Goal: Select an appropriate short text to translate
Note: Start with an existing text to take your language out for a “text drive.”
Tip: You can take inspiration from past conlang relays!
Work focus: Learn/Brainstorm/Try
It’s time to take your language out for a “text drive”! Find a short text you want to translate into your language, making sure it’s appropriate for your conworld and speakers. For instance, it wouldn’t make sense to translate the opening paragraph of Pride & Prejudice if your speakers live in communities where they have no personal wealth and do not have nuclear familial relationships, including marriage. (The first sentence of the book is “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”) The concepts required to translate the passage would be utterly foreign to your speakers, so the text would have to be completely reworked. And that’s not the goal right now.
Later this year, I will present a challenge for you to create a text specifically for your world and its speakers. Right now, the challenge is to take something that is already out there and see how you might need to expand your language to handle basic translations.
Texts you might consider include the opening paragraph of your favorite book (or just a book you have lying around), the opening sentences of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Babel Text (from the Bible), an introductory monologue to a show (e.g. Star Trek: The Next Generation) or movie (e.g. The Bee Movie), or past conlang relay texts.
Today’s goal is simply to select the text you will translate. So have some fun exploring and pick something you’re excited about tackling!