li [Christopher] mi tulis la

> Dana, I have been an admirer of Sasxsek and a lurker in the group (on
> and off) for a long time now. With the recent postings by you of
> Sasxsek updates I visited the Sasxsek home page and was very impressed
> by how far you've brought it. It seems very robust and mature
> compared to a lot of other "hobbiest" conlangs/auxlangs on the net… so
> much so that I am considering learning it and investing some
> time on it.

Thanks for the complement.

> But before I do that I am curious to hear some thoughts form you on
> the language and your plans for it.
>
> 1. How "complete" do you consider the language to be? I realize the
> vocabulary will continue to grow but do you have plans to make major
> changes to the grammar, sentence structure, etc..? To put it a little
> more informally: How much more tinkering are you expecting to do?

How complete is a tough question. So far nothing has really been
baselined, but I can say that some parts are too difficult change
without a lot of effort so they aren't likely to be changed. I can list
a few things here.

Phonology: I don't expect to make any changes here. There's a
very minute chance of maybe adding an affricate or two, like /tS/ or
/dZ/. If so, there may be a minor orthographic shift to accomdate /dZ/
as <j>. Again, this is only something I've considered, and mainly
because I think it may help in lexical development.

Phonotactics: There is still a good chance that more consonant
combinations will be allowed, at least in the medial position. This too
would mainly be to accomodate more lexical possibilities. I'm thinking
maybe medials like /-ts-/ or /-st-/ could help.

Lexicon: This is where things are still very much in the early
stages. As you can see from my posts, there have been many changes and
rearrangements. This is where I find it difficult to say it's time to
learn the language. You can always learn it, but it must be said that
changes are being made and anyone learning it now would need to keep up
with those changes. FWIW, I am trying not to change things too much,
and focus more on adding new words. However sometimes I find better
ways to organize things semantically, or I'll find a root that is more
recognizable. At this point, I'd consider the pronouns and other CV
words pretty safe from changes. I'd also have to say the numerals and
numbering system are fairly safe. One place I am looking to rework has
to do with kinship terminology. "paren" (=parent) will probably change
to a monosyllable so I can work out a system of derivativees for
"grandparent", "great-grandparent", etc.

Sign language: Right now it's nothing more than a manual
alphabet. It's a low priority but that could change if I find someone
else that wants to contribute. Another issue is just problems with how
to electronically store the signs. There are a few systems in common
use, but they require special fonts and none of them seem to have
general acceptance across all deaf communities. I'm thinking about just
taking something that already exists, like Signuno and tweaking it to
fit into Sasxsek's structure as much as possible.


> 2. Do you plan on formally promoting its use as an auxlang? I see
> that you are working on an Esperanto version which is pleasantly
> surprising since most auxlang projects never make it past the
> "toy stage".

I do plan on promoting it, but I'm not sure how much because I do have a
life outside of conlanging, which is just something I do because I find
it much more interesting that rotting away in front of a television like
so many others. So yes, promotion will happen. "How much?" is the real
question. Time and resources are limited so ultimately I'd need to find
others to help, especially in the area of preparing materials for other
languages. The Esperanto materials are a "work in progress" right now.
Unfortunately, my knowledge of E-o is basically enough to put together
words and sentences, but I have to look a lot of things up otherwise it
would be going much more quickly. Other languages are likely to follow,
but I'm not fluent in anything but English so the same issue comes up
with preparing others. Something like a Chinese or Arabic reference is
highly unlikely without outside help. To sum it up, the more outside
interest I can generate, the better.