Re: tips for new conlangers

"[Adam K. Shuck]" wrote:
>
> Hey - this is Adam.  I'm not a new conlanger, but I was wondering if
> anyone
> had any tips to help me start up a new language.  I have some good
> ideas, but
> I can't seem to begin the outline of the language.  Thanks.
>
> ~Adam
Well, it's all up to you, but...

Have you checked out Mark Rosenfelder's Language Construction Kit? I
don't have the exact link handy, but you can get to it from
www.zompist.com. That's a good place to start.

Generally, what I do is answer the most basic questions about the
language: Is it agglutinating, isolating, or inflecting? What's the word
order? What case system, if any, does it use? What's the phonology like?
The orthography? And so on, and so on... Once all that's in place, I go
into more depth into those areas, and fill in the gaps as they become
apparent.

There is more than one way to do it, of course, but that's how I
approach it.

To give an example, I'll quote my first handwritten notes for Ajuk:

- Agglutinating
   - Verb second language (That's not true anymore, but...)
       - Primarily SVO
           - OVS also acceptable.
   - Cases
       - IE-like.

etc. etc. etc. It goes into a little more detail for most subjects -
Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, etc. Then the notes into more detain about each
of those topics, and so forth and so on.

That's how I do it, I'm sure you'll get other good suggestions.

--
Robert

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