Ways to amuse yourself when you have a head-cold #569

[truepenny]

Invent a language.

cavlec recommended The Language Construction Kit a couple years ago. I said, Ooh, nifty! and bookmarked it, figuring that sooner or later I'd need it.

And my foresight pays off. Emperor needs a conlang, so I have spent the morning going through the LCK and making decisions. I think I got a little overexcited about diacriticals, but at least there won't be any apostrophes. And it's letting me fill in some of the horrid [blank]s in the file.

Comments

[penmage.livejournal.com]

That is the coolest thing ever. I just spent an utterly happy half hour at work reading through it and gleeing accordingly. What a way to alleviate boredom! Awesome, awesome.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. :)

Quechua!

[joatamon]

I too have a head cold and now you've given me a new thing to geek out about. I don't know whether to hug you or throttle you.

hugs. tries not to spread the lurgy.

Re: Quechua!

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I figure anything that can distract me from how miserable I feel is a good thing.

Hope you get better soon.

Re: Quechua!

[joatamon]

Hope you get better soon.

Dude, you too.

[libskrat]

If you EVER invent a language that contains apostrophes, I will hunt you down and kill you -- and I know what city you live in, I do...

Just so you know.

You may be able to evade diacriticals via alternate spellings. Lots of languages do.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

No, no apostrophes. We hatess them, precioussss, nasssty little things.

And the diacriticals vs. alternate spelling has already become part of the world-building (one culture uses one method, the other the other), so I'm pretty much stuck with them. But I think it'll work out okay.

Or, when I get this finished, my beta-readers will beat me about the head and ears and I'll work out something else. :)

[redbird]

I am now tempted to invent a conlang that uses apostrophes the same way English does, to indicate elisions.

[libskrat]

Well, go ahead. But you'd just better be sure you show me the unelided forms in other contexts.

Because, see, if the forms have been elided so long that native speakers are no longer aware of the elision, THE APOSTROPHE DISAPPEARS, DAMN IT.

Bloody recent invention anyway, the apostrophe. Spanish managed to jam forms of HABERE/haber together with verbs to create entirely new future and conditional formations, not an apostrophe in sight anywhere. Grammaticalization. It's a wonderful thing.

The basic problem I have with apostrophes in conlangs is that in 999 uses out of 1000, the apostrophe is completely otiose. Do these people not *think*? Apostrophes are not supposed to be simply decorative!

*strolls off, foaming vaguely at mouth*