A Creation Story

I haven't worked on my conlang project for a while... online, that is. Internally, the gears are still turnin' and the malt is still churnin'.

I've decided to do what so many other famousy-type artificial language constructors have done: invent a fictional setting wherein the language is used, and then write a creation myth (or other religious literature).

My process is simple: 1) Imagine the fictional setting (done). 2) Write the creation myth, in English (done). 3) Translate into Dradrikkan (started, not yet completed).

I find that working in this manner is productive in at least two major ways. First, it forces an expansion of the lexicon, as I decide on ("invent") new words to translate English words. Second, It forces an examination of the existing grammatical structures, and helps me tweak them where needed, or create ("invent") new structures that I haven't yet thought of/about. For example, I've had to create new locative particle-markers for concepts like "above", "below", and "into." I've also had to think about how compound sentences (and fragmentary sentences) in English would be expressed in Dradrikkan.

I don't want to post anything quite yet, though, on the actual work. The creation myth is very short—less than a notebook page, handwritten—and so I will wait until I have the whole thing translated before I post, so I can include morpheme-by-morpheme transliterations. Stay tuned.

Random Aside

Mike is PO'd at himself, because he went to the library to use the computer and forgot to bring his flash drive... now he has no way to save poems, conlang shit, etc., even if he were to bother typing it up... dammit!