Re: Tell your conlang story!

I don't know that I could help you, living in New Zealand, but this is what I
can tell you.

Quoting Monica Byrne <monica.resources@...>:

> Hi everyone!
>
> I'm a former subscriber to the conlanging email list. I loved it, but I
> couldn't keep up with the emails, so I've gone Nomail for awhile.
>
> But I'm contacting you now because I'm a producer for North Carolina
> Public
> Radio (check out our show: www.wunc.org/thestory/). We're currently
> broadcasting in North Carolina only, but we're soon going national. I
> would
> love to do a piece on conlanging, but our show is about storytelling
> instead
> of analysis or exposition, so we're looking for a few good stories
> about
> your experiences with conlanging.
>
> Here are a few questions to get you thinking:
>
> 1) How did you get in to conlanging? What was your inspiration?
I came across a book called "Loom of Language" in High School and was fascinated
by the thought of people putting languages together.  Then I read Tolkien and
was intrigued by the Elvish and other languages he based his stories on.

I only started conlanging after picking up "Elementa Latina" in my final year in
Secondary Education and discovering that learning languages was more a case of
applying oneself than of sitting in a class-room being bored.
>
> 2) What is your purpose in creating languages? Is it a personal art, an
> anthropological experiment, a pasttime...?
It's a story-telling aid.  To create a credible SF world, you need to create
credible names - and calling some alien "Tom" let alone "Dick" or "Harry" just
doesn't cut the mustard.  Calling a particularly nasty GE/Med human "Vheratsho"
and defining that name as meaning "Unquiet Spirit/Demoness" works.

>From that aspect it could be viewed as an anthropological experiment.
>
> 3) How have people reacted when you tell them about it?
I tend not to.  Apart from its role in my stories, it has no connection to the
outside world.
>
> 4) Did conlanging lead you places you never expected it to take you?
Hardly.

Wesley Parish
>
>
> If you have any stories for me in these veins, please let me know! You
You can find some of the stories I wrote: "The Sacrament of the Sharing of Prey"
at http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/10063/20040601/www.antisf.com/stories/story05.htm
and "Piru-Etyaute Meets the Vheratsho" at
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/10063/20050401/www.antisf.com/stories/story08.htm
and "Dust in the Wind" at
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/10063/20050901/www.antisf.com/stories/story09.htm

The names and words that are not English are either Yhe Vala Lakha, the language
of the Free, of the Lakhabrech; Li' Anyerra-Tarah, the coastal language of the
Rakhebuityan; and Nu Aves Khara-Ansha, the language of the Sacred Hunt.

Share and Enjoy!
> can
> contact me at mbyrne@wunc.org, or (919) 445-9245. I'm really looking
> forward
> to hearing from you!
>
> Best,
> Monica Byrne
>
> - - - - -
> Monica Byrne
> The Story with Dick Gordon
> WUNC-FM
> 120 Friday Center Drive
> Chapel Hill, NC 27517
> Work (7am-1pm): (919) 445-9245
>


"Sharpened hands are happy hands.
"Brim the tinfall with mirthful bands"
- A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge

"I me.  Shape middled me.  I would come out into hot!"
I from the spicy that day was overcasked mockingly - it's a symbol of the
other horizon. - emacs : meta x dissociated-press