[conlang_learners] IE vs non IE

[Jim Henry]

2009/6/14 Dayle Hill <dwhmusic32 at yahoo.co.uk>:
> Sorry, this is a re-send of the same email..had a technical hitch 1st time!

Actually, I got your earlier message on the same subject just fine.
If you got a bounce or error or warning message of some kind after
sending it, could you please forward it to me offlist?

> HI all. I have just joined in so forgive me for being a little ignorant. I
> just wondered why there seems to be a general consensus 'against' IE
> conlangs, or at least conlangs with IE features? Are we looking to learn
> something that has a grammar 'unlike' any natural language, or a conlang
> that has a completely unique lexicon?

I can't speak for everyone on the list, but I think some of us are
(other factors being equal) more inclined to learn a language that's
interestingly different from the language(s) we already know.  Most if
not all of us have an Indo-European language as our native language,
and many of us have previously studied one or more other IE natural
languages, or IE-based conlangs, in the past; so this time out we're
looking for something farther afield.   It's not that we (most of us
at least) have a prejudice against the IE family or specific IE
languages or against the idea of creating IE-based conlangs; it's just
that such languages are too familiar to be appealing in the context of
this kind of project.

For instance, all the natlangs I am anywhere near fluency in are IE
languages, and I've thorougly learnt one conlang with an IE-based
lexicon and approximately IE-like grammar (Esperanto) and studied
several IE-based alternate history conlangs to the level necessary to
translate out of or into them for conlang relays.  In spending the
amount of time and energy on a conlang that this project would
involve, I'd like to work with something non-IE.

-- 
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/