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--- On Sun, 12/6/09, Marko <codename_gimmick@hidden.email> wrote: >I do have to concede one point that Padraic makes, Capsicum, and that's >to be found simply in the point that I can't completely understand >everything he posted in his last reply (how embarrassing on my part!). Why should yóu be embarassed? It's not your conlang, and unless you've seriously studied it, there'd be no reason why anyone should expect you to completely understand it! As I said before, even though I wrote it, I had to check the grammar and confirm some words in the lexicon. If anyone should be embarassed, it should be me that had to look up so much stuff and had to ponder how such-and-such should best be said! One truly Good Thing that comes from these kinds of exchanges, whether here in this list or out in some chat room, is that holes in the lexicon become quite apparent. A lot of the vocabulary of a conlang is "virtual". Once you know how to put words together, the conlanger sort of intuitively knows how a word should look, even if it's missing from his dictionary. There were several instances of having to fill in such virtual lexical entries since wielding Kerno the last couple days. I don't think I've written so much as two words of it the last year! I've also found a few idioms, for which I am in Capsicum's debt. >There may be some romlangs so distant from Latin, or Romance languages >familiar to us, that some of us will be left struggling to communicate at >all. (That said, that doesn't mean it's not worth a try to anyone who's >willing to invest the effort.) Sure. Tis always worth the effort. As I said, chat rooms and the like aren't my cup of tea. >He also raises many other good points, though, and this one has surfaced >here before. Many artlangers don't make artlangs to learn them to fluency->- a few will often even deliberately limit their corpus of words so they >can move on to other projects. IOW, the goals of that language have so >little to do with actually using them that they're not developed in a way >that makes that very feasible. That is true. Very frequently, such languages are made to compliment an invented culture or alt-history. They don't need to be able to rewrite Dante, just so long as they can give a flavour of what the language might look like. >Often this isn't so much the case with, say, micronational languages or >personal languages (or auxlangs, of course, but that's a bit >tautological, yes? ;-) ). The Talossan language boasts a huge corpus, and >that's because (a) it's meant to be used with some degree of regularity >by the creator's following, and (b) its policy of word creation seems to >be rather liberal (i.e., no Grand Master Plan, just whatever feels good). >It appears to be pretty highly functional as a result, as far as a >conlang is concerned. >I actually have scrapped the notion of any Grand Master Plan for my >(first) romlang, because unlike other conlangs I'm invested in, it is >intended for use as a personal language (rather than, say, demonstrating >the results of any certain contrafactual historical/diachron ic->linguistic anomaly). Makes sense. If you're going to use a conlang for personal use (a lot of people use them to write journals, etc), then it makes sense for it to be easy to use! >You can see some rough patterns of phonological change in what tentative >words I *have* coined, but they're far from consistent. I just want to >create something fun that I can use to write with or what-have-you, for >no other reason than that I would enjoy using it. I'm rather surprised to >hear that (from the sound of it) you're working out a GMP in a conlang >you intend to make that kind of use of-- that'll be a lot of work, at >least insofar as you intend to have a reasonably complete corpus of words >(but don't let me discourage you, as your ideas sound fascinating and I'm >sure you can pull it off!). No doubt! A GMP doesn't have to be terribly complex. It's just a basic set of alchemical rules -- how you transmute a Latin (usually) word into a Romance word. It could be as simple as only a few rules on how to deal with final consonants; or it could be byzantine in its complexity, full of exceptions and intended to show detailed transmutation across tens of centuries. Mine is not terribly complex, though are some odd twists; and there is some diachronic data (particularly in the paradigms) that offer snapshots of early and medieval and early modern forms of the language. If you use a cheat sheet (like Latin to Romance in Sound Charts), it can become a matter of a half hour's work. >I'm not really sure if Padraic's response was in any sort of negative >spirit, but this dialogue does raise the notion that it's important not >to be imposing when suggesting such a forum. I wasn't suggesting that Capsicum was being imposing! Only that the suggested forum may be of limited use for most conlangers. Of course, anyone who ìs interested should do it. >I agree that this group is quite fine for showing off conlangs and >exchanging ideas-- my interest in a romlang chat simply comes from (a) an >interest to see some of them used in more expedient communication Good point. Though this could be done here as well as anywhere else. "Expedient communication" in your native language will be a little different and much faster than a conlang where you have to look up words and make new words on the fly and check grammar. >and (b) the fact that it would prevent this group from becoming flooded >with back-and-forth exchanges of that kind in the event that your >proposal were to take off (all due respect, if I were not involved in >such exchanges myself, I don't know that I'd be dying to read through >them to find other posts here). A valid concern. Though it must be noted that Romconlang is not exactly a high volume list! Our all-time record for monthly posts is 164 (Jan 2007). High traffic lists like Conlang, before posting limits were imposed, could manage that in a day. A system of subject line tags could be used to mark such exchanges. That way anyone not interested could simply delete unread. >I almost hate to suggest this, but it really is one of your better >options, in terms of finding interested parties. Have you considered >inviting speakers of Romance-based auxlangs? Most of them seem quite >enthusiastic to speak the ones they know, but I imagine someone would >have to stipulate that issues of advocation are not to be introduced in >order to keep the mood light. Cor. Now thát's Pandora's box. As I recall, the gods separated the Auxlangers from the Conlangers (the debate rages as to who are the demons and who are the angels!) in order to keep all the superheated politics in a separate place. I'm not entirely convinced that auxlang politics can be kept separate from auxlang use (by partisans or creators, mind). They seem to be pretty tightly bound! >All told, I still think this is a good idea, and I'll happily join in >even if it just turns out to be a two-man ordeal. :-) Then like I said before: I wish you two well! ;))) Padraic > --- In romconlang@yahoogro ups.com, "Capsicum" <thomas@...> wrote: >> >> There is no need to be unfriendly. >>