Grammar & Proving a Point

In my last post I pointed out the close minded attitude of some people regarding CONLANGing. I still think the person is an idiot for not keeping an open mind and to prove her wrong I've been working like a beaver.

Grammar however continues to be my most difficult task. Being someone not taught a lot of grammar at school I find it difficult to interpret my own language's grammar, English of course, let alone create my own. My ever patient mother is getting used to my random phone calls saying "Mum, explain "is" to me." I've almost got "is" but tenses continue to be a point of debate between us for although she isn't interested in doing this we both love debating language and I fail to see the point to the 12 tenses English has, having only 3 and contemplating a fourth.

Structure is another issue. English grammar is infinitely complex and the more I study it the more impressed I feel not only at those learning it as a second language, for whom I feel intensely sorry, but for the millions who learn it's complexities without even realising it. It makes me realise how incredibly sophisticated the human brain actually is.

I will, of course, keep going. I am enjoying this project WAY too much to stop now and as my linguistic university classes continue I get more and more ideas about my own language. My Anthropology and politics classes too help me to understand human behaviour and culture, adding to the colour and expression.

That is what I believe people fail to take into account. Language isn't just abut a bunch of words. It's about expression of common things. Abstract things like Love and Death and pain and the sense of something bigger. Perhaps one day we'll evolve beyond the need for words but for now I'll try to take all these things into account and it will help me make my language better by the day.

Now it's late so I'll finish by my first sentence of Selmari on this blog: Jimero alesami*. Or sleep well. :)

*Literally "peacefully sleep" but effectively it means "sleep well".

Words, Sounds and Problems

Trying to think up new words is really hard I've discovered. Finished Uni exams so I finally have time to think about it and I'm stuck. Problem is that every time I work out enough words for a sentence (which sound like ones written by 3 year olds ie. 'I love you' etc) they sound stupid and I can't work out why.

I've listened to some other Conlang projects online and they sound quite good. I don't get why mine sounds so....I'm not sure. Forced? Stumbling? Just plain weird! My word length is varied, I've gotten some words which have the right letters to have the softer sounds but it still sound dumb.

Part of the problem is I can't get the inflection. When we speak our voices rise and fall naturally. English has more variation than some languages and Italian has even more than English. I need that but I can't find it. I can't find the rhythm.

My mother, who thankfully doesn't want to have me committed for doing this and is even willing to talk about it, said a sentence the other day. I'd told her the words of course and she said them as if she were speaking English. She got it! I'm TOTALLY jealous! How come she could say it and I couldn't? The only good thing was that when she said the sentence it sounded quite decent. Not perfect but decent.

I'm trying to get a softness, a thoughtfulness to this language. The idea behind the language came about because I write for fun. I have dozens of stories now and probably thousand of pages. I created a culture and I thought it would be fun to create a language for that culture. I wanted the language to match the culture however and this culture is quite thoughtful, doing things carefully and deliberately rather than quickly. At some point I hope the language will match however for now I'm quite enjoying this project. I keep thinking how totally cool it would be to walk down the street somewhere and hear someone say something in your language!