Re: conlanging and journaling

On Mon, Feb 11, 2008 at 11:55:55AM -0500, Jim Henry wrote:

> > And the existence of a potential audience limits your options.
>
> Can you expand on that?
>
> I see how, if you're primarily intending your journal for your friends and
> relations or for future historians, you would avoid crypticity and
> ellipticity of all kinds, especially but not limited to writing in a conlang,
> conscript or cypher.  It would influence your writing style, maybe making
> it more formal but hopefully at least making it clearer.
>
> And if you're intending your conlang for an audience, you'll spend
> relatively more time working on the documentation of the language
> and relatively less time developing the language itself.  But how or why
> would that limit your options about the design and implementation
> of the language, per se?
Well, I'm not the OP, but I think I can shed one perspective on this:

When I was conlanging in private, I didn't feel at all self-conscious about
my naive phonology or occasional hokey, teenage-angst coinages.  Once I
found this list (so many years ago now!), that changed.  Now I frequently
feel that my conlanging comfort zone - my instincts about how my language
should be, and the result thereof - is somehow inferior to folks with less
personal, more well-researched (be it a priori or a posteriori) conlangs.
I find myself wishing I could make a Tepa or Tokana, or a Wenedyk or
Thrjotrunn (did I spell that right?)  Or a Kelen, or... (I could go on...)

tylakèhlpë'fö,
Amanda