Re: [Latejami] conlanging programmer

So geoff.hacker is a programmer. I think every conlanger on the move should either be a programmer or be very nice to a programmer.

 

Conlang design would benefit wonderfully from the use of a database application.

 

Think of a natural language like English. When we define an English word we define it using other English words.

 

Yet when we define a conlang word we do not define it using the words of that conlang. The conlang lacks rules and vocabulary sufficient to define the words of the conlang.

 

This is because the designer becomes fatigued before getting the conlang to that point.

 

A normal English dictionary has some 10,000 words defined.

 

This means 10,000 morphemes. Never mind defining them. How do you select them, just the phonological shape of each morpheme that will be matched with meanings. That is the simplest task of conlang design if you ask me. It is just painfully time consuming.

 

Now a programmer, given the phonological inventory and the phonotactic rules of the conlang could generate a million legal morphemes in a day.

 

As you can guess I am struggling to learn enough programming so that I can database my conlang concepts into a fully developed child.

 

FaqSphinx