Re: Learning your own conlang (was Re: Now that I have it . . .)

On Tuesday, December 4, 2001, at 07:28 , William Annis wrote:

>> From: Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...>
>>
>> What I find most useful, though others' mileage (or parsecage, or
>> kilometrage, or whatever) may vary, is to start writing a "teach yourself
>> [insert conlang here]" primer with plenty of examples.
>
>         This has been my approach for Vaior.  I have a sketch of an
> Ur-primer, but as I wrote the Vaior primer it became clear that
> different sorts of languages have wildly different didactic needs, at
> least for English speakers.  Perhaps separate isolating, synthetic and
> agglutinating proto-primers would work...
>
<nod>  I agree--I've only done any real work on a Czevraqis
(triconsonantal morphology, active case marking) primer, but I already
know that I would write a primer for Tasratal (agglutinating shading into
synthetic, perhaps) *very* differently.

>         The absolute best way to learn your own language, though, is
> to combine the "write a primer" approach with "teach a friend."  A
> friend of mine thinks Vaior is very cool, but he's not linguistically
> trained at all, so I get very pointed questions about usage, etc.
> This really gets you thinking about how the language works, and
> deepens your own understanding.
I like that a lot.  :-)  If only I had a friend who were that interested.
:-p  Perhaps a conlang "student/teacher" exchange?

Yoon Ha Lee [requiescat@cityofveils.com]
http://pegasus.cityofveils.com

When I'm out slaughtering Jedi, I don't have to worry about getting enough
calcium.  That's why I drink milk.  Its 9 essential nutrients help me keep
my bones strong, which is good, because I'd look really stupid if one of
my horns broke off.--Darth Maul, Milk Mustache Campaign

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