Vocabulary
From Ial
It'll be established a priori, that is invented and not borrowed directly from existent languages. To begin with, we will study frequency lists from many languages and attempt to identify the most frequent underlying concepts and for each concept we will choose an English word to represent it along with an explanation and a frequency number. When we have this small vocabulary of carefully chosen most used root words in mundane (non-technical) conversation expressed in English, we will use a computer program to translate it randomly into the new language. Well, not completely at random. Words should have the desired syllable structure and respect some other constraints we will incrementally build into the program (e.g. using the most shortest morphemes available, avoiding similar words for related meanings, etc). So this lexicon generator will be developed incrementally. When the results of a generation are enough satisfying, the vocabulary will be converted in a set of dynamic web pages to make it easy to discuss and amend it manually and collaboratively. That will be the live vocabulary of the language, a reference for its first users. Initially ever-changing, it will stabilize in time until the first version of the standard will be released.
Words with similar meaning should not look similar. That does not help human memory. On the contrary it makes mixing up words easier. Morphemes will be created randomly from a pool of all words having the syllable structure outlined above. Common words should generally be associated to shorter morphemes than less common one. When, everything else being equal, there is a choice between some candidates for a certain word, the one that has a resemblance with a natural language word will be chosen, but this choice is just a temporary convenience and can be reviewed in the future. Similarity to existent languages has the lowest weight in this project.
No synonyms. E.g. in English there are a heck of a lot of ways to say stupid (please contribute more ones for this list, I am not a native):
cretin, dim-witted, dolt, fool, git, idiot, klutz, obtuse, pillock, silly, stupid, sucker, twit
some less direct (because they have other unrelated meanings) are:
beastly, clod, dense, dopey, dumb, goof, goon, half-baked, lamer
It seems people are constantly looking for new original ways to say stupid. This is not an English problem, it happens in any language. And this is just an example for one meaning (stupid) amongst the many a language has. Such pollution of the vocabulary should be avoided: one meaning, one way to say it only, whether using a single or compound word or paraphrase or whatever, but please only one, else it will be a stupid language LOL Seriously an AL cannot afford to have synonyms. Nuances of meanings are traded for the sake of simplicity and ease of learning.
