Rational Conlangs

My interest in rational conlangs has been revived. The specific catalyst is that I am trying to translate a book that I absolutely love, The Book of Matan, into one.

One reason for this choice of book is that its English is very simple and readable. It does not use a vocabulary that is too obscure. But it carries an emotional, poetic beauty that reminds of me of the King James Bible. If any language should translate well into a rational conlang, I would hope it was of this kind.

Another reason is that it is a logical extension of my interest in the book. It is a catalyst for me to read the book more than I otherwise would be inclined to do. It is like when, as a teenager, I would try translating The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy into a conlang. I had already read and loved the book. Translating it became an exercise in looking at it from a fresh perspective.

The best conlang to me was Rick Morneau’s concept of a machine translation interlingua. To me it captured what I most liked about conlangs.

To begin with, I liked conlangs full-stop. They were fun, and the idea of a made-up language had always appealed to me. But any conlang would meet a requirement like this.

On the other hand, I liked conlangs that were more rational than natural languages. Lojban, Esperanto and the interlingua fit this bill, but not some others. For example, Klingon was designed to mimic the quirks and idiosyncrasies of natural language. So whilst I am something of a Trek-head, Klingon does not interest me at all.

Third, I like conlangs that are really weird, and Lojban and the interlingua are weird. Esperanto was meant to be an amalgam of European languages. So I am not interested in Esperanto, because it carries little of the thrill of the exotic.

Fourth, however, I like conlangs that are user-friendly. I have never found Lojban user-friendly. It was deliberately designed to work in a way totally unlike a natural language, and it is for that reason that I find it convoluted and clunky to use. On the other hand, Rick Morneau’s interlingua is a rationalization of all known natural languages. As such, I find it breathtakingly user-friendly and elegant.

Whatever became of Rick Morneau’s interlingua? I remember it back when it used to be called Katanda. A Google search of Katanda, however, shows it to be a territory in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

On the other hand, the name of the language became Nasendi. A Google search of “katanda nasendi” reveals some posts from a website called conlang.info. Sounds like my kind of website!

The first post is just about how Rick’s conlang was at the time called Latenkwa. Of course, it was since renamed to Latejami, so that post is obsolete.

One thing that does interest me, however, is the second post. It is from a time where Morneau’s language reached its final form, Latejami. And it is from a poster who created his own version of that language, Saweli.

Latejami had been extremely well thought-out and comprehensive, but not perfect. So is Saweli a natural successor to it? [Update: No.]