Post by Paul BartlettWell, I gave two explicit examples, aUI and Sona, both of which are (or
are attempted to be) languages with limited morphemes. aUI has
precisely 42, and Sona has 375 words/radicals. These are sometimes
called oligosynthetic languages. How successful they have been is, of
course, another matter.
Oh, yes, sorry, now I see what you mean. I tried to look at aUI and
Sona a bit, but I'm not really familiar with either, though I do think
I've read a tiny bit about Sona years ago. There's discussion in
conlanging circles all the time though about oligosynthesis in
general, if usually just to put it down as impossible/impractical, so
I'm familiar with the idea.
I had thought of giving fundamental meanings to the letters in my
typewritten language. I don't know whether it's possible to make an
oligosynthetic language that actually follows a simple set of rules in
constructing meanings, or rather I don't know how useful it's possible
to make such a language. But my language is less rigid than that,
anyway. Even if every word comes from a few basic roots that combine,
there's also lots of transformations that words can go through, and
there's idiosyncratic meanings for compounds and phrases. So, plenty
of wiggle room to allow a full range of expression!
My project is also more suited to starting from a limited set of
meanings, because I'm not at all trying to cover the ordinary semantic
territory. Lots of things that are easy to say in most languages will
be much harder in mine. In general, it's easy to say things about
text, about the internet, about consciously forming social and
collaborative situations, and about groups and especially pairs of
people, while it's less easy to talk about physical objects and
situations, and introspective or individual experiences and actions.
So even if what people say about oligosynthesis is true, I'm not that
scared of it: I'm not trying to make every possible meaning magically
emerge from a small set of primitives, I'm just trying to chart a
particular strange area of meaning from a small set of primitives,
which should work just right.
I guess people say negative stuff about oligosynthesis because people
try to use it to make auxlangs. It seems to me like an especially
terrible way to make an auxlang. What you're going to get from
oligosynthesis is something crunchy and difficult and possibly logical
but definitely obscure. But I think that's appropriate for a sort of
artlang that appeals to me, hmm how to put it, languages that emerge
from a particular specific place, a specific method and internal
order, and the experience of learning them or speaking them has a
strong character that flows from that. I wouldn't use it to make
something that's supposed to be general or open or versatile.
I'm not going to chain myself to oligosynthesis as a technique. If I
find it convenient to coin a bunch of long roots, then I will. But I
am going to at least start out with a tiny set of roots, adding rules
to make compounds and transformations from them, and see how far
they'll take me.
<3,
la stela selckiku
aka
mungojelly
aka
bret-ram
aka
veret'he
aka
brett
aka
j