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2007-Dec-22, Saturday 04:24![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qiihoskehI've been thinking a bit how I might make a conscenario for MNCL5, to "justify" its peculiarities.
To review, MNCL5 is not very naturalistic; it's very regular, there's little or no lexical compounding, all non-initial morphemes begin with vowels, the syntax uses embedding, most roots are borrowed (it's easier to invent and remember words this way), and maybe a couple other things that escape me at the moment. At the other end, it's not a loglang, definitely not a taxonomic language, and not like Ithkuil either; also, it's not designed to be an IAL. So, all this places limits on the scenario.
What I'm considering is this: at some time in the past, a group of aliens came to Earth and transformed themselves into humans, albeit with some subtle differences, mainly in the brain I guess, so that their fundamental character was preserved. Somehow (I need to figure this out), their alien origins were forgotten, so that the present-day descendents think they're purely human. By chance, a group of them come together. Dissatisfied with human languages, because their brains aren't perfectly adapted to them, they create a private auxlang (which is of course MNCL5). I think this explains the peculiarities of the language, although there a lot of details to be worked out. For instance, how long ago the aliens arrived and whether they can breed with original humans or constitute a parallel species.
For fictional purposes, I may add the following. The aliens were followed by aliens of a second kind who were persecuting the first kind. The second group, who have also transformed themselves into humans, also retain their fundamental character. They basically have no redeeming qualities, but are clever in disguising this. The first group tend to be gentle and pacifistic except that they can become instinctively violent when encountering the second group.
To review, MNCL5 is not very naturalistic; it's very regular, there's little or no lexical compounding, all non-initial morphemes begin with vowels, the syntax uses embedding, most roots are borrowed (it's easier to invent and remember words this way), and maybe a couple other things that escape me at the moment. At the other end, it's not a loglang, definitely not a taxonomic language, and not like Ithkuil either; also, it's not designed to be an IAL. So, all this places limits on the scenario.
What I'm considering is this: at some time in the past, a group of aliens came to Earth and transformed themselves into humans, albeit with some subtle differences, mainly in the brain I guess, so that their fundamental character was preserved. Somehow (I need to figure this out), their alien origins were forgotten, so that the present-day descendents think they're purely human. By chance, a group of them come together. Dissatisfied with human languages, because their brains aren't perfectly adapted to them, they create a private auxlang (which is of course MNCL5). I think this explains the peculiarities of the language, although there a lot of details to be worked out. For instance, how long ago the aliens arrived and whether they can breed with original humans or constitute a parallel species.
For fictional purposes, I may add the following. The aliens were followed by aliens of a second kind who were persecuting the first kind. The second group, who have also transformed themselves into humans, also retain their fundamental character. They basically have no redeeming qualities, but are clever in disguising this. The first group tend to be gentle and pacifistic except that they can become instinctively violent when encountering the second group.
