There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: Sai
1.2. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: George Corley
1.3. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
1.4. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: Padraic Brown
1.5. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: Padraic Brown
1.6. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: Arthaey Angosii
1.7. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: Padraic Brown
1.8. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: Sai
1.9. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
From: Adam Walker
2a. Re: letter for 'th'
From: Sai
2b. Re: letter for 'th'
From: And Rosta
3.1. Collaborative Method (WAS: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborati
From: Mia.
3.2. Re: Collaborative Method (WAS: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collabor
From: Gary Shannon
4a. Re: gsfa [WAS: Basic Word Lists]
From: Gary Shannon
4b. Re: gsfa [WAS: Basic Word Lists]
From: Arthaey Angosii
Messages
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1.1. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "Sai" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 10:37 am ((PDT))
On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 9:35 AM, Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
> That's rather like saying that all the worlds artists need to come
> together and paint one HUGE painting in a single uniform style.
Exactly so.
Y'all know that I'm probably the most out there among us regarding
commercialization of the art — and the farthest I would go is simply
to say that some clients want to buy good (to their criteria)
paintings for their walls that they aren't able to make themselves,
and thus we should try to provide that as a service. That's about it.
But…
On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 9:27 AM, Matthew DeBlock <[email protected]> wrote:
> why is the idea of everyone sitting down, collaborating, and trying to
> find a framework that can encompass everyone a problem.
A framework to do what?
Something you don't quite seem to be getting is that many (most?)
conlangers (including myself) just don't give a shit whether other
people adopt their language or not. Adoption is simply not relevant.
We get a kick out of having others appreciate what we've done, sure.
And we often appreciate constructive feedback. But those are very
different.
> not a "standard for conlangs" just a "standard for describing and
> cataloguing a conlang and its features"
>
> As I said, not a "centralized conlang" just a "centralized conlang
> repository"
>
> The Frath wiki, I think it is, is already starting down this path. they
> have a nice "checklist" style display for each conlang describing present
> and absent elements.
There is one: http://cals.conlang.org — free for anyone to participate
in (or not) as they please. Based on http://wals.info of natlangs.
> Why not go a couple steps further, instead of just a checklist, design a
> means of describing the gramatical rules etc..
>
> Some conlangers may find this "restrictive" in their "presentation", but
> other than that I dont see any obvious road-blocks.
No offense intended, but: this is linguistically naïve, entirely
separate from being culturally borderline taboo.
There's only so far you can go with describing grammars in a regular
way — much sooner than later, you start to get into it being just too
damn complicated and weird and unique (good things!) to fit into a
standard form.
I think that CALS is about as good as you'll get, for what you're
talking about: it's a list of common elements, and it has links to the
conlang's grammar.
Besides which, what you dismiss as "presentation" is often _part_ of
the intention. Take for instance http://ouwi.org/eym.html — I can't
see that fitting into some standardized grammar, yet it's an excellent
way of showing off Ouwi.
> is it supposedly impossible to design a description system for linguistic
> elements to allow this?
Yep, pretty much, at least in the way you mean.
> Does nobody want to share the individual elements of their conlang modularly?
Yep. It also just doesn't make any sense. Each conlang — projects like
Akana aside — is generally meant to be its own special thing. They are
sui generis.
It just makes no sense to try to "mix and match" between artworks that
are intended for many different purposes. They're not cars (and hell,
you can't plug one car's engine into another's chassis, either).
> are the compenet elements of a conlang so "intertwined" they could never
> be described individually and extracted as modules?
a) Yes. When done well, they are built to all interrelate,
interdepend, and produce a coherent whole.
b) No. Most conlang grammars do indeed proceed by describing
phonology, morphosyntax, pragma, vocabulary, etc separately. But this
doesn't seem to be relevant to what you're envisioning.
Again, from experience: please moderate your implication that we
should all work on the same project, and erase the notion that our
languages even share the same goals.
A desire to have conlangs well described, to share ideas, to make it
easy for those who want it to have their conlangs seen by others —
those are good things. But the way you are going about presenting this
is touching on a very strong taboo of this community.
I'd suggest you take a break, look at CALS and how it works (and the
various list postings about it), and if you try again, do so in a way
less likely to provoke.
- Sai
Messages in this topic (29)
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1.2. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 10:56 am ((PDT))
On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 11:27 AM, Matthew DeBlock <[email protected]> wrote:
> wow.. such resistance to the word industry. this "field" needs
> consolidation.
>
> why is the idea of everyone sitting down, collaborating, and trying to
> find a framework that can encompass everyone a problem.
>
It's unlikely to be successful. There have been attempts to provide
standardized presentations, but none of them have caught on. The
conlanging community is quite fractuous, and lots of people like it that
way.
Of course, moreover people are objecting not to the idea of standardizing
presentation, but to talk about "industry" and of success as measured by
real-world use of the language which, as others have made abundantly clear,
is not what most people here are interested in.
> The Frath wiki, I think it is, is already starting down this path. they
> have a nice "checklist" style display for each conlang describing present
> and absent elements.
>
> Why not go a couple steps further, instead of just a checklist, design a
> means of describing the gramatical rules etc..
>
> Some conlangers may find this "restrictive" in their "presentation", but
> other than that I dont see any obvious road-blocks.
There are standardized principles for presenting natural languages (several
competing ones). There's nothing wrong with creating a basic outline for a
conlang grammar, but it probably works best to base that on natlang
presentations. And any such standard would need to be quite flexible,
since different languages may have wildly different features that require a
different organization. Also, plenty of people take the grammar writing as
part of the art, and do things like in-world traditional grammars or
perhaps wildly divergent organization to accommodate alien or engelangy
linguistic traits.
Messages in this topic (29)
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1.3. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 10:59 am ((PDT))
On 7 September 2012 18:27, Matthew DeBlock <[email protected]> wrote:
> wow.. such resistance to the word industry. this "field" needs
> consolidation.
>
>
No it doesn't.
> why is the idea of everyone sitting down, collaborating, and trying to
> find a framework that can encompass everyone a problem.
>
>
Because such a framework *cannot* exist. Just like you can't describe each
and every form of artistic painting with a single framework. There are
*schools*, people that have similar styles/techniques/tastes, in conlanging
as in painting, but there can be no "one-size-fits-all" framework for
conlanging, just like there is none for painting (unless you consider "take
a surface, take something that leaves marks on that surface, and do your
thing" to be a framework).
Conlanging needs as much "consolidating" as painting does. None at all.
> not a "standard for conlangs" just a "standard for describing and
> cataloguing a conlang and its features"
>
>
Linguists can't even find a standard for describing and cataloguing
natlangs! And conlangs are orders of magnitude more special and unique. How
do you want to succeed where an entire field of social science has so far
failed?
> As I said, not a "centralized conlang" just a "centralized conlang
> repository"
>
>
Sai mentioned CALS already. I advise it.
> The Frath wiki, I think it is, is already starting down this path. they
> have a nice "checklist" style display for each conlang describing present
> and absent elements.
>
> Why not go a couple steps further, instead of just a checklist, design a
> means of describing the gramatical rules etc..
>
>
Because nobody can possibly come up with all the grammatical features one
can put in a conlang. We *don't even have* an exhaustive list of those!
> Some conlangers may find this "restrictive" in their "presentation", but
> other than that I dont see any obvious road-blocks.
>
>
It will not only be restrictive in their presentation, but also in the very
design of the conlang itself! There's just no way to make an exhaustive
framework that does what you want. Even CALS fails (my own Moten, purely a
naturalistic artlang, fits only partly in the various features described by
CALS - which luckily allows one to add comments to features).
> is it supposedly impossible to design a description system for linguistic
> elements to allow this?
>
>
Basically, yes. Linguists themselves haven't managed to come up with a
single, exhaustive framework for describing natlangs. Why do you think it
would be possible to do so with conlangs?
> Does nobody want to share the individual elements of their conlang
> modularly?
>
>
We already do. Check the description of my Moten: in various blog posts,
all nicely set up and with clear themes. And yet interdependent, because
grammatical features are interdependent. That's the nature of language. So
modular systems can only go so far.
> are the compenet elements of a conlang so "intertwined" they could never
> be described individually and extracted as modules?
>
>
The traditional description as Phonology, Morphology, Syntax and Semantics
works relatively well for natlangs, but even then it has its limits, as
those are indeed intertwined in real language use. And many conlangs
(especially alien languages and engelangs) don't fit at all in this
tradition.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (29)
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1.4. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 11:09 am ((PDT))
--- On Thu, 9/6/12, Matthew DeBlock <[email protected]> wrote:
> I meant "success" as in "survive and prosper as a language"
Perhaps not every conlanger shares this goal.
> Right now Dothraki is being tatooed all over peoples bodys,
> people are
> laerning it, and it is attracting hoards to people the
> conlang, many of
> which have neaver heard of it before. This is I would
> classify as a
> "conlang success story". Lojban is a success story as well,
> and many more,
> the probelm is sucess rate, scale, and survival.
It's "success" rests solely on it being chosen as the language of a
movie or television show of some kind (pace whoever made it! I've never
seen the show or looked at the language, so can't really comment on
how "good the language is" (from my own perspective) or whatever. In
other words, its success has nothing to do with the language itself so
much as the marketing of the larger product that it is part of. Same
can be said of Klingon or Sindarin or Navi. They are "successful" only
in so far as their parent products are successful.
> It doesnt mater how "good the language is" application is
> all that matters in the long run.
I'd argue, really only for myself but perhaps others view this similarly,
that "success" in conlanging doesn't involve things like speaker base
or numbers of fans or sum of dollars (or pounds or euros) generated. It
has more to do with the simple satisfaction of having done the thing,
even in secret, even when no one else knows that the inner Everst has at
last been overcome.
> And if you say "It doesnt have to be used or usable" you are
> now of in a purely artistic or experimental realm,
This is largely where your audience resides. The notions of success that
you've mentioned so far -- surviving, prospering, gaining a speaker base--
those are all hallmarks more the auxlanging mentality.
> and the language element is
> negligable, not very pertenant to a discussion of practical
> application.
> Thats like an artist telling an engineer "you dont have to
> worry about
> what the wheels are made of, as long as they look and feel
> round people
> will see them as wheels"... of course.. but my car won't
> run! what is more
> important?.
Sorry, but I at least am not in the automobile manufactory business. I
don't really give a fiddler's fart whether the wheel "functions" or not!
For me, if a part of a language works smoothly and plausibly, that is
nothing more than a decorative flower on the cakes icing. It's far more
important for the language to be beautiful and to fit within its
fictional ecosystem than it is for the language to function in the mundane
world or attract thousands of people to buy mass-market chintz.
> I think the problem is conlanging is far to fractured.
I think the problem may well end up being our own "success" in the media.
The press, the publicity, the hoardes of fans looking for the next big
conlang hit -- all that can really only serve to push us towards becoming
a commercial enterprise. And in my opinion, that's not where we really
want to be.
I have no problem whatsoever with any conlanger who succeeds in making a
conlang for a major motion picture franchise, and when given the
opportunity, I would at least consider putting a hat in the ring myself.
But what I would not want to see is conlangery itself become some sort of
industrialised, centralised, burocratised hive of activity. No, thank you!
We are happily "fractured" only because we are several hundred individuals
who have chosen to pursue a particular art. When I signed on the list, I
did not sign on with the intention of being forced, coerced, cajolled or
otherwise nudged into some kind of corporate project.
> This is a fundamental problem in the nature of conlanging i
> suppose.
While I see no "fundamental problem" at all.
>
> There are a plethora of small, single person projects out
> there, with
> rigid "centralized control" by the creator(s)...... most die
> with the author.
I have no problem with that at all! Me, I think it would a perfect thing
for an organization like the LCS to receive and digitally archive a
deceased conlanger's conlang related papers; but I really have no problem
at all with such projects dying with their author. Most of them really
weren't meant for anything other than the pleasure of the author in the
first place! Public consumption hasn't really been a great concern of
most of us.
> If people pooled their efforts, instead of each creating
> his/her own
> "fiefdom" then pehaps there would be more hope for "serious
> application"(by serious I only mean huge scale and global
> coverage user wise).
Why would we want that? That sounds like an ideal and admirable goal
for an auxlang. I have no interest in doing this with my own conlangs,
and I certainly have no interest in being corralled into a group project
with such goals!
Padraic
Messages in this topic (29)
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1.5. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 11:16 am ((PDT))
--- On Fri, 9/7/12, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
> > However, I can think of other people who would actually *discourage*
> > the use of their conlangs by others. Think of creators of personal
> > languages.
>
> I haven't heard about "personal language" until now.
> It's an interesting concept!
It's just that -- a language created for the private use of an individual.
Typical uses are diaries or journals or even note taking at school. A
personal or private languages allows you to write anything without fear
upon discovery. Some private languages might be used by a couple (we have
two or three that get discussed here on Conlang from time to time) for
their own communication. This allows you to, for example, talk about
people on the subway without their knowledge or even suspicion. ;) Other
uses of personal languages that have been discussed here are meditation &
prayer & anything for which your native language lacks useful vocabulary.
> Leonardo
Padraic
Messages in this topic (29)
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1.6. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "Arthaey Angosii" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 11:18 am ((PDT))
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 8:36 PM, Matthew DeBlock <[email protected]> wrote:
> And if you say "It doesnt have to be used or usable" you are now of in a
> purely artistic or experimental realm
THIS.
This is *exactly* what many of us in this community are trying to tell
you is, in fact, the case.
Other communities are more in the "practical" realm you seem to be
interested in; perhaps joining the AUXLANG-L list will find you more
like-minded conlangers. You're of course welcome to talk linguistics
here; talking about "success", in the terms you're using, is more
suited to the other list.
--
AA
http://conlang.arthaey.com
Messages in this topic (29)
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1.7. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 11:26 am ((PDT))
--- On Fri, 9/7/12, Matthew DeBlock <[email protected]> wrote:
> But think you glaze over "usage/application" with a blanket
> statement as if to imply it is not important in your verbage here.
It seems that everyone so far that has replied has basically said that,
at least for us as artistically minded conlangers, things like usage and
(real world) application simply aren't important measures of success, if
they are even goals we have set!
> But what I am sying by "success" is not to set some
> standard, more what
> the article says, that success will be decided by
> usage/application over
> time. I am by no means trying to lay out some standard for
> perfection.
Perhaps -- but again, I don't think most of us measure the "success" of
our conlangs by how many people speak our languages. This might be "a"
measure of success for a certain subset of conlangs (I'm still very much
thinking of auxlangs here), but by in large not for artlangs or even
engelangs.
> But one must admit, much of the conlang world "suffers" from
> a kind of "mortailty", which could be solved easily nowadays.
Not everyone wants their works to be immortalized in any way. Those that
want their conlangs to be archived can do so.
Frankly, as I said previously, I think the LCS is in an ideal position to
do something like this in a way that a university library will not be
interested in doing.
> Most conlangs I have seen are still just a devote VERY small
> group, with obvious exceptions like esperanto.
Yes. And? I fail to see the problem here...
> I have no problem with musing ideologically. I'm just coming
> from a
> realistic perspective, coming at it form a "what will time
> just wash away"
> perspective and what can actually "survive and grow on its
> own merit".
By the End, time shall have washed everything away. Again, what's the
problem here?
> That is what I reffer to as success in this sense.
>
> I dont even want to start on the psycological frictions
> inherint in a bunc
> of "people playing god over imaginary kingdoms/cultures"
> giving up their
> "throne" and working together hehe... im not saying its
> easy, im just
> saying this should REALLY be dealt with.. we have the tools
> and broadcast
> reach...
Perhaps, but I think you might need to consider the actual needs and
wishes of your community first, then decide if there is actually something
there that needs to be "dealt with"...
Padraic
Messages in this topic (29)
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1.8. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "Sai" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 11:36 am ((PDT))
On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 11:09 AM, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
[Dothraki]
> It's "success" rests solely on it being chosen as the language of a
> movie or television show of some kind
Pretty much. I have seen its full grammar, and I think it's actually
quite good. But is it better than David's other languages? Eh.
Is it more popular? Certainly, by orders of magnitude. And that's due
entirely to its being broadcast on HBO.
> I'd argue, really only for myself but perhaps others view this similarly,
> that "success" in conlanging doesn't involve things like speaker base
> or numbers of fans or sum of dollars (or pounds or euros) generated. It
> has more to do with the simple satisfaction of having done the thing,
> even in secret, even when no one else knows that the inner Everst has at
> last been overcome.
+1.
>> And if you say "It doesnt have to be used or usable" you are
>> now of in a purely artistic or experimental realm,
>
> This is largely where your audience resides. The notions of success that
> you've mentioned so far -- surviving, prospering, gaining a speaker base--
> those are all hallmarks more the auxlanging mentality.
Yeah. Again: I recommend taking this to AUXLANG-L. It's a welcome
discussion there, where people do share the goal of getting everyone
to collaborate on a single language (or at least to judge languages by
their uptake). ;-)
(Of course, *which* language everyone should collaborate on… there lie
dragons. :-P)
> Sorry, but I at least am not in the automobile manufactory business. I
> don't really give a fiddler's fart whether the wheel "functions" or not!
I diverge there — I do want my languages to be functional, and view
that as part of their language-ness. But I definitely agree that
'functionality' has to be judged within its own context.
> I have no problem whatsoever with any conlanger who succeeds in making a
> conlang for a major motion picture franchise, and when given the
> opportunity, I would at least consider putting a hat in the ring myself.
You're welcome to — see http://conlang.org/jobs/conlanger.php and
http://jobs.conlang.org (the latter doesn't list everything; sign up
through the former to get advanced and more detailed notices).
> But what I would not want to see is conlangery itself become some sort of
> industrialised, centralised, burocratised hive of activity. No, thank you!
Ditto! Commercial conlanging is just like any other commercial art
production: sure, occasionally we have customers, and they want things
a particular way.
That hardly should stop us from being artists on our own time, ne? And
not everyone is interested in pleasing a customer other than their own
muse. ;-)
> I have no problem with that at all! Me, I think it would a perfect thing
> for an organization like the LCS to receive and digitally archive a
> deceased conlanger's conlang related papers
FWIW, all websites hosted with us (conlang.org/hosting.php) already
have this. It'll stay up for as long as we can keep it up.
http://graywizard.conlang.org/ is indeed a site specifically of this
sort — kept up after the author's unfortunate death.
It does help a lot if we already have your website code, though.
On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 11:26 AM, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> It seems that everyone so far that has replied has basically said that,
> at least for us as artistically minded conlangers, things like usage and
> (real world) application simply aren't important measures of success, if
> they are even goals we have set!
Hey, I'm an engelanger, and I totally agree with that too. ;-)
I think constructive criticism within the conlanging community is a
great thing to have, as is a commercial services segment — but I think
it's just total nonsense to judge a work based on criteria its creator
wasn't even aiming for.
It'd be like saying a wedding dress makes for horrible armor. ;-)
> Perhaps -- but again, I don't think most of us measure the "success" of
> our conlangs by how many people speak our languages. This might be "a"
> measure of success for a certain subset of conlangs (I'm still very much
> thinking of auxlangs here), but by in large not for artlangs or even
> engelangs.
Eh. Artlangs surely have, at the least, one measure of success: how
well they please the creator's aesthetics.
If they aim to be naturalistic, there's in-world linguistic
plausibility. If they aim to fit a novel, there's how well they
express the culture of their speakers. Etc.
For UNLWS eg, 'success' is making good and inventive use of the
two-dimensionality of its medium.
There's always *some* measure to be used, but it's hugely variable.
> Frankly, as I said previously, I think the LCS is in an ideal position to
> do something like this in a way that a university library will not be
> interested in doing.
We already do perma-hosting and support the CALS project (which is
operated independently by Taliesin).
Is there anything else you think the LCS should do?
- Sai
Messages in this topic (29)
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1.9. Re: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborative Conlang Even Possible
Posted by: "Adam Walker" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 11:49 am ((PDT))
On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 1:35 PM, Sai <[email protected]> wrote:
> It'd be like saying a wedding dress makes for horrible armor. ;-)
>
>
>
Okay, now THAT is brilliant! I would love to steal this for an
idiom/aphorism/whathave you in one of my languages. I'd say Graavgaaln,
but it doesn't seem to quite fit the culture what with males and females
not living in the same areas except during mating season, which is also the
only time when gender is marked on Graavgaaln nouns (except in romantic
poetry).
Adam
Messages in this topic (29)
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2a. Re: letter for 'th'
Posted by: "Sai" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 10:48 am ((PDT))
Surely this is dependent on the various other uses for underdot, and
the other things you put into grapheme diacritic series?
Question makes no sense without context of the rest of the orthography.
- Sai
On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 9:24 AM, And Rosta <[email protected]> wrote:
> Which of the following is the least rebarbative choice of grapheme for a
> phoneme whose primary allophone is [T] ('th' in _thin_), that eternal
> conlang favourite? Choices are:
>
> c (with or without overdot or underdot)
> d with underdot (where d without underdot is voiced [D])
> x
> h with underdot (where h without underdot is [h, X, x])
>
> My preference would be for C, but I remember what explosions of disgust from
> listfreres my former use of <q> for /N/ (now <n-underdot>) engendered, with
> particular stridor and decrepitation resounding from the west coast or
> Ireland.
>
> --And.
Messages in this topic (25)
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2b. Re: letter for 'th'
Posted by: "And Rosta" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 11:56 am ((PDT))
Sai, On 07/09/2012 18:48:
> Surely this is dependent on the various other uses for underdot, and
> the other things you put into grapheme diacritic series?
>
> Question makes no sense without context of the rest of the orthography.
Some people are able to, and do, rank grapheme--phoneme correspondences by
relative yuckiness, independently of the overall system. That was one reason
why I changed <c>=/?/ <q>=/N/ to <q>=/?/ <n-underdot>=/N/. So what I'd wanted
to ask is "Which choice, if any, do you find least yucky, given only the info
provided?". The general pattern of responses was preference either for <c>=/T/
or for something not on the list and not a viable option. So I've stuck with my
preference for <c>, and thanks to Alex and David McCann, I also now have a nice
story of the history of how <c> came to represent /T/. It was originally the
fairly intuitive T-overdot, changed during the Renaissance to <C> (with
redundant overdot dropped) because of an emerging convention about the
prohibition of dots where there are scenders.
--And.
> On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 9:24 AM, And Rosta<[email protected]> wrote:
>> Which of the following is the least rebarbative choice of grapheme for a
>> phoneme whose primary allophone is [T] ('th' in _thin_), that eternal
>> conlang favourite? Choices are:
>>
>> c (with or without overdot or underdot)
>> d with underdot (where d without underdot is voiced [D])
>> x
>> h with underdot (where h without underdot is [h, X, x])
>>
>> My preference would be for C, but I remember what explosions of disgust from
>> listfreres my former use of<q> for /N/ (now<n-underdot>) engendered, with
>> particular stridor and decrepitation resounding from the west coast or
>> Ireland.
>>
>> --And.
Messages in this topic (25)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3.1. Collaborative Method (WAS: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collaborati
Posted by: "Mia." [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 12:36 pm ((PDT))
On 9/5/2012 2:30 PM, David Peterson wrote:
> I forgot to make this post on the 1st, but we're still pretty close to the
> beginning of September, so here goes.
>
> If you've been on the Conlang-L for even a month, you're probably read a post
> or two by Gary Shannon. In addition to his own projects, though, Gary's been
> at the head of some of the most innovative and successful collaborative
> conlang projects this community has ever seen. If you're new, though, you
> haven't heard of them because they fell by the wayside�even though they were
> successful. In this article, Gary asks the question: Is it even possible to
> put together a collaborative conlang? It's an interesting question, and I
> think Gary is in a unique position when it comes to providing an answer. You
> can read his article here:
>
> http://fiatlingua.org/2012/09/
>
> David Peterson
> LCS President
> [email protected]
> www.conlang.org
From my own experience with Kenakoliku, we had exactly the same
precipitous drop off in participation that seems to plague most
collaborative conlang projects.
I don't think that it was entirely a failure because there were some
things that I learned from the process. There were things that worked
really well and things that didn't. It was easy to get vocabulary
created (and then, in some cases, to extract some morphology from that)
by turning it into a game, but there was no corresponding grammar
game.For a future project, I'd remedy that. I think we had some
fantastic ideas come in for the writing system. (And a few silly ones
too. I will confess to posting the silliest ones.) If I were doing it
again, I'd include more not-strictly-conlanging activities, perhaps in
the vein of creating a conculture
I definitely think there has to be something outside of the language
itself, some reason to use it, to justify the time commitment and the
sustained attention needed to really flesh a project out. Maybe if it
were approached as more interdisciplinary collaborative fiction, rather
than a language project, it might bring and hold people a little more.
NGL (Tokcir), another collaboration, went on for quite a while after it
left CONLANG-L for its own list. I think that it was more successful
than average because it accommodated the wishes of different people by
letting them each have their own take on it. Sometimes people leave when
they see things aren't turning out the way they'd prefer, so some
flexibility in the design is a good thing. The modular design idea also
seemed to work really well, allowing for blocks of vocabulary and
structure to be proposed as a unit. And, for whatever reason, that
particular little group seemed to fit together pretty well socially, IMO.
Mia.
Messages in this topic (29)
________________________________________________________________________
3.2. Re: Collaborative Method (WAS: Fiat Lingua, September: Is a Collabor
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 1:49 pm ((PDT))
I love the idea of creating a conculture and a conlang concurrently.
Or even creating the conculture IN the conlang. For example, to tell a
story, say a brief version of a creation myth, in the conlang. The
conlang only needs to be developed far enough to tell this short myth,
and no more. Then the next person adds another story to the mythology
corpus, creating whatever additional features and vocabulary the
conlang needs to tell THAT myth.
And the very earliest myths could be extremely simplistic, so that the
conlang doesn't need to be "full blown", but only just rudimentary
enough to get the project started. E.G:
"Earth existed always. It was cold and dark and dry. Sun was far away
and did not know of Earth. Then Sun discovered Earth and came to warm
it and bring light to it. And at the end of each day Sun touches Earth
and brings fire, and fire makes high smoke (clouds). And from high
smoke (clouds) comes rain. And rain fills the lakes and rivers and the
sea so that the fish and the animals can come to live on Earth. And
Sun puts both water and fire in the high smoke and when the rain
falls, the high smoke sends bolts of fire for the people to find and
use to warm themselves."
--gary
On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 12:37 PM, Mia. <[email protected]> wrote:
> From my own experience with Kenakoliku, we had exactly the same precipitous
> drop off in participation that seems to plague most collaborative conlang
> projects.
>
> I don't think that it was entirely a failure because there were some things
> that I learned from the process. There were things that worked really well
> and things that didn't. It was easy to get vocabulary created (and then, in
> some cases, to extract some morphology from that) by turning it into a game,
> but there was no corresponding grammar game.For a future project, I'd remedy
> that. I think we had some fantastic ideas come in for the writing system.
> (And a few silly ones too. I will confess to posting the silliest ones.) If
> I were doing it again, I'd include more not-strictly-conlanging activities,
> perhaps in the vein of creating a conculture
>
> I definitely think there has to be something outside of the language itself,
> some reason to use it, to justify the time commitment and the sustained
> attention needed to really flesh a project out. Maybe if it were approached
> as more interdisciplinary collaborative fiction, rather than a language
> project, it might bring and hold people a little more.
>
> NGL (Tokcir), another collaboration, went on for quite a while after it
> left CONLANG-L for its own list. I think that it was more successful than
> average because it accommodated the wishes of different people by letting
> them each have their own take on it. Sometimes people leave when they see
> things aren't turning out the way they'd prefer, so some flexibility in the
> design is a good thing. The modular design idea also seemed to work really
> well, allowing for blocks of vocabulary and structure to be proposed as a
> unit. And, for whatever reason, that particular little group seemed to fit
> together pretty well socially, IMO.
>
>
> Mia.
Messages in this topic (29)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4a. Re: gsfa [WAS: Basic Word Lists]
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 1:21 pm ((PDT))
For what it's worth, I added section six, 203 more sentences to the
"Graded Sentences for Analysis" files (gsfa). I hadn't realized that
my last update had been 4 years ago!
http://fiziwig.com/conlang/gsfa_6.txt
Many of the sentences seem dated, and many are awfully "literary" or
stilted. It occurred to me that it might be interesting to paraphrase
the sentences in some standard form, and with a small, controlled
vocabulary, to serve not as models of sentence structure, but as a
checklist of the general TYPES of things a conlang should be able to
say, without regard to HOW those things are said.
--gary
On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 9:30 PM, Arthaey Angosii <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 8:29 PM, John Erickson
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> I'm at a point with one of my languages where I'm trying to flesh out the
>> vocabulary but I'm having a hard time figuring out what new words I need
>> off the top of my head.
>>
>> Are there any good basic word/concept lists out there that could help?
>
> I maintain a small list of wordlists here:
>
> http://www.arthaey.com/conlang/translationex.html#wordlists
>
> And CALS also has a small list:
>
> http://cals.conlang.org/word/list/
>
>
>
> --
> Arthaey
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
4b. Re: gsfa [WAS: Basic Word Lists]
Posted by: "Arthaey Angosii" [email protected]
Date: Fri Sep 7, 2012 2:09 pm ((PDT))
On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 1:21 PM, Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
> It occurred to me that it might be interesting to paraphrase
> the sentences in some standard form, and with a small, controlled
> vocabulary, to serve not as models of sentence structure, but as a
> checklist of the general TYPES of things a conlang should be able to
> say, without regard to HOW those things are said.
Do let us know if you ever write that up — I'd certainly be interested in it! :)
--
AA
http://conlang.arthaey.com
Messages in this topic (2)
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