Re: Most developed conlang

Dirk wrote:
<<
The first because it is
difficult to find descriptions of constructed languages otherwise, and
the second I suppose because we are all used to "speaking", as opposed
to emitting odors, or flashing light patterns, etc.
 >>

Oh, whoops.  I meant 3 and 5.  I could have objected to 6, though.
What about sign languages? [*]

But my point wasn't to find fault with his criteria, so much as
to vocalize my frustration with the general sentiment shared
(or evinced [intentionally, or otherwise]) by many that if your
conlang is not on the internet, it's not a legitimate conlang, and
if you have no legitimate conlang, you're not a legitimate
conlanger.  That has been around ever since I started, and I've
always found it disheartening.

Harold wrote:
<<
No..this is why...and I quote:

"For example, the pronominal morphemes 'ta', 'tu' and 'ti' roughly
translating
as you (sg.), thee, and you (pl.), are left over from the influence
of Latin
upon Idrani. There are many nominal root morphemes which have been
taken from various languages and have continued to travel with Idrani.
Some examples are 'kai' meaning commencement taken from Mandarin
'kai' meaning to start or to turn on, 'pi' meaning preference taken from
the Russian 'pishu' meaning I like, 'tna' meaning desire coming from an
inversion of the English 'want', 'kohti' meaning house from the Finnish
'kohti' also meaning house, and 'chindi' meaning malevolent being from
the Navajo 'chindi' meaning devil."
 >>

Well this *is* interesting, because while this is obviously language
x, y
and z influencing the vocabulary of language alpha directly, I wouldn't
consider this evidence that the lexicon is a posteriori.  In fact, I
do this
kind of thing all the time in all of my languages.  I think of them as
in-jokes or references, though.  In fact, there was a thread about it
here:

http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?
A2=ind0508d&L=conlang&T=0&F=&S=&P=5592

There are some cases where I've taken words straight out of another
language and used them to mean the exact same things in a language
of mine just because I happened to like the sound.  Such "borrowings"
by no means
comprise the whole or even the majority of any of my languages'
vocabularies, though, and I get the impression that the same is true
of Idrani (and it even appears that some of the words have changed--
for example, the word for "house" in the dictionary is /do/ and not
/kohti/).  And take /pi/, which means something like "preference".
Can one really say that it *came from* Russian "pishu" the way English
"burrito" came from Spanish "burrito"?  I would certainly not say so.
While its phonological form was suggested by a real word, and while
it kind of is similar in semantic content, it doesn't mean "I like",
it doesn't
have the form [pi.'Su], and it doesn't even seem to belong to the same
lexical category.  To me, this is no more a posteriori vocabulary
creation
than is Joyce's naming his protagonist Stephen Dedalus plagiarism.

Just to clarify, I'm raising this issue because I find the issue of what
counts as a posteriori and what doesn't to be interesting--I'm not
criticizing Harold's system in any way.

[*] Jim wrote:
<<
I understood his point 6 to mean something like "the language must
be usable by humans in real time".  That is, ruling out languages
that are too alien for human brains to parse in real time, like Fith,
or that are probably too complex for most humans to learn to
speak fluently, like Ithkuil, but maybe not ruling out sign languages
or iconic languages on principle.
 >>

Reasonable, indeed.  Though taking sign languages and iconic
languages into consideration also raises some interesting questions
about what counts as a word.

-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/

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