Re: Thoughts - Conlangs and culture

On Fri, Oct 04, 2002 at 01:21:17AM +0200, Harald Stoiber wrote:
[snip]
> And this is the key question I think. In their wonderful introductions
> to conlanging, Mark Rosenfelder and Pablo Flores warn the reader not to
> re-invent the English vocabulary. But actually, I am positive that we
> can safely read this as "do not re-invent the terms and concepts of your
> own culture".
Good point.

> And that's what literally hit me yesterday. To make it a really original
> language it would help a lot to put up a really original culture
> alongside. A lot of language seems to be about culture itself.
<shameless plug>

If you want to see an original culture/language, you should check out
Ebisedian :-) Although I haven't really worked that much on the culture
itself yet, when I was designing the language, I made a lot of cultural
decisions. This is especially so in the vocabulary.

Examples:
- you have words like _gii'j3li_ ["gi:dZ@li] and _h0'n3ri_ ["hAn@r`i],
  both of which have no direct equivalent in ANY language that I'm fluent
  in. _h0'n3ri_ can be used as a sighing sort of expression to convey the
  meaning of "yeah, yeah, I've heard/seen that before, we've heard that
  before, that's just so old; why don't you show us something new". (Yes,
  that one word implies all that.)
  _gii'j3li_ comes from a time in the history of the Ebisedi characterized
  by a group of "scientists" who, frustrated with the lack of progress and
  apparently impossibility of advance in their field, became entertainers
  and stage actors, using their scientific knowledge to perform "magic
  tricks" and other stunts. _gii'j3li_ originally refers to the elaborate,
  often exaggerated procedures and stunts they go through during
  performance to draw an applause from the crowds. Since then, _gii'j3li_
  has come to refer to any ridiculously elaborate procedure or just
  tedious trouble, in general. (If the Ebisedi were to live in today's
  society, you'd hear them branding our bureaucratic procedures as
  _gii'j3li_. :-P) _h0'n3ri_ is actually a related word that people
  started using when the entertainers ran out of ideas and began to
  recycle old tricks that everybody knew and were tired of seeing.
  Whenever a band of entertainers didn't impress the crowds, they were
  booed off the stage with cries of _h0'n3ri! h0'n3ri!_.

- oh yes, and one can't forget the word _K00'i_ ["k_hA?i] when dealing
  with the Ebisedi. It's an almost cliche word resembling colloquial
  English's "cool!". It actually means "grandeur" or "universe". (You see,
  the Ebisedi sees grandeur as something expressing the nature of their
  universe. To them, *that* is something so cool.)

- the separation of "washroom" into a strictly *washing* room and a
  strictly waste room. _vyy'jhili_ ["By:Zili] literally means "disposal
  room"; that's where all household wastes go, including biological
  wastes. _l3r3jhi'li_ [l@\r`@\"Zili] means "flowing room" or "room of the
  flow", and is the room where you store liquids, either for drinking or
  for washing. The Ebisedi think that our concept of washroom is a truly
  disgusting idea. They'd go, what?! you mix your wastes with your water?!

- the use of "abstract" and "introvertive" forms of physical verbs like
  going, seeing, hearing, in highly metaphorical ways:
  - the introvertive for "go" is a verb meaning to move towards a topic in
    a discussion, or to explore a particular subject in one's mind;
  - the introvertive for "see" is to perceive or realize;
  - the abstract of "go" is to claim enemy territory by capturing key
    control centers, or being represented somewhere else by sending
    ambassadors;
  - the introvertive for "look" is to ponder a topic from afar, to regard
    an idea before making a decision.
  - and then the interesting pair _mizai'_, "to marry" (introvertive),
    which is used for the parties involved, whereas _miza'i_ (physical),
    "to marry", is used for the person who marries the couple
    (matchmaker). And of course, both words come from the prefix mi-
    (indicating intimacy) and the root _z0'e_ (to join). The prefix mi-
    also appears in _mipipi'_ "sympathy". _pipi'_ means "sadness" or
    "neglect". The intimate concern for a neglected one is sympathy. :-)

- the distinguishing of the frame of a container vs. the fillings of the
  frame (gii'bi) vs. the actual contents (jii'bi) -- both _gii'bi_ and
  _jii'bi_ are best translated as "substance" or "constituent", but they
  refer to two different kinds of "constituent".

- _ta'ma_ is "to speak"; _Ta'ma_ is to assert, and _Ta'l3ri_ is to sing.
  The _-l3ri_ morpheme carries the meaning of "flow"; so to sing is just
  to speak flowingly. :-) (Ebisedian is pitch-accented anyway, so there's
  already the elements of musical tone there. All you need is to "flow" it
  together. :-P)

There are many other examples. But that's enough plug for now. :-P

</shameless plug>


> I am convinced that language can never entirely leave the space of
> culture. Thus, culture-independent or culturally neutral languages
> actually don't exist. All they do is creating a new cultural space that
> wraps up, combines and somehow harmonizes all the cultures from which
> the language should be independent.
I don't know if they exist or not, but Ebisedian is completely wrapped up
in the culture of the Ebisedi. Both are interlocked in a mutual feeding
off each other; the language is a means to express cultural concepts, and
culture shapes linguistic concepts.

[snip]
> like Proto-Indo-European did and Latin did, too. Additionally, I have
> designed the language to be "the language in favour of what is written"
> (as I would translate its native name). It is primarily designed for use
> within books and scriptures. It can be read out loudly in a solemn
> fashion.  It cannot be spoken or used for casual conversations because
> there is no reliable built-in self-segregation of words. It could be the
> formal literary language of scribes, high priests or scholars. It could
> be the language of something that a historican may find in a noble
> ancient library.
Interesting. So I assume there is also an unwritten common tongue used by
the people for casual conversation?

> Who knows right now... I am still designing it but one thing is clear: I
> cannot put it in the context of the twentieth century just to spare the
> effort of inventing a culture, too. Wow, that sounds like work! *ggggg*
Work? Naaah... just wait till I tell you about the time I was walking to
work, and suddenly the word _gii'j3li_ occurred itself to me, and imposed
upon me its unique meaning. I was almost laughing out loud at the
simplicity and fun of it. :-P

> And it magnificently looks like fun!!! :-)))
[snip]

If you like this sort of stuff, you might want to ride through a _jyy'i_
["dZy:?i] sometime, (*) and pay a little visit to Ferochromon, the
Ebisedian conworld. (Yes, I actually invented an entire fictional
universe, as some here may recall with joy/despair. ;-) But I had already
crafted many aspects of this con-world before I actually started to work
on a conlang for its inhabitants.)

(*) a _jyy'i_ is a swirling, whirlpool-like teleportal in the Ferochromon.
According to the stories about Ferochromon, one of these teleportals
appeared on Earth one day, in the bedroom of a man who would later become
a hero in a historic Ebisedian adventure... oh, shoot. I shouldn't be
revealing these secrets... ;-)


T

--
Learning to learn is a great learning; learning to unlearn is a greater
learning.

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