Hallo conlangers!

On Tuesday 26 July 2011 18:20:06, Nikolay Ivankov wrote:

> [...]
> Oh, the thing that I don't like in elves most of all - their mellow
> languages, as if such a language automatically makes them into good guys.
> The names of my good guys have... well, not orkish too... more neutral, so
> to say.

Yes, it is a cliché, and invites for a brushing against the
stroke, once again.  Why not have the wise leader of the good
guys be named Pflarzgnumraq Zorbrax and the evil overlord
Eldirniel Thylamdar, just for a change?

What regards my own "elflang" Old Albic, I want it to sound to
my taste, but I try not to go overboard with mellifluousness.
 
> [...]
> > If you want to, you may always decide that in your conworld,
> > languages resemble the sounds of the natural environment of
> > the people speaking them.  It certainly adds some flavour to
> > it.
> 
> Well, it depends. It seems to me now that if there could really be an
> evolution of the language due to an environment (for instance, I think that
> the language spoken only through a bad phone for generations will
> apparently lose the s/f distinction), then it should rather "put an
> effort" to be distinguishable from the sound background. So if the people
> speak "birdly", this will mean, from my current point of view, that they
> should live in a forest without birds, at least those that sing similarly.

Indeed, this makes more sense than a language that mimics the
sounds of its environment!  A language is meant to be *understood*,
not to blend into its environment.  Yet, I doubt that anything
getting close to such a correlation can be observed in the real
world.
 
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