Re: Why grammar is so complex a subject

> > Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> writes:
>
> > >...  Therefore conlangs should not be "designed", they should be
> > > "used into existence." ...
> >


... Has anybody on this list attempted this ... by teaching their conlangs
to their children?  That seems an obvious way to test the "speakability" of
a conlang, if a child is able to be raised bilingual in a conlang plus a
natlang.  That would also have the benefit of adding some "evolution by
natural usage" to the conlang, as the child picks it up as their co-L1.

Of course, there are many examples of children being raised bilingual in a
natlang plus Esperanto.  Besides those, I've only heard of one case of a
child whose father decided to raise him bilingual in English and Klingon.
The experiment lasted all of about five years -- once the child reached
school age, and discovered that none of his classmates spoke Klingon, he
gave it up entirely and used English exclusively.

That tells me that the concept is at least workable, but perhaps could be
done better.  What "better" is, I have no idea.

:Chris

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