#conworkshop — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #conworkshop, aggregated by home.social.
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Am I the only one feeling somewhat conflicted about #ConWorkshop?
(For those not in the know, I'm talking about the online conlang creation toolkit you can find on https://conworkshop.info/ 😊)
I've been using it extensively in the past for my projects, but eventually jumped ship to just my own local text files on my computer. Were I to start a new conlang project today, I would not use Conworkshop anymore.
I think the reason is that while it's an amazing toolkit to manage every aspect of a language in excruciating detail, it also doesn't make any of that detail optional. It's in part more of an engineering software than something supporting me in a creative journey. On the other hand, I love some of the features, like a plethora of word lists and a detailed and functional dictionary.
I find myself enthusiastic about only some parts of the conlanging creation process, not others. I also lack knowledge about some linguistic subdomains. When working on my own languages locally, I therefore handwave some aspects away.
Conworkshop doesn't let me though. It gives me warnings and to-do lists.
I don't want to work on phonotactics, historical linguistics, obscure syntactic constructions or in-depth morphology.
But really, is that an issue?
It feels somewhat like modern audiences of #fantasy fiction focusing overly on the logics, realism and logistics of "magic systems" rather than the characters, narrative and overly pleasantness. And yet, inconsistent and incompletely defined "magic systems" like Harry Potter's or LoTR are incredibly popular.
If conlanging is an art form, I am allowed to make illogical languages. Ones that work on vibes. Or ones that are inconsistent, unrealistic or unnatural. Or ones that I just haven't defined some linguistic aspects for.
And Conworkshop tries to shoehorn me into one single conlang creation style: the ultra-scientific, overexplained, academic one. When really, I maybe want to make the equivalent of Klingon, toki pona, Newspeak or Parsel.