Conlanging with McGuffey
Inventing languages is a decidely odd hobby, but one enjoyed by a number of people around the world. I happen to be one of those odd people, and while casting about for a better methedology for building a constructed language, or conlang, I happened upon the idea of translating early children's reading books, sentence by sentence, as a way of insuring that I had covered the basics of language design, grammar, and vocabulary, adequately. One of the most readily available series of children's books is the McGuffey's Eclectic Reader series. These first appeared in 1836 and were extensively revised in in 1879. Two books from the original 1836 series are available from Project Gutenberg, but the remaining books in the series are missing. And even these two have some text missing from them due to being transcribed from damaged copies.
The original editions are quite rare, but the newer 1879 revised eidtions are readily available, and being popular among home schoolers, are even being reprinted to this day.
For those who are interested in using McGuffey's Eclectic Readers as source material for creating their conlang I am transcribing the entire series into plain text form, with notations describing the illustrations. As each volume is completed I will make it available here.
McGuffey's Eclectic PRIMER - Revised Edition. Copyright 1881, 1896, 1909. - In progress
McGuffey's FIRST Eclectic Reader - Revised Edition. Copyright 1879, 1896, 1907, 1920
McGuffey's SECOND Eclectic Reader - Revised Edition - In Progress
McGuffey's THIRD Eclectic Reader - Revised Edition - In Progress
McGuffey's FOURTH Eclectic Reader - Revised Edition - In Progress
McGuffey's FIFTH Eclectic Reader - Revised Edition - In Progress