[conlang_learners] What will you do the first day?

[Olivier Simon]

Sellamat Brett !
 
As a learner, when I encounter the auxlangs made by friends, first of all, of course, I look at the grammar, take an overview of the dictionary and sample texts. Then, I often try to make small translations, a few sentences, sometimes more. It helps me see if the auxlang really works. 
It doesn't work when, either:
- the grammar is so skimpy that you can't string more than four words together before the sentence collapses. 
- the vocabulary is so (voluntarily) skimpy that you need cumbersome periphrases to replace a single word
- the auxlang itself is so hard that you need more than one quarter of an hour to translate a single sentence (if you ever can translate it) because you must always check into the grammar
- the auxlang may be not especially hard, but its grammar, its vocabulary are so bizarre that even when you've correctly translated a sentence, another person having a good knowledge of the auxlang is unable to guess the meaning of what you've written (that happens with auxlangs which make an abusive use of affixes: you can't find back the stem or new compounds can be confused with another stem)...
 
As there is still time before the final choice, everyone could make its preselection through this means. 
 
As the creator of Sambahsa, I proposed to learners small translations to check if they had assimilated the basics of it. Of course, if Sambahsa were chosen, the learners might propose another system. 
 
Olivier
http://sambahsa.pbworks.com/ 

--- On Tue, 7/7/09, Brett Williams <mungojelly at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Brett Williams <mungojelly at gmail.com>
Subject: [conlang_learners] What will you do the first day?
To: conlang_learners at conlang.org
Date: Tuesday, July 7, 2009, 3:34 PM


I've been feeling impatient about choosing the language, haven't you?
I mean I do think it makes sense to set a longish schedule like this,
but of course what I'm mostly looking forward to is learning the
language, and I'm curious to see what we'll choose.  I don't much care
which language, as I think many of us don't; it's more the experience
of learning it together.  So I'm looking forward to getting started,
to see what it's like.

Anyway, part of what I think is exciting about this project is the
moment at which the choice of language is announced, and the feeding
frenzy begins.  Hopefully some of us will stick with the language and
study it more deeply, but I believe that we'll be able to accomplish a
lot just in that first burst of collective activity.  We can work
together to make all sorts of things that will help people learn the
language, like flashcards and other learning aids, crosswords and
other educational puzzles, glossaries or glosses to make whatever
texts are extant easier to read, questions for the language's inventor
that will clarify things and be useful for future reference, etc.

One thing I've done with most of the conlangs I've studied, and intend
to do right away with the language we choose, is to make
demonstrations of simple words by labeling public domain pictures,
like I've done here for the gzb word "txiql" (potato):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mungojelly/3656406592/

Or this one for Lojban's word ".arxokuna" (raccoon):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34464586@N08/3199599878/

As soon as the language is announced, I'm planning to look in its
vocabulary for words that are easy to demonstrate with a picture.
I'll return the resulting images to the public domain, so that anyone
else can use them in creating their own stuff.  Hopefully we'll be
able to build on each other's work, and very quickly create a mountain
of introductory materials that will make the language a lot more
accessible for everyone.

So what will you do the first day?

<3,
brett
aka
mungojelly
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