Re: Thoughts - Conlangs and culture

On Fri, Oct 04, 2002 at 12:12:12PM -0400, Roger Mills wrote:
> H.S. Teoh wrote:
> (snip lots of fascinating stuff)
> >(*) 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 ...
> >
> This immediately brought to mind the Aleph of Jorge Luis Borges.  Have you
> read that story? (An Aleph is a point from which all things in the world
> (past, present and IIRC future-- any such thing in Ebisedian?) may be
> glimpsed. In the story, this particular Aleph was located under the basement
> stairs in a friend's house.
[snip]

That is *so* cool!! In fact, one of the biggest secrets (well, OK, it's
not so secret anymore) in the history of the Ebisedian con-world is the
search for something which may be considered an Aleph. I won't divulge
much more of it, though. :-)

But the teleportal I was referring to was an inter-universe portal,
opening a gate from Ferochromon to Earth and vice versa. It appeared
periodically, and the person ventures into the Ferochromon universe
through it, hesitantly at first, not knowing what it was and how things
worked, but eventually, more adventurously. Soon, he learned how to
navigate through Ferochromon space (the portal did not actually open onto
a landmass), and floated himself to a landmass, where he met the first
Ebisedi. [Skip long, long story here]

Eventually, the Ebisedi themselves began to make occasional appearances on
Earth. But this didn't last very long, as trouble in their home universe
soon took their attention away from Earth.

Now some ObConlang stuff: when the Ebisedi appeared on Earth, they
appeared to be covered by a blinding, shimmering shield of bright colored
light. This is actually their _krachui'_ [kraSu"?i], or "aura". Every
Bisedi is "clothed" by it. On their home world, the _krachui'_ is not as
strongly visible, except for Ebisedi who are trained to strengthen it
deliberately. This may be partly because the Ferochromon is so saturated
with bright colors that it is not so noticeable; but when away from their
home world, the _krachui'_ of the Ebisedi stands out prominently in what
to them is a dull, almost colorless environment.

Furthermore, the Earthling who had those portals appearing in his bedroom
soon found that he had acquired a _krachui'_ just from frequenting the
Ferochromon. In his case, it would be invisible while he was on Earth,
unless he "exerted" (_nuga're_ [nu"gar`&] (*)) in which case the
_krachui'_ would flare up brightly around him. (Of course, he had also
acquired other abilities from the Ferochromon, but I'll just leave that as
a teaser for now. :-P)

(*) I don't know how to translate _nuga're_, except to say that it's the
introvertive form of _tu~ga're_ [tu~"gar`&], "to breathe". This is another
example of a word that exists solely due to the people/culture/universe
involved.


T

--
The heroine goes where no man has gone before... the lady's washroom!