Re: backwards conlanging

On Sun, Nov 26, 2000 at 03:01:39PM -0500, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
[snip]
> I can imagine.  :-)  I love the idea; it makes a lot of sense and it lets
> you create families.  The problem is I don't know enough about deriving a
> language in this way, and all the conlang sites that do suggest this are
> terribly vague about possibilities.  (Langmaker.com has a neat table of
> common consonant changes, but doesn't say a darn thing about likely vowel
> changes.  I'm still reading up on phonetics/phonology and historical
> linguistics so I can get a handle on the processes involved.)
What I do is that I take a step back and try to imagine a blurred,
slightly distorted version of the language, or try to baby-talk in the
language, and listen for alternative ways of pronouncing the vowels, or
even entire sound changes like contracting multiple syllables into a
single cluster, etc.. Wash, rinse, repeat. After several successive
"mutations", you'll end up with a derived sound that's different enough
yet still resembles the original.

[Disclaimer: I've never actually made a conlang this way yet -- this is
just what I do with my *current* conlang by picking what I figure would
sound like a good ancestor-lang root and "mutating" it -- so don't blame
me if it produces a frankenlang :-P]

[snip]
> I wish I'd thought of the method *before* I started work on Chevraqis.
> <wry g>  Now I know....
Me Too(tm). I'm convinced that something is amiss with my conlang's
current phonology, but I've done so much with it that I'm hard pressed to
drop anything. I guess I'll just stick with it, the only comfort being
that this *is* the ancestor lang, so after I'm through with it, I'll know
much better to not screw up with the descendent langs. :-)


T

--
I haven't lost my mind: it's backed up on tapes -- CompuMan