Hallo!

On Wed, 13 May 2009 22:49:32 -0400, Herman Miller wrote:

> > ["dead" conlangs]
> 
> How to tell the difference between "dead" and "dormant", though?

Indeed, a conlang that one may pick up again later should not be
considered "dead", but "dormant".  Though many of us probably have
abandoned projects that they will definitely never continue, either
because the documentation is lost, or, more significantly, they
have realized that the whole thing went the wrong direction (such
as the ciphers of their L1 many conlangers produce at the begin
of their career).

>       Tirelat 
> survived nearly four years in a mostly dormant state until I picked it 
> up again and used it in a recent relay. At any given time I only work on 
> one or two languages at once, so there are bound to be some that are 
> temporarily inactive. Yasaro is one of those languages that I work on 
> only intermittently, with long periods of down time. Right now I'm 
> looking at two languages that I stopped actively working on 20 years 
> ago, with the idea of taking what I've learned since then to make a new 
> language or languages based on that material.

I also have to restrict myself to working on only a small number of
languages at a time, because otherwise I become too disorganized and
achieve nothing - at least nothing of lasting value.  Germanech has
been pretty dormant during the last few years, interrupted only by
a New Year's greeting I posted on Jan 1 (together with one in Old
Albic).  But Germanech definitely isn't dead in any regard: I *do*
intend to write up its grammar, dictionary and a collection of texts
and put it on my web site!  It is just that I am currently more
focussed on the Albic project (and occasionally get distracted by
yet another project - X-3 (now named "Quetech") - not to mention
other things I am concerned with besides conlanging.

> [BPJ wrote:]
> > I think a more useful, and truthful, term when
> > talking about conlangs would be _mature_, in the
> > sense of being capable of performing at least a
> > semblance of the communicative functions of a
> > natlang, most notably to be used to compose texts
> > -- on any subject --, and thus also at least
> > potentially being used for conversation, or
> > possessing most of the characteristics of a
> > 'natlang', not only in terms of vocabulary but
> > also in terms of grammatical categories, or
> > historical depth if you are of that bent.
> 
> That could certainly be a worthwhile goal for a conlang, and that's a 
> good case for doing translations (you run across ideas and ways of 
> expressing them that might not have occurred to you otherwise). I'd like 
> to reach that degree of "completeness" with one of my langs someday -- 
> lately though I've been held back by indecision whether to continue 
> developing Tirelat, to go back to Minza, or start a completely new one 
> (recent attempts called Irinda, Dzmients, and Zinaki have barely reached 
> the initial explorative stages of development).

Indeed.  Maturity, as defined by BPJ, is definitely what I wish to
attain with both Germanech and Old Albic.  I am perhaps less indecided
because I don't have that many conlang projects going, though.

On Wed, 13 May 2009 20:44:22 -0700, Roger Mills wrote:

> Jörg and Benct-- your two comments are the most thoughtful analyses of the
> art, purpose and destination of our conlanging that I've ever read. I think 
> that at least some of your material should be incorporated into "The Conlang 
> Manifesto" or at least some other Statement of Purpose.   

Thank you!

On Thu, 14 May 2009 12:13:36 +0200, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:

> Roger Mills skrev:
> > Jörg and Benct-- your two comments are the most thoughtful analyses of the
> > art, purpose and destination of our conlanging that I've ever read. I 
> > think that at least some of your material should be incorporated into "The 
> > Conlang Manifesto" or at least some other Statement of Purpose.     
> > 
> > I've often thought of trying to write at least a partial all-Kash 
> > dictionary, but will have to review, say, my Shorter OED to see how it's 
> > really done :-) I know that technical vocabulary is lacking, and there 
> > aren't a lot of synonyms. In the next few days I'm going to give it a try, 
> > just to see how difficult it will actually be..........    
> 
> With Jörg's permission I'll bloggify the exchange.

You have my permission.

> Jörg, did you remove any of my writing when replying?

No; I quoted it in full, only adding a few breaks where I inserted
my comments.

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