Re: CHAT: Unsolicited abuse

Danny Wier wrote:

> Quoth Joel Matthew Pearson:
>
> >I once had a psychologist tell me that my conlanging was no better
> >than mental masturbation (whatever that means), and the sign of a
> >maladjusted personality.  Basically, he accused me of being a
> >sociopath.  Boy, did *that* ever make my day...  So take heart!
> >Everyone gets conlang-bashed from time to time.
>
> Huh.  I've never told any of my shrinks about my conlanging fetish.  I'm
> kinda scared to, because they'd think I'd be having a relapse.
> (Incidentally, one of the symptoms of schizophrenia and related mental
> illnesses is something called "word salad", that is, inventing words,
> speaking gibberish, or... I guess that could include some sort of invented
> language.
But nothing so systematic as what YOU're doing, Danny!   Conlangingis
systematic and sustained and artistic.  But I wonder if Hannah Green
didn't help set the stage for bias against private languages when she
published her biographical account in the fictional _I Never Promised
You a Rose Garden._  Here, the schizophrenic protagonist has invented
the Language of Yr and a whole world of gods to go with it.  I remember
being so impressed by this when I read the book as a teenager, and
wondering if I were unbalanced, too, because I had Teonaht.  But it's
all in the way it is used.  For the protagonist, her gods and her language
were tyrants.  Does anybody know anything at all about the Language
of Yr?  Whether there's more information about it?

> Except I'd figure that a mind under the grips of an active schizophrenic
> episode would create a pretty erratic and confusing conlang at best...
Well exactly!

>