Re: Language superiority, improvement, etc.

Matt Pearson wrote:

> > Amen. It may not be easy, it may take many many versions, but here at
> > conlang we are all blazing the trail of accelerated language evolution.
>
> Are we?  That's news to me.  Myself, I'm trying to create something which
> mimics as closely as possible the complexities and eccentricities of
> naturally occuring human languages.  As far as I can tell, there's nothing
> about Tokana which makes it more or less 'evolved' than the natlangs which
> it emulates.  I certainly wouldn't say it was more 'logical' than any
> natlang.  In fact, there are aspects of Tokana grammar, rules which need
> to be followed, that even *I* don't completely understand.  They just
> 'feel' right for the language.
>
> I wonder if other people on this list have had that experience, of being
> carried along by some semi-conscious aesthetic impulse, arriving at a
> particular set of choices which even the conlanger himself does not fully
> comprehend.  I find myself 'discovering' new things about Tokana all the
> time.  Rather than being a consciously directed exercise in 'language
> evolution', it often feels like it has a life of its own and I'm merely
> a passive observer or recorder...
>
--in a word, yes.  that most closely describes my experience.

quietly lurking,

diana


> Matt.
>
> Matt.
>
> ------------------------------------
> Matt Pearson
> mpearson@ucla.edu
> UCLA Linguistics Department
> 405 Hilgard Avenue
> Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543
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