Re: New Conlanger Stuck, would you help?

cybersolutions wrote:
> What is the advice of the countless readers and writers of the list
> on acheiving a conlang of high density (when spoken) and utility?
Well, I don't usually consider that a big advantage, I prefer my
conlangs to be esthetically pleasing, which often means lower density.
One way would be to have a lot more sounds and more legal clusters of
consonants.  Tones can help, too.  The more monosyllabic words you can
have, the higher your density can be.  Also, you can try allowing your
language to omit things that are clear from context.  For example,
allowing "Asked if saw" for "I asked him if he saw it" in situations
where its clear who's doing what.  Japanese allows this, altho Japanese
is hardly compact ... maybe part of the reason it does that is to keep
it from being *too* wordy, especially when you have things like
"Watakushitachi" for "we" :-)

I once made a conlang where density was a goal, but I finally got sick
of the hideous clusters of consonants and basic ugliness of the
language, and revolted by making a conlang of maximal phonetic
simplicity, which was the first version of my current conlang
Uatakassi.  However, Uatakassi has gradually been growing in phonetic
complexity, just to spite its creator, I think.  :-)

The current phonemic inventory is, I think:
Stops: p t k b d g
Nasals: m n
Fricatives: f s S C v z Z
Affricates: tS dZ (ts dz)
Liquids: l (lZ)
Glides: (w j)
Vowels: i a u i: a: u:
Diphthongs: aj Aw (ej ow in some dialects)
Parentheses indicate allophones of other phonemes
Syllables: (/C/)(C)(l,w,y)V(fric, nasal, L, *) - * indicates gemination
   With some fairly complicated phonotactic restrictions

By way of comparison, the original system was:
Stops: p t k
Nasals: n
Fricatives: s
Glides: w j
Vowels: i a u i: a: u:
Syllables: (C)V(n,s) - yes, just 144 possible syllables!
Long vowels were abandoned early on, and then later resurrected.

--
"No just cause can be advanced by terror"
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42