Re: Why my conlangs SUCK!!!

Gary Shannon wrote:

> Here's something that explains why my own conlangs
> have not been very "real".  The answer lies in looking
> at what is broken in English. For example, the chaos
> that is English spelling!
>
> In trying to get rid of the final silent 'E' in my
> English mutation conlang project, I began to realize
> that the silent 'E' is like that one little thread
> that sticks out from your sweater.  You know the one I
> mean.  The one that when you pull on it the whole
> sweater falls apart.
>
> In school I learned that silent 'E' makes the vowel
> before it long.  Well, that's simple.  I can get rid
> of the silent 'E' by finding another way to make
> vowels long, like moving the silent 'E' up next to the
> vowel itself.  Then 'lake' -> 'laek' and the problem
> is solved.  NOT!
>
> What's the difference between "tens" and "tense"?
> Here, the silent 'E' has nothing to do with vowels.
> Instead it prevents the 'S' from being voiced and
> sounding like a 'Z'.  And what about the difference
> between 'zinc' and 'since'.  Here the silent 'E'
> prevents the 'C' from turning into 'K' and makes it
> turn into 'S' instead.  So before you can get rid of
> the silent 'E' you also need a way to explicity voice
> and unvoice 'S' and to decide which of its many
> schizoid personalities 'C' is going to manefest.
>
> But wait!  There's more.  In the word "rice" the
> silent 'E' does double duty, lengthening the vowel AND
> preventing the 'C' from turning into 'K'.
>
> Ok, does that cover it?  Nope.  Along comes "come"
> where the silent 'E' doesn't do a damn thing!  And if
> that isn't bad enough, the silent 'E' in "machine"
> instead of turning "bit" into "bite" wants to turn
> "bit" into "beet".  Shouldn't that be "machene"?  (Or
> is that "machean"?)  And if I made up a word like
> "Manderine" (a Manderine orange tangerine) how come we
> know to pronounce it "Mandereen"?
>
> Oh, and did I mention "orange"?  The silent 'E' is
> really showing off it's talents here.  It turns "rang"
> into "range" by both lengthening the vowel two
> consonants away (is that a new distance record?) and
> by altering the 'G' from hard to soft.
>
> So about a million years ago some spelling challenged
> fourth grader decided to fix the silent 'E' probelem
> for the letter 'I' by using "gh" to mark the long 'I'.
>  That's easy.  We just wright "light" and "bight" and
> if Igh don't lighk it Igh can go fligh a kight.
>
> But wait, weren't we talking about silent 'E', how did
> we end up in 'I'.  Because the 'I' thread's connected
> to the 'E' thread, and the 'E' thread's connected to
> the 'C' thread, and the 'C' thread's connected to the
> 'S' thread, and that's why pulling on one makes the
> whole sweater fall apart.
>
> And of course the silent 'E' thread is connected to
> the double consonant thread as well.  We write
> "difference" instead of "diference" because the second
> spelling wants to sound like "DIE-ference" because 'I'
> thinks it's got a silent 'E' assigned to it.
>
> So from the conlanger's persepctive, is English
> spelling something broken that needs to be fixed?
>
> In fact, I am coming to believe just the opposite.  It
> is the very regularity and logical consistency of my
> own conlangs that have made them seem so aritficial
> and non-organic.  Isn't it better that all verbs are
> regular and congugate in the same way?  Well, maybe
> not.  But if not, why not?
>
> The chaos of English spelling is rather like the
> genetic diversity of an ecosystem.  Do we "fix" the
> forest by exterminating those life forms that aren't
> orderly enough?  Heaven forbid!  This diversity
> provides material for variety that can be exploited by
> the poet and the author (ode to a flea), as well as
> providing a springboard for future mutations and
> modifications.
>
> And will the future evolution of English be in the
> direction of simplifying and regularizing the
> language?  I seriously doubt it.  We'll probably
> borrow some more Japanese words and absorb a little
> bit of Japanese grammar and spelling in the process.
> Then we'll absorb some more Russian vocabulary and
> borrow more words from Italian and Finnish and Urdu
> and Icelandic, and bring their spelling peculiarities
> right along with them.
>
> No, the chaos of English is not something that's
> broken, or that needs to be fixed.  It's something
> that's lacking in my own conlangs.  Via la chaos!
>
> That puts my project to mutate English in a different
> light.  Instead of starting out by simplifying and
> regularizing English and destroying its diversity and
> richness, maybe I should begin by building on the
> diversity that is present, and end by mutating English
> into something that is not only unique and
> non-English-like, but is also rich and organic.
>
> What I have in mind is to start out by mutating
> English in the direction of Latin, and then about
> halfway there hanging a sharp right turn and making a
> beeline toward Bantu and Swahili.  But before I make
> landfall on the East African coast I'll make a tight
> turn to the southeast and head straight for Polynesia,
> picking up floating bits of grammar whenever they fall
> into my net.  Then I'll come back home by way of
> classical Sanskrit and see what the language looks
> like after that kind of random messing about.
>
> Whatever it becomes, it won't be English and it won't
> be simplistic, and it will have the chaotic richness
> of a natural language. I hope.
>
> --gary
If you're basing a conlang on English, ignore the "e". Focus entirely on
how the word sounds. The whole "e" thing is an example of just how
stupid English spelling is. It hasn't really changed in 500 years, so
that's part of the reason it's so confusing. It's almost logographic.
Most Chinese characters have a component that indicates basic
pronunciation, so English writing really is almost as complex as Chinese
writing and takes up much more space.