Last year, on a whim, I created a slightly larger version of my printed dictionary by taking all the assorted stories and things that I'd ever translated (to that point, and to my knowledge) and putting them in chronological order after the dictionary lists.
This year, I've had rather a story-splosion, so the "anthology" (which I've decided to call it, since the name sounds so very official, and I love the sound of the word) will be stand-alone. If I didn't do it on its own, I'm afraid the book would no longer fit in my pocket and would be a pain to transport- and then what good would it do me?
Last year, when I did it on a whim, I included the original versions of the texts that I'd translated without bothering to update them to more current usages. This year (of course, sigh) I'm going to do something different. Starting with the biggest most imposing story I've translated (King Arthur's Courage), I'm going to modernify everything in the collection to make... well, a legible and sharing-worthy (for me, at least) assortment of stories and fables and poems and songs.
I hadn't realized just how much my handling of the language changed until I printed a copy of the biggest story and started line-by-line disassembling it. Every other line has stuff crossed-out, or re-written, words have to be shifted in place...
It's amazing what use of a conlang will do to the way it looks, even when you aren't intentionally changing anything at all.
I also found a few one-off words that I used and then for some reason either never documented or just forgot about. Words like tialia (even though, although, despite) and aliv (hay or straw for horses) fell by the wayside, poor things. I've scooped the ones which don't have replacements and added them to the dictionary now.
Working back over stories I translated a few years ago is fun. The usage is different enough that I can pretend I'm reading something someone else wrote. And the practice for my conlang that I'm getting by re-editing older versions is just awesome.
Wenai baahlnia siad ba sa me frn ba sandi skra man me ;)
I speak Sandic a bit better now on account of what I've done, I guess ;)
I should upload a picture of one of the pages I "edited". It looks like a pencil war. :p
The attributions list for the translated works is several pages long, too. On the smaller pocket-sized-book pages, I'm guessing it'll take up around 10 sheets or so. We'll just have to see. I never thought I would actually find citing something to be a useful skill. Hooray son of citation machine.
I wonder if I have to give image attributions for public domain images...? So much to learn!
The anthology and the newer dictionary I plan to have out sometime in April. Depending on how well I like the results of my efforts, maybe I'll buy an ISBN for them. I'm not entirely certain anyone would buy them, but it would be amusing to track, don't you think?
Has anyone else around done something similar? Anyone have any advice for me on this?
I should find a picture for the cover, too. Hmm.
Hooray projects. :)
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