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Re: conlan/natlang coincidences

From:James W <jworlton@...>
Date:Tuesday, June 17, 2003, 18:25
"Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:

>On Tue, Jun 17, 2003 at 01:26:12PM -0400, James W wrote: >> This got me wondering about how we all approach the specific >> creation of words in conlangs, and how closely we try to relate them >> (or not!) to natlangs. > >It depends on the type of vocabulary, of course. Both of my current >projects are a priori; Methkaeki's roots come from enciphered words >from natlangs, while Okaikiar's roots are generated randomly by >computer. In both cases, I rarely have conicidental similarities to >natural language words with which I'm familiar. > >I'm becoming disenchanted with both approaches, though; they're too, >I don't know, easy. Productive. I can always pull a brand new word >out of an orifice whenever I need it, no effort required. If >the encipherment comes out unpronouncible, or the random word isn't >mellifluous, I just pick a different natural root or fire the >randomizer again.
I had actually thought that using a computer to generate roots would be the way I approached Orêlynna, but that has not turned out to be the case. Instead, I painstakingly :) create each root individually from my chart of all the possible mono- and disyllabic roots. My syllable construction is fairly limiting, so it was easy to chart all of the possibilities.
>I would really like to derive a language in steps from a protolanguage. >The protolanguage could still have randomly-generated roots, but there'd >be a small, fixed number of them, probably all monosyllabic, and I'd have >to come up with ways they may have been combined to represent new ideas >over time, as well as sets of sound changes, morphology changes >(separate turning into inflections, like "verb-did" -> "verbed" in English), >etc. It would be intense, difficult, time-consuming - and very satisfying.
I agree. I am actually thinking that Orêlynna may turn out to be a proto-language, which I can then use for deriving others. I had also thought originally that I would make it an a priori language, from Latin, but decided against it. But making a priori languages from one's own protolanguage is another thing all together!
>Ah, well.
Indeed.
>-Mark
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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>