Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Accidental Conlanging

From:H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>
Date:Thursday, January 23, 2003, 19:47
On Thu, Jan 23, 2003 at 01:49:47PM -0500, Karapcik, Mike wrote:
[snip]
> | - haunt many bookstores hunting for linguistics > | books and foreign language dictionaries
Not me... I've never been a bookstore person. Although, in my high-school, pre-conlang days, people used to laugh at me for "discovering" an A-level Organic Chemistry text in the library, and going to there every day with a notebook to study it. This went on until my dad heard about it, and decided to buy me a copy of the book. It was like a conlanger receiving a copy of Describing Morphosyntax as a gift! :-) [snip]
> My "normal" friends think it's a joke that I always make a detour to > the language section in the used bookstores. They just can't understand why > a used (good condition) copy of Fijian Grammar is such a KeWl find!
One time, after I discovered CONLANG, a friend brought me to a second-hand bookstore, where I soon found an introductory booklet to Gaelic. He thought I'd just lost my mind when I was fawning over it like a child with a new toy. :-) (Pity I didn't actually buy the book though---it didn't cover enough grammar, just lots of isolated phrases.) [snip]
> | - willing to pay exorbitant prices for said books
Not me. I'm a very miserly spender.
> I try to buy books used, and I try to limit myself to what I could > conceivably read in the next 10 years.
I tend to buy/collect technical books. Such arcana as Greene & Co.'s university Calculus text, Advanced level physics (which my dad gave me---from *his* highschool days!), full orchestral scores of pieces I like, various texts on orchestration (even though I am a CS major), a Greek New Testament (even though I can barely read Greek), Knuth's METAFONTbook (which nobody but insane latex-for-conlangers subscribers would own :-P), a text on set theory, an old DOS hidden function calls reference, the (in)famous Camel Book (authoritative Perl reference), etc.. The scary thing is, I've read through most of them from cover to cover, including the orchestral scores. :-) [snip]
> Otherwise, such books are my only significant "hobby expense". I buy > very few computer or PlayStation games anymore (though Master of Orion 3 > looks like a gift from God, and even has alien languages!), and very little > for DnD anymore.
I've given up on hardcore gaming a long time ago. Dabbled a bit in RPG's, never really liked DnD, but got tired of those even though I'd gone back several times after giving up each time. I have to admit, though, that the seed of the conlang germ started when I was an avid Ultima player. The runic writing inspired me to create all sorts of conscripts, among which are highly complex ones like: http://quickfur.yi.org:8080/~hsteoh/img/script-sample-2.gif
> Don't drink. Don't smoke. I buy clothes from Sears when I absolutely > *have* to.
I don't drink/smoke either. No tattoos, no piercings, not even leather jackets. Clothes tend to be a bit old and "square" 'cos I have no interest in fashion fads and don't believe in replacing something until it has been absolutely, utterly, completely worn out beyond all possible hope of repair. :-) Of course, I have pretty high standards for what constitutes proper "repair", so overall, I'm pretty tame in appearance... the strangeness is inside. ;-)
> And it's GYPSY!!! What philistine wouldn't pounce on a book like that?
*raises hand* *looks around* Umm.... *lowers hand...* :-P
> | - scribble notes on languages - natlang and > | conlang - at strange times of the day and night and > | even while in the bathtub or sitting on the toilet
I derive calculus theorems (*not* part of schoolwork :-P) in the washroom and compose symphonies in my sleep. :-) [snip]
> | - have memorized the _entire_ IPA and at least one > | ASCII representation thereof
Didn't manage to do the IPA; I think my brain has permanently burned out after that time when I memorized the entire Periodic Table, including the rare earths and uranium-series elements, and could draw the exact layout from memory. Sadly to say, I've forgotten most of it. :-(
> Working on it. I also use IPA at work for the names of the Chinese > doctors/researchers. I find Pinyin very confusing and too inefficient to > memorize.
I don't like Pinyin either. The "traditional" transcription made a lot more sense to me.
> | - talk in your own conlang(s) as well as try to > | read aloud other's conlangs
Never really spoke Ebisedian for any length of time (except with my informant :-P); although there were times when the sound of a word so tickled me that I'd burst out laughing in glee. (I've been known to burst out laughing at specific parts of purely instrumental music, too.)
> At work, I try to remember to swear in Esperanto. Not much else is safe.
The number of times I swear in my life can probably be counted on 10 fingers... though when things get ridiculous, I've the tendency to emit sounds that make people think I'm in pain or something. :-)
> | - find yourself automatically attempting to > | translate advertisement slogans and magazine headlines > | into conlangs while waiting in doctors' > | offices or waiting for a bus, etc.
For me, my tendency is for individual letters on the page to suddenly come alive and dance around with a life of their own. Quite often, this develops into a 12-volume epic trilogy that continues long after I stopped looking at the page. :-) Or, if it doesn't turn into an epic, it turns into a 2500-page sci-fi/fantasy anatomical treatise. (Y'know, the kind where you rationalize why the legs of an R are off-kilter and develop hypotheses on them, and then proceed to prove them to be theorems.) :-) [snip]
> | - constantly/consistently websurfing for > | linguistic and conlinguistic materials > | ("I'm goin' surfin', I'm goin' surfin'... Hang > | Binary, Dude!... DiGiBuNGaaAAA!!!)
Hey, I found CONLANG. 'Nuff said. :-)
> Yep. And there's all this )(*&* porn in my way! It's taking up > perfectly good internet space that some linguist could fill with cool > Polynesian stuff!
Definitely! And people with nothing better to do should stop wasting bandwidth on their personal webpages which nobody reads anyway, and donate the space to mirroring the CONLANG archives! :-)
> | - don't at all mind the high volume of email > | postings on the ConLang (and related email lists), > | in fact, LOVE it and can't imagine life without it
I think I've been responsible for nearly 50% of the traffic on CONLANG recently, so what can I say... :-)
> I'm not shy about using the delete key....
Neither am I. Sometimes I reply to deleted messages anyway, just because. :-) T -- This is a tpyo.