[conlang_learners] Promoting a conlang

[Dayle Hill]

Seeing as I nominated my conlang Dalcurian, I should probably put my case forward.
I initially thought that it would be a bit pretentious to nominate my own conlang, and eventually came to the conclusion that maybe it was. However, this is a project to learn an unknown language, and I happened to have one at hand!  
 
I genuinely think that Dalcurian will be relatively easy to learn. Its grammar isn’t half as complex as some conlangs I’ve come across. (And this is where the bone of contention comes in-some people want to sink their teeth into something difficult, others want an easier conlang to kick this project off). Dalcurian is based in our world and timeline, but with a fictional, integrated history right up to modern day. As for the sound, well there is a hybrid flavour to it: Germanic, Scandinavian, Russian, Celtic, Arabic...and of course Dalcurian!
So how would I promote Dalcurian?
·         comprehensive lexicon with examples: comprehensive enough to be conversational
·         full grammatical structure
·         easy pronunciation guide, with a 'sounds like' and IPA
·         no verb agreement conjugations to get tied down with, inflections only come with tense
·         most affixes can be removed to reveal stems therefore making derivation a key element to finding and creating words (for example, the ending ämös applies to verbs in order to form nouns; coming across mosödrämös-'film', one can immediately derive the verb 'to film'-mosödr without having to look it up)
·         no complex verbal phrases to try and translate; a simple verb can do this
·         Dalcurian is phonetic
·         no complex conjugations of the verb to be, no copula
·         many sample texts (including some audio) with literal translations
 
But what is unique about Dalcurian? My honest answer is, "I don't know"! I often thought that the adjective 'past tense' was unique, but recently discovered that Japanese has something similar. 
 
If I had to outline any negativity, then I would say that some words may be difficult to pronounce, due to the rhoticity of the language, but this is aided by lenition and mutation. Also, Dalcurian is highly diacritical which is not friendly to some operating systems or keyboards. Again, there is an auxiliary spelling system to overcome this.
 
I am the only person who has studied Dalcurian, therefore this is my opinion. However, I'd be quite pleased to have some feedback with some 'constructive' criticism, or outlining any mistakes or issues that may lurk unnoticed to my biased eyes.
www.wiki.frath.net/Dalcurian 
 


"I'm strange to those who are normal, and normal to those who are strange; quite frankly-I prefer the latter"!


      
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