I actually remembered what past perfect progressive tense is. Do you?
I’ll give you an example. “I had been running.”
Cool, ne? Okay, probably not. But I’m pretty tickled I remembered what it was. It’s a hell of a lot easier to make up a language when you know a little about your own. Choosing which tenses to have (it’d get a might confusing without any), deciding on case and gender and modifiers and how to make an adjective out of a noun…
Conlanging is a blast for geeks, that’s all. And I am. A card-carrying geek, that is. (I carry lots of cards. None of them actually says “Geek.” Except my Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman Ken Washio Character Card. That says GEEK in any language. ) (I know! Isn’t it the coolest thing ever?!? I don’t actually carry it often, though, wouldn’t want anything to happen to it…)
umm…anyway…conlanging. Yes. Today I decided the first thing to do in trying to get Flame where I need her to be, was to hash out the language a little better. So that’s what I spent my day doing. And I discovered something interesting.
Ever see an elf with a facial tattoo? Well, all right, so have I. But not many. And Flame isn’t an elf anyway. Everyone else just thinks Vral are elves.
The important thing, though, is that the tattoo tells you instantly what clan a Vral belongs to. The length of the Vral‘s hair tells you his/her age. These are the two most important things to know about any Vral.
What I love about conlanging is that you learn so much about a people by studying their language. I figured out the clan thing, realized that needed to be immediately determinable, and so decided on tattoos. Then I decided who had what, and what those images looked like.
Whee!!!
Tomorrow I’m going to ask a friend of mine (and an experienced conlanger) to give me a hand translating a few paragraphs of something into Vralajii. That ought to iron a few things out!
Tonight I gotta go to bed. Happy Birthday, America! I promise, I’m doing my best to help contain King George till we get him impeached. (or until 565 days pass and he leaves on his own…blarg!)