Re: Language superiority, improvement, etc.
From: | Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> |
Date: | Thursday, October 15, 1998, 0:47 |
Raymond A. Brown wrote:
> In my teens, as I've said, I churned out one IAL after another.
> I didn't discover them - I invented them. Quite the wrong approach IMO to
> true conlanging.
Amen. Tarni'f was entirely "invented". It was heavily influenced by
English, but it wasn't an English relex. I'd taken Latin earlier, and I
was taking Spanish at the time, so some of it was influenced by Spanish
and Latin. For example, I had two prepositions for "for", modelled on
_por_ and _para_, but I later made them a little different, but I
*invented* the rules for their use, so that I merely had to look at what
I'd written to know which one to use. But, over my past few conlangs,
I've discovered that each one developed more slowly. Why? I think it's
because I am "discovering" it. For W., I did'nt set out saying
"circumlocative is used for such-and-such situation", I've *discovered*
when it's used. My earlier discussion of la'u/kapati' is the same way.
Originally, I intended it to simply cover eating and drinking, but I 've
since discovered that it's really more like "introducing a substance
thru the mouth".
--
"It's bad manners to talk about ropes in the house of a man whose father
was hanged." - Irish proverb
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