Re: What criteria do you have for your own or others' languages?
| From: | Sally Caves <scaves@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, December 10, 2006, 18:53 |
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I'm answering this without looking at the myriad responses below, so as to
give you as honest an answer as I can.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sai Emrys" <sai@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2006 3:27 AM
Subject: What criteria do you have for your own or others' languages?
> This is in prep for an essay I'm writing - to revise my /On the design
> of an ideal language/ essay into something more clearly meta and
> complete. (And also address the question of 'conlanging "schools"',
> etc.)
> Please list, in your own words (preferably detailed) what criteria you
> apply to conlangs to judge them to be (in your opinion / for your
> purposes) "better" or "worse", or more or less "likable" or
> "impressive" etc etc. They can be subjective, objective, or both.
I don't actually apply criteria to other conlangs besides my own, maybe
because like you I'm interested in seeing them as unique developments by
individual people. I suppose I like seeing languages that have an
imaginative efficiency or ductility of expression that is different from IE
languages and still naturalistic, although I do like language experiments
such as Sylvia's Kelen and its eschewal of verbs. Since I know very little
about Asian languages, I suppose I would be impressed by a conlang that
makes use of Asian features (tone, for instance).
I tend to prefer languages that are a-priori, although I have admired Kerno
and Brithennig (and Padraic's fluency in it!).
I tend to prefer languages that are naturalistic, and have exceptions to
their rules, or many rules.
I tend to prefer languages that experiment with image-schemas and
imaginative ways of rethinking how we interact physically with our
environment, and I have tried to introduce new ways of expressing processes
in Teonaht. It's difficult. That's why I had difficulty with the "Will you
go out with me?" translation project. It seems to me that in Teonaht, there
should be a circumlocutory phrase for "will you sleep with me," or "will you
enter into a romantic leading to sexual relationship with me?" or "will you
meet me at a designated assignation place for the purpose of fucking?"
These need very round-about expressions. I'm enriching Teonaht's sexual
and social vocabulary, but it's just so easy to say "your accompaniment
would please me."
I REALLY REALLY love the language of Darmok on Star Trek. That was
innovative! Teonaht should have more of that. I understand that Malaysian
(?) is a challenge for westerners. Not so much because of the structure of
the language or its vocabulary but because of its allusiveness. You may
know the language, but can you follow the commercials on TV? So I have
tried to make T. into a language that invokes a lot of metaphors for
ordinary actions. "Juliet on the balcony," is how Troi explained what might
mean, in Darmokian (?), a romantic possibility. That kind of thing in a
conlang would impress me greatly.
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