tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 05 08:41:33 1993

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Re: House languages

If you want a really simple to learn language and a large vocabulary quickly,
you could cheat with a few shortcuts and some up with something quite similar
in syntax to a language you already know and then create a program to randomly
generate your language's words from a word list (like /usr/dict/words).
 
First, you replace simple suffixes and prefixes with your own.  You can
leave your verbs just as irregular as the language you're basing yours
on or you can convert a little bit ('run' would be translated literally as
'runned') and even take out the differenced between 'I run' 'You run' and
'he/she/it runS' so the verb 'run' would be 'run' for everyone and 
'runned' no matter who did it. 
 
I might just throw out the helping verbs: is are was were have has had
could would should do did does am will can may might must, unless they
are used to stress something.  'He run.' 'He DOES run.'  'He running.'
'He IS running.'
 
Now that you've dreamed up your own custom syntax, you can come up with a 
vocabulary.  Klingon is simple.  Every simple word starts with a consonant
and alternates consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel-consonant...etcetera, for
an indeterminate number or repetitions, stopping either with a consonant
or a vowel.  
 
Pick what vowels you wish to use and what consonants, then create a simple
program to take input in one end (like from /usr/dict/words) and generate
a random-length 'word' by putting together random vowels and random
consonants alternately.  (It would help if you weeded out a copy of the
dictionary file to get rid of verbs using other tenses unless you'd like
the totally random program to come up with a completely unrelated pair
of words for "run" and "runned/ran"
 
When keeping track of tenses, keep in mind how many tenses there actually 
are...  Besides future, present, and past, there are quite a few others
whose names I am at a loss to remember.  In English, various combinations
of 'to have' 'to be' and 'to do' help the verb create new tenses.  I guess
I could eventually try compiling all the possible combinations and have an
English major help me identify the ones that exist, but that's an entirely different project.

"Well, except for the unavoidable overlooked step, you should have most
of what it takes for a simple language with a simple syntax.  I've
tried it a few times and disagreed with some of the computer's choices
for words.  (I don't think something as basic as 'eat' ought to have
six syllables...) but one could easily add something to generate words
of a length plus or minus two or three syllables of the original English
word...
 
- Krenath

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