short 1- and 2-syllable words, than
it would be for a more verbose language.

Rhyming becomes more challenging with a limited vocabulary, but that's more
a result of the time-consuming nature of generating vocabulary than an
inherent defect of any individual language (unless the limited vocabulary
is part of the design of the language, as in Basic English).

--
languages of Kolagia---> +---<http://www.io.com/~hmiller/languages.html>---
      Thryomanes        /"If all Printers were determin'd not to print any
   (Herman Miller)     / thing till they were sure it would offend no body,
   moc.oi @ rellimh <-/  there would be very little printed." -Ben Franklin