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Re: "Language Creation" in your conlang

From:Isidora Zamora <isidora@...>
Date:Friday, November 14, 2003, 0:32
At 08:50 PM 11/12/03 -0800, you wrote:
>Well, I hope I don't distract everybody from the wonderful off-topic >discussions of corpses and Dutch, but I've got a conlangy request to make >of everyone.
Well, since I'm the main offender, having started the corpses thread, it would probably befit me to contribute something actually on-topic to the list for once. We got really lucky here. Índumom Tovlaugadóis (more easily pronounced and typed by its Trehelish name - Cwendaso) has fewer than 150 roots and derivational morphemes (and that's after I added 11 yesterday and today, and many of these items are derived forms.) There isn't much material to work with, but it just happens to be the *right* material. There are two verbs for 'make.' There is búkhu 'to build, make, or construct out of separate pieces.' There is also préida 'to make (not out of separate pieces.' Préida is more like 'create,' but búkhu is definitely 'to construct.' Add a nominalizing suffix, -m, to get the nouns 'creation' or construction,' respectively préidam and búkhum. The verb 'to speak' is índumo and adding the nominalizing suffix gives us índumom 'speech, a speech, or language.' (The Tovláugad are an oral culture, so they think of language purely in terms of speaking and hearing it.) There is a suffix -óis, which makes a noun into a possessive adjective. So we have indumomóis 'of language'. Word order is fairly free, but the default is Noun Adjective. préidam indumomóis 'language creation' búkhum indumomóis 'language construction' I think that you will want to use búkhum indumomóis, because that would definitely mean 'language construction,' and conlanging is something that the Tovláugad don't do, so I know that that particular phrase is not an idiom already in use for something else, which I cannot guarantee for the other phrase. Remember that índumom can also mean 'a speech.' Unlike conlanging, giving speeches is something that the Tovláugad do frequently and which is important in their society. Good speeches don't just appear the moment they are given; in many cases, they have to be composed ahead of time. I expect that the process of composing a speech ahead of time might well be called préidam indumomóis, and 'to compose a speech' is something that I can't say yet, because I don't have the necessary accusative suffix to stick onto índumom :( I could just adlib an accusative ending like I adlibbed a verbal object marker this morning, but I think I'd rather do the case endings and the verbal agreement markers in a more orderly fashion. I suppose that préida would also be the verb used when you are composing a poem or a piece of music, so I can enter the additional meaning of 'compose' into the wordlist. So, in Índumom Tovlaugadóis (a language which practically doesn't exist and whose speakers definitely don't conlang), 'language construction' is <búkhum indumomóis>. Isidora

Replies

Muke Tever <hotblack@...>
Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
Isidora Zamora <isidora@...>