Sellamat! Kam leitte yu?
Welcome to the second weekly c/conlangs post!
Conlang of the Week
The conlang of the week is Sambahsa. Created as an international auxilliary language (IAL) by the linguist Olivier Simon, it was first revealed to the public in 2007. As an IAL, it recognises that a universally “easy” learning experience is near impossible to achieve and therefore tries to concentrate on basing its systems on Indo-European languages, which are of course widely spread. On the other hand, a large amount of vocabulary comes from other language families.
What do you think about Sambahsa? Does it meet its goals? Have you heard of Sambahsa before? Do you think it can succeed as an IAL? Why or why not? Share your thoughts in the thread!
Linguistic feature of the week
Keeping with Sambahsa’s Indo-European theme, we want to look at Indo-European features in conlangs. While some parts of the conlanging community shun unique Indo-European features because they feel it lets on too much of the conlanger’s (expected) natlang background, some people have wholeheartedly embraced some Indo-European features in their conlangs or are even trying to build their own, such as the ever-popular romlangs.
Do you use Indo-European features in your conlang(s)? Did you add them on purpose or were they indeed your own background sneaking in through the backdoor? What IE features do you find easiest to omit from conlangs, or hardest to avoid? What’s your favourite IE feature to use in a conlang? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments!
Post of the week
The first post of the week here on c/conlangs goes to Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]@hexbear.net! Congratulations! She made a great post on what she likes best about conlanging. You can check it out here: Post of the week (I’d like to also use this opportunity to shout out Kalvo@lemm.ee’s post on their conlang, Koiwak).
Happy conlanging everyone and thank you for joining us on c/conlangs!
Chao!
When I was actively conlanging, I was an active member of a forum with Olivier Simon. His language is very interesting, but far to complex to be an IAL in my humble opinion. But as a conlang, it’s a masterpiece.
oh that’s cool. I agree that it’s too complex for an IAL but then I also agree with the notion that it’s basically impossible to make an IAL that is simple to learn for everyone.