Re: weekly vocab

At 07:06 PM 4/3/2002 +0100, Tim May wrote:
>It's a good point, but remember also that some conlangs are notionally
>spoken by concultures which have never made contact with anyone with a
>computer, for example.  Now, certainly it's possible to develop words
>for "random-access memory" or "carburettor" or "fixed interest loan"
>in a stone-age language, but if no-one in the culture's ever going to
>use them I can see why people would be reluctant to make the effort.
   Also a good point. As the entire exercise is voluntary, though, I'm not
too worried about it. People can participate to whatever extent they like.
If nothing else, one of those preliterate concultures could perhaps
discover new word for 'calculate, figure' or 'gather' or some other
semantically related word, even if the ultimate goal word isn't one they'll
ever use.

   I mean, for example, that if the word was 'read-only memory', one could
discover/create a word for memory, perhaps, if it didn't exist. Being able
to describe a concept doesn't necessarily mean that it is a dictionary
defition.

   Taalennin is sort of like those preliterate cultures in that the culture
associated with it is medieval or earlier. That doesn't mean I can't
describe a calculator, just that there won't be a unique word for it.

   At any rate, as I've said, people can participate to whatever extent
they like, so I'll provide theme-selected words and sentences weekly, and
people can mutate the sentences, the words, or the whole exercise for any
given week to meet their needs.

  Aidan