Another Web Page Becomes Solid Pages

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Wow! Look what came riding in on the mail truck today!



That’s right, dudes: Mark Rosenfelder’s mighty work, The Language Construction Kit, has climbed out of the internet and onto my coffee table!

I have a real soft spot for the Language Construction Kit. I won’t say it was my first exposure to conlanging—like so many nerdlets, I started doing it myself, long before I discovered that there was a word for it.* However, the Kit came soon after that to provide me with structure, a deeper understanding of what the hell I was doing and how to accomplish it, and some really nifty ideas.** I still go back to it when I need a boost on some point or other of a language.

So hell yeah, I will temporarily break my Amazon ban and shell out fifteen bucks for this thing. After years of fun, I have to show my appreciation somehow.

The book is good, too! Fleshed out, as promised, clear, concise, and filled with a few terribly amusing typos. (My favorite is when he left the t out of native English speaker and Autocorrect apparently decided to help him out. Frankly, naïve English speaker works pretty well, too.) I am going to suggest we get it for the Liberry. They will look at me the same way you are looking at me now.

I don’t care! This book has word lists, dammit! WORD LISTS. How can you resist WORD LISTS?


*I think I got hooked on linguistics in Spanish class, but I also want to give some credit for my descent into madness to the excellent Who Talks Funny: A Book About Languages for Kids by Brenda S Cox. It pretty much outlines all sorts of cool features of other languages, and totally blew my wee little mind at the variety of languages out there.

**For example, how to be more efficient about making words. The first time I decided to make a full conlang, I distinctly recall putting together a bit of a syntax and morphology, then sitting down with a notebook and a dictionary and quite simply starting with the A’s. Somewhere I think I still have that stupid notebook, which details how to say such core vocabulary words as “abandon,” “abyss,” “acrobat” …

Comments

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I remember my first encounter with the LCK! Like you, I had my own little baby conlang when I was a kid--though it was highly theoretical and never really got as far as grammar, being more of an English/Spanish gloss at the time--but running into that site was my first idea that Real Live People made up languages too. (Tolkien apparently didn't count, in my head. He was dead. Not the same at all!)

And, seriously, who can resist word lists?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, for some reason it didn't occur to me to count Tolkien until I read his biography, long after I'd read the Lord of the Rings. Not really because he was dead, but more because whenever he'd start to carry on with his poetry I'd automatically skim it, so I wasn't really thinking about how he had made a language.

I know I can't resist them! WORDS!

[fenmere.livejournal.com]

Ooh, neat! I'm jealous.

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

Oh my gods it's in book form.

*grabby hands*

Yay!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I have long enjoyed the website. I would love to have the hardcopy. Thanks for the alert!

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Wait, it's a book now?!

It, and Pablo David Flores's "How To Create A Language" were my first introduction to conlanging as a serious pursuit. My earlier naive attempt had been a "reform" of sorts of Latin (irregularities bothered me, and then I started adding stuff I found in the encyclopedia...)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

It's a book, and it's EXPANDED! I'd probably have paid for it if it was just the same thing in book form, because after so many years of use I want to show my appreciation SOMEHOW. But you actually get MORE CONTENT. It's a thing of beauty.

Yeah, I suppose the Kit was where it actually started to make SENSE to me. My attempts before it and Cox's book (seriously, don't underestimate the power of a book of Interesting Facts) had been merely groping around some non-English formations--hell, I thought I was a god damn genius when I gave my language a gender-neutral 3rd-person pronoun. HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF SUCH A THING I AM SO RADICAL I JUST BLEW YOUR MIND.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I admit I laughed at your attempting to reform Latin's irregularities--because you are definitely the type, and I have been there too. ;)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

You see, until I'd read this entry I believed the term was 'nerdling', and it's useful for me to have native English speakers on my list so that I can learn that it's actually 'nerdlet'. Unless nerdling also exists but means something else entirely. ;P

They will look at me the same way you are looking at me now.
If your journal was read by different readers that would probably hold true.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'll be darned! Urban Dictionary has entries for both "nerdlet" and "nerdling"! It seems that "nerdling" has a broader meaning than "nerdlet," but the definitions overlap.

And yeah, I suppose a lot of the folks I hang out with would look at me with utter glee when I displayed this book to them--at least, judging by the comments!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

I want to eat you and steal your calculators!

Awesome catchphrase. :D

[beccastareyes]

... I need this book. BRB, ordering from Amazon.

(Also need to do more conlang work, which means I need to get writing again.)

[annotated_em]

*deeply entertained* This is timely. I'm taking my required linguistics class this summer, and the major project is coming up with our own language.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Without knowing anything else about it, I love your linguistics class.

And yes, you learn a lot about linguistics from this book! Go for it!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Trust me, you won't be able to STOP yourself from conlanging with this book. At least, not if you're like me and want to see if your language can do everything he comes up with.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

My reaction exactly!

[annotated_em]

The whole thing's online. Which, now that we're out of the intro stuff and I'm trying to match alveopalatal voiced stops or whatever to sounds that I recognize, is, uh. Challenging, to say the least.

But the main project itself, yeah. That's pretty fun.

[stagemanager.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you got it!!