Re: your conlang, please? (Rich Aunt gets hold of the Lunatic Survey)
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Friday, October 2, 1998, 8:41 |
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At 00:18 01/10/98 -0400, you wrote:
>...and how would you characterize it in fifty words more or less?
>You've been overwhelming me with wonderful revelations. For those of you
>who have answered at length but not divulged, it would help me to know:
>
> 11) what your conlang is called,
>
I've got five conlangs: Moten (M), Azak (Az), Astou (As), Reman (R)
and Notya (N)
> 12) what are its unique features, and
>
M: many phonological changes, use of infixes for the declination of words
(only 3 cases: nominative, accusative, genitive), nominative used only for
volitional (as you call them) subjects (other subjects use an oblique way
with the prefix ko- of means), only two verbs are conjugated, and when words
have the same grammatical function, only the last one is declined or conjugated.
Az: totally agglutinative with only suffixes, only word order makes a
difference between nouns and verbs, strange writing system with an alphabet
for roots and a syllabary for suffixes.
As: a language contemporary to Latin and Ancient Greek, with a conculture
still in construction. A kind of merging of Greek and Basque, complex enough
as many dead languages.
R: a romance language, which evolved from Latin nearly as English evolved
from Germanic, with a genitive used only for people, prepositions that can
be used as conjunctions without change of the noun (as if you said "because
of me did that" instead of "because I did that").
N: my newest project, still under heavy construction, with really no
difference between nouns and verbs and anything else. A root can be used as
a concept, a particle, or both at the same time (you say 'I give him the
book' in a way that can be rendered as 'I the book him-to' with 'I' and 'to'
in a processive form in order to show that I is actually doing that, and the
word translated by 'to' can also mean 'give' or even '(the act of) giving'!).
> 13) whether you have a website.
>
http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepage/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html
>Come on! Just hit that return button! A lot of this I know already, and
>can check on in Kennaway, but it would be a convenience.
>
> 14) Also: Mikhail Bakhtin wrote (in _Problems of
>Dostoevsky's Poetics_):
>
> The life of the word is contained in its transfer from
> one mouth to another, from one context to another context,
> from one social collective to another, from one generation
> to another generation.
>
>Of course this is precisely what we CAN'T say about "private languages."
>Does that bother you that your language has a speaker of one? Some of
>you get together and learn each other's languages. I'm thinking in
>particular of Brithenig and Kernu (whose inventors have remained notably
>silent!) Is one of the appeals of a private invented language that you
>alone know its secrets and control its development?
>
Actually, even I don't speak my own languages well! But if somebody
wrote to me or spoke to me in one of my languages, I would be very proud of
it (and it would make me learn my own languages!). But as my languages are
still far from perfect, I prefer that nobody speaks them, in order for me to
be free to change what I want.
> What would happen if someone got hold of your conlang and
> vast numbers began using it and speaking it and changing it?
> Remember the "No Rich Aunt" scenario? What if she made you
> a village?
>
It wouldn't be my conlang anymore. I think I would be a little sad,
but only like a parent when he/she sees that his/her child is now
independant. My conlang would have its own life and I would let it live it.
><GGG>
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>Sally Caves
>scaves@frontiernet.net
>
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html
>
> Mr. Book: "Shut it down!"
> _Dark City_
>
> Christof: "Cue the sun!"
> _The Truman Show_
>
>Tehwo tsema brondi laz obil hea nomai pendo
>"Summer like a white sword hangs over the land."
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>