Hallo!

On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:16:18 -0700, Alex Bichsler wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 8:23 AM, Jörg Rhiemeier 
> <[log in to unmask]>wrote:  
> 
> > Why should a Sidhe language be related to Celtic?  I'd rather wager
> > that it is not obviously related to any human language at all.  It
> > depends on what assumes to be the nature of the Sidhe, though.
> >
> 
> Honestly, I wouldn't expect a Sidhe language to be related to Celtic at all,
> which is why I qualified the statement with "if their language is related at
> all to human languages". -_^  In fact, I might expect a Sidhe language (at
> least for the Sidhe of _Jonathan Stranger & Mr. Norrell_) to have "magical
> components" to it, (i.e. phonemes that would be impossible to pronounce with
> a human mouth without using magic).

I don't know about the Sidhe of that book, so I cannot comment on what
kind of language to expect from them.

>       As to your other points about usual 
> descriptions of Elvish languages, my general concept of an "elf language"
> mostly agrees with that; it would probably have tone, a large vocabulary,
> lots of agreement, evidentiality, among other foreign-seeming qualities.
> *shrugs*

Yes, this is often said about Elvish languages in books, role-playing
games and other media.  Yet, most elflangs do not live up to such
"ideals" - not even Tolkien's, which, while belonging to the best
conlangs ever made (in my humble opinion, that is), are not
exceedingly complex and also not very exotic.  They would easily fit
into the linguistic landscape of Europe, being typologically similar
to Indo-European (especially Celtic) and Uralic languages.  One could
argue that Quenya and Sindarin would fit human speakers better than
a race of immortal demigods like Tolkien's Elves.

But many elflangs are not nearly as well-made as Tolkien's.  Often, they
are just word lists.  I once saw a "Drow" language (Drow are an evil
elven race in the Forgotten Realms world of the Dungeons & Dragons RPG)
on the web which was a relex of English.  Someone criticized this,
declared that this Drow language was just a creole of the real thing
- and designed a language which was, while using the same vocabulary,
a relex of Quenya.  A notorious case is the Elvish language of the
"Grey Company" (nicknamed "Grelvish" by Tolkienists), whose wordstock
is a mishmash of Quenya, Sindarin, stuff found in Dungeons & Dragons
handbooks and other material from God knows where:

http://www.grey-company.org/Language/

This page about the elflang Sperethiel from the Shadowrun and Earthdawn
RPGs

http://ancientfiles.dumpshock.com/Sperethiel_Dictionary.htm

begins with the usual lofty buzzwords about Elvish ("runic language"
- what does that mean?  Runes are just an old Germanic alphabet;
"perhaps the most complex language on earth"; "very efficient
information transfer"; "over a dozen declensions") - and then presents
which appears to be a language with a seemingly quite humdrum European-
style grammar.  There is nothing especially intricate or ingenious
about it.

But perhaps that is too much to expect from an elflang.  We are all just
human, and designing a truly superhuman language is beyond our capacities.
It perhaps tells a lot that Danny Wier's elflang Tech apparently never
went anywhere (or at least, I haven't heard of him and his ambitious
project for about five years now).

Nevertheless, some of the most beautiful conlangs I have seen are meant
to be spoken by Elves or Elf-like beings, such as Elliott Lash's
Silindion and Sylvia Sotomayor's Kelen (whose speakers are not called
"Elves", but have some Elf-like qualities to them).

... brought to you by the Weeping Elf