The Origins of Shskle
Jul. 26th, 2014 01:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plaindealingvillainShskle is a conlang. My first, and so far only.
I first had the idea for this language about five years ago: a conlang where subordinate clauses and complex modifiers didn't interrupt the flow of the sentence, but went off at right angles to the main thread of the sentence.
The problem was that human languages don't work that way. Spoken words are linear, one at a time and ordered, and writing that down naturally follows the same logic. So clearly, this can't be a spoken language. For a while, I considered that it should naturally be written-first, spoken-second, an inversion of the human standard. (This waspartly heavily inspired by a minor plot thread in the Phule's Company series, which I read a decade ago. This also inspired the aliens I invented to explain Shskle's peculiarities. But I'm getting ahead of myself.)
Later I realized that primitive writing isn't that useful and doesn't make sense evolutionarily. Recognizing a scratched cave-drawing of something in time for it to serve as a useful message, not so likely. But I still wanted this to be the main form of the language, so I decided that simple thoughts can be expressed in a organic sign language, but that complex communication requires writing; embedding doesn't naturally fit into the language, and has to be written.
At this point, I realized I needed an alien race, and they would have to have very good eyesight, some natural means of scratching glyphs into slate, wood, or dirt, and circumstances where cries of communication would be harmful. OK, they have to be a predator species, with claws. Since I was once an eight-year-old boy, they became velociraptors until further notice. (Also, Phule's Company.)
Because I know neither sign nor Chinese, making a lexicon to start constructing sentences with has been slow going. I started working on this properly about a year, year and a half ago, and have worked on it intermittently since, but don't have much to show for it.
However, I mentioned my conlang to some nice people on the Internet, and they said that it sounded cool (which it does, let's be real here.) So I'm going to try harder this time. With that in mind, I'm going to document things I come up with about the aliens and their language, which are both called "Shskle", on this blog.
I first had the idea for this language about five years ago: a conlang where subordinate clauses and complex modifiers didn't interrupt the flow of the sentence, but went off at right angles to the main thread of the sentence.
The problem was that human languages don't work that way. Spoken words are linear, one at a time and ordered, and writing that down naturally follows the same logic. So clearly, this can't be a spoken language. For a while, I considered that it should naturally be written-first, spoken-second, an inversion of the human standard. (This was
Later I realized that primitive writing isn't that useful and doesn't make sense evolutionarily. Recognizing a scratched cave-drawing of something in time for it to serve as a useful message, not so likely. But I still wanted this to be the main form of the language, so I decided that simple thoughts can be expressed in a organic sign language, but that complex communication requires writing; embedding doesn't naturally fit into the language, and has to be written.
At this point, I realized I needed an alien race, and they would have to have very good eyesight, some natural means of scratching glyphs into slate, wood, or dirt, and circumstances where cries of communication would be harmful. OK, they have to be a predator species, with claws. Since I was once an eight-year-old boy, they became velociraptors until further notice. (Also, Phule's Company.)
Because I know neither sign nor Chinese, making a lexicon to start constructing sentences with has been slow going. I started working on this properly about a year, year and a half ago, and have worked on it intermittently since, but don't have much to show for it.
However, I mentioned my conlang to some nice people on the Internet, and they said that it sounded cool (which it does, let's be real here.) So I'm going to try harder this time. With that in mind, I'm going to document things I come up with about the aliens and their language, which are both called "Shskle", on this blog.
