Yeah, that's a really fun project to do!

I did that in August, and created my first major conlang, Llárriésh. It was
a month long project, and a huge learning process. You can read all about it
on the blog I documented it on, www.burntfen.net/conlang, or on my LCS site
which has more information on it, I think: http://llama.conlang.org

Good luck! Make sure to blog about it, so we can all follow on the blogroll.
:)

Richard

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 10:17 AM, Eugene Oh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> That sounds like a very interesting plan. I'll be waiting to read your
> journal updates, and the final product!
>
> Good luck.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 31 Oct 2010, at 06:24, Gary Shannon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > In the spirit of NaNoWriMo I thought it might be fun to start a new
> > conlang from scratch on Nov. 1 with the goal of completing it by Nov.
> > 30. That, of course, raises the question: What does it mean to
> > "complete" the conlang. In order to have an unambiguous benchmark I
> > thought I would pick some piece of public domain fiction to translate
> > into the new conlang. I have selected a handful of short stories in
> > the neighborhood of 1500 to 2000 words and I plan to read them
> > tomorrow and decide which one would make the best challenge text for
> > me to translate.
> >
> > Then starting on the morning of Nov. 1 with a tabula rasa, and not
> > using anything from any of my previous conlangs, I'm going to start
> > translating the selected short story into a conlang that doesn't yet
> > exist. And by the time I complete the translation, hopefully by Nov.
> > 30, a fairly complete and functional conlang should have some how come
> > into existence.
> >
> > The working translation will probably be revised as the translation
> > proceeds, but I plan to keep a day-by-day record on my web page of the
> > translation as it exists on each day. It should be fun to see how many
> > of the usual conlanging issues I can iron out in a hurry so that I can
> > get on with the practical work of translation. It should also be
> > interesting to see how the conlang changes and evolves from day to day
> > as alterations are introduced to handle the next days translation
> > challenges.
> >
> > Like NaNoWriMo, the goal is to COMPLETE something usable and fully
> > functional in 30 days.
> >
> > I would think that 1500 to 2000 words should be do-able in 30 days.
> > that's only between 50 and 66 words a day. Here's 55 words from "Call
> > of the Wild" as an example of the magnitude of each day's task:
> >
> > "No longer was this fact borne in upon him in some subtle, mysterious
> > way. The birds talked of it, the squirrels chattered about it, the
> > very breeze whispered of it. Several times he stopped and drew in the
> > fresh morning air in great sniffs, reading a message which made him
> > leap on with greater speed."
> >
> > If the vocabulary and grammar were known such a translation might only
> > take a few minutes. If some new principle of grammar needs to be
> > discovered, or a couple of new words need to be invented, it might
> > take as much as an hour or so to do the translation. At any rate, that
> > much translation seems do-able in each 24-hour period.
> >
> > So that's my goal. I'll post a link to my day-by-day progress
> > "journal" on Nov. 1 after I have picked which short story or novel
> > chapter to use.
> >
> > wish me luck!  :)
> >
> > --gary
>