Re: Why my conlangs SUCK!!!

Some people talked, so I talked back:

> I think this is the conclusion that most (should) have come to by now,
> regarding conlangs--namely, that regularity isn't the way to go, if
natural is what
> you're aiming for.
Unless you have a good reason for regularity. Fincaiyan culture, actually,
places a very high value on riddles, because they are used to teach young
children about the world, provide entertainment, and are all-around
incredibly important to the culture.

There is a fairly small group of people that can actually read and write
Fincaiyan, and they're all centrally taught in the same place. So there is
an astounding amount of regularity in their written language (being a
one-to-one "alphabet"). Given that most riddlemasters, as they're known (I
think?), are literate, they are also taught the correct way of using the
language.

Because of the incredible importance of riddles, it is rather easy to
enforce a more standardized language in general. That is not to say that
some sort of variety occurs--in fact, there are quite a few "shortcuts" that
people use (such as dropping particles at certain times). But in riddles,
especially those used by the riddlemasters, only correct Fincaiyan is used.

So...yeah, natural conlangs will have lots of oddities. Unless there's a
reason for it to be standardized. Then again, I'm not designing this to be a
perfectly natural language. There's artificiality here, and Fincaiyans know
it. But they don't care that much.

-Keith