Re: A different strategy for conlang design

On Fri, 09 Jul 2004 12:38:51 -0700, Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> wrote:

> Begin with a small book, perhaps even a children's
> book or a "young adult" novel like the Hardy Boys or
> Nancy Drew, (Or maybe Harry Potter!) and starting at
> page one, paragraph one, just write a translation into
> some previously non-existant conlang, right off the
> top of your head, inventing words and grammatical
> principles as you go along.
That's kinda what I did for the Thagojian translation of Beowulf. Keeping
to Homeric/Sapphic/Vedic meter (used for plausible generic PIE look and
feel) was far too challenging for my tiny little mind (especially while
trying to keep alliteration and such things in place), and the project
died out after just a few lines. Those couple of lines were really quite
entertaining, though. It's a shame I only clearly remember the very first
word: |Lhus!| /Kus/




Paul