Re: Relexes Pt. 1: Defence

--- Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...>
scrievit:

> > Sure. It's like taking a well known violin
> > melody, changing all the Cs to Gs,
> transposing it
> > and playing it on an oboe. And while playing
> > anything on an oboe is the worst class of
> > travesty,
>
> I beg your pardon?!
Ah, I'm sure it lost something in the
translation! :) Course, it's a well known truism
in the musical world that there is no worse
dissonance possible than two oboes playing
together out of tune; or for that matter, two
oboes playing together in tune.

> > Relexes only become disparaged when we "know
> > better" and should be doing more than just
> aping
> > our mother tongue in that way. In broader
> > settings of art or fantasy and sci-fi
> literature;
> > they really have no place.
>
> Ahem, ahem! Has it escaped your attention that
> Wenedyk is - at least
> partly - a relex too? Of course, not a relex of
> the kind you describe
> (aping your mother tongue because you don't
> know any better), but
> nevertheless it has some elements in common
> with it.
I'm not sure I'd call it a relex, though. Not as
I understand and use the word relex, anyway!

> Now, Wenedyk is definitely nót a stealth
> language; one of its design
> principles is the question: what would Polish
> look like if it were a
> Romance language?
And unless you've slavishly copied Polish grammar
and syntax, on a one to one basis, then you have
no relex!

> I think it is inevitable that such language
> becomes a relex to some degree.
> Concretely, I try to achieve a 1:1
> correspondence between Wenedyk and
> Polish words (which does not always work out,
> because Vulgar Latin and
> Common Slavic are not exactly the same kind of
> language). Furthermore, I
> adopt many features from Polish grammar (in
> particular those that Polish
> developed independently).
This is understandable, as there must be some
Slavic substrate in Wenedyk.

> And most of Wenedyk's syntax and peculariaties
> are taken straightly from Polish. Of course,
> there are differences too, for
> example the fact that Polish has 6 1/2 cases,
> and Wenedyk only 4 1/4.
> In other words, Wenedyk is what I would call an
> "educated relex", or
> perhaps a "sophisticated relex". I'm curious in
> how far the same applies
> for other languages of the same family (like
> Brithenig).
I wouldn't call Brithenig a relex of anything,
least of all Andrew's own mother tongue -
English!

I can't imagine Kerno being a relex of anything
either. Both K and B have elements in common with
French and Spanish, for example (to be expected,
given their status!); but there are simply way
too many divergences for them to be simple
relexes.

> > If you're going to
> > create a complex alien civilisation, it's
> > simply
> > inane to make them speak English with funny
> > sounding words.
>
> Of course. But wouldn't it be equally stupid to
> make them speak German with
> funny sounding words? Or Finnish? Welsh?
Quite. That's the problem with giving aliens a
relex. It sounds ok on tv (cos most people will
never know; they just hear an alien talking all
funny); but those of us who care and can figure
it out are inevitably disappointed that an
otherwise well done alien character and culture
lacks something basic like a language. It's
precisely why we tend to like Klingons - they're
an alien culture that acutally have an honest to
Hoki language that ain't just a bunch of randon
sounds strung together and aint just funny words
plastered onto English grammar. It's also why we
like Tolkien and other great writers who have
followed his example: he carefully crafted
languages to give depth to his characters and
their cultures.

> Japanese? Swahili? Is "English"
> or "mother tongue" really the key word here?
"Mother tongue" is the key word, of course. I
wrote "English" cos it's mine, and so much modern
Sci-Fi and fantasy is written in the English.
Particularly that which shows up on tele.

Padraic.


=====
la cieurgeourea provoer mal trasfu ast meiyoer ke 'l andrext ben trasfu.


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