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--- Benct Philip Jonsson skrzypszy:
> I have been thinking lately about how 'historical
> conlangers' go about their work, and am thinking of
> eventually turning the thoughts into some kind of essay. I
> would appreciate what others who are into that line of
> conlanging think of what I've come up with so far.
Interesting ideas, Bengan! I'll try to comment as faithfully as I
can, although I am aware that my languages are perhaps not the best
example of what you have in mind, as you know well!
> - People usually have one language or dialect which was
> there first in real time, and which often remains central
> to the whole edifice, from which various imaginary
> ancestors, daughters and siblings (what I call "stages" or
> "nodes") radiate.
Well, in the case of Wenedyk, that proto-language is obviously an
existing one - Vulgar Latin. You could say that perhaps even more
central is Proto-Northeast-Romance, as the direct ancestor of your
Slvanjek and my Wenedyk and Slezan, but of no other language.
> - It is notably often *not* the protolanguage (the highest
> node in the linguistic family tree) which was there
> first in real time, but some later form which gets
> labeled "classical" or some variety thereof.
Well, in real time Vulgar Latin comes definitely much earlier than
either PNE or Wenedyk or whatever. :) However, if we'd take PNE as
the proto-language instead of Latin, then we might easily say, that
Wenedyk and Slvanjek came before PNE, although not much.
Of course, PNE is not a real language. All we know about it is how
far the sound changes had gone by then, but none of its grammar or
vocabulary seems to have cristallised. That's something I intend to
change, though. I plan to make a few text in different stages from
the development of Wenedyk, starting with PNE, but also incorporating
Old Wenedyk and later stages of the language.
Speaking for my other language: in 1996 I started working on both
Hattic and Vozgian. Hattic derives from a proto-language, a stage
between PIE and modern Hattic, something akin to Proto-Germanic or
Common Slavic, and the two where developed simultaneously. In other
words: before coining a Hattic word I created a word in what I would
later call "Proto-Khadurian". With Vozgian it was essentially the
same thing: it has three sister languages (now defunct), and all were
based on a "Proto-North-Slavic" language. The current version of
Vozgian has little to do with this earlier version; in fact, it's a
completely different language that just incorporates some features
from all four North Slavic languages created back then.
> - I make a terminological distinction between 'versions' in
> real time and 'stages' in imaginary time meant to provide
> orientation when exploring the development through real
> time of the imaginary history of imaginary languages,
> where one has to deal with two dimensions of time:
That difference is quite essential, yes. Note that conlangers go
about that different. Someone, IIRC Nik Taylor in his Uatakassi, uses
earlier versions of the language as dialect, and I vaguely remember
that someone else uses different versions of the language as
different stages in its con-history.
That is something I have never done myself. Older versions of Wenedyk
or any other of my languages are just older versions, now incorrect
and no longer valid.
> - Effectively any piece of linguistic creation by an
> historical conlanger has to be placed on a coordinatde
> system where one axis is the conlanger's lifetime and
> the other axis the history of the imaginary universe
> where the stages are spoken.
Quite so!
> - It is not necessarily or usually the case that what I
> call a later version of one language represents a break
> or fresh start relative to any or all earlier versions.
> A new version need not be a rewrite, but probably a
> conscious revision as opposed to a tweak or a bug fix.
> :-) Changes and differences may be gradual, cumulative,
> abrupt or whatever.
Absolutely. My languages has gone through all kinds of changes.
Wenedyk, the way it looked like in 2002, is something completely
different from Wenedyk the way it looks like now. The funny thing is
that - except for one very major revision of the GMP - the changes
came so gradually that I hardly noticed them myself.
On the other hand, any revision of the GMP has some impact on
virtually all words affected by it.
In the case of Vozgian, you can hardly call it versions. The current
version of Vozgian borrows only the name of its predecessor (because
I liked it and still do), as well as a few features and some words,
but it is essentially a completely different language. As far as
you'd want to treat them as versions of the same language, it's
rather call them "incarnations" or something similar.
> - "Stages" may go through various "versions" or
> "revisions", often without all the stages being
> revised at the same time, although a revision in some
> place in the family tree -- especially a major one --
> may of course have larger or smaller repercussions
> throughout the tree.
>
> - Some stages are revised more often and/or more
> extensively than others.
>
> - The "central" stage tends to undergo less revision
> than other stages.
>
> - Changes to the "central" stage are likely to have more
> and heavier repercussions on other stages.
Well, Benct, you know the history of both Wenedyk and Slvanjek all
too well, don't you? ;) In our case, it completely depends on what
you define as "central stage". All I can say is that Wenedyk has
always been deeply affected by any new discovery I made regarding
Vulgar Latin and, more in particular, regarding the chronology of
sound changes in Slavic/Polish.
As far as I have ever given any thought to PNE as a language, I can't
say it was affected by my thoughts about Wenedyk. Except, perhaps,
for the choice of certain words instead of others.
> - The protolanguage, being primary in imagined time but
> secondary in real time actually tends to get revised
> more, usually with a view to make it more plausible as
> a common ancestor of sibling nodes lower in the tree.
N/A, in this case.
> - Unlike real language history the protolanguage is a
> secondary product made to fit its daughters.
I think that completely depends on the conlanger in question. I've
never made up anything similar (Hattic comes closest, I feel), but if
I would ever go for such a thing, I would definitely start with the
proto-language and base its daughters on that language, not the other
way round.
BTW, one reason why I abandoned my previous North Slavic project
(Vozgian, Motyak, Slopik and a fourth one of which I can't even
remember the name) was, that working on four daughter languages at
the same time gave several undesired results. In short: the languages
started looking like bad copies of each other. At last, I wasn't
satisfied with any of them. That's why I started a new project from
virtually zero. My thought, but not really developed yet, was to
"revive" the old four languages somewhat as dialects.
> - Should I use the term "node", as on an imaginary family
> tree, throughout instead of "stage". What do native
> English speakers think of these terms (stage, node,
> version) as I use them?
I'll leave that to the native speakers!
Cheers,
Jan
__________
"The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be
born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future
or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain."
� G'Kar quoting G'Quon, Babylon 5
http://steen.free.fr/
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