This is a great post! More below. And sorry for misspelling your name in
my first encomium. Go Harald go!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Harald Stoiber" <hstoiber@...>
> Greetings and waves to everybody! :-))
Belated greetings to you, too. I'm behind, now by only three days, but
still behind. I've seen Christophe's enthusiastic remarks.
> Instead of defending our beloved hobby against a much too dogmatic
> list of arguments, I will rather line out what I personally like about
> conlanging and why I wouldn't stop doing it - even without "useful"
> results. So, I will simply pour out my beliefs, preferences and
> thoughts for you to read... :-)
This is just what the list needs.
> Creating languages is also learning to think for a second time. It is
about
> meaning, about redundancy, about hidden distinctions that we would never
> discover by just using our existent languages which we are perfectly used
> to.
Hear hear. What Teonaht did for me was involve me in a secret art of
self-reflection, which involved me in a two thousand year old and older
tradition of "divine" language making. Redundancy, hiddenness, discovery,
God. The original meaning of "invention" in Latin was "discovery." I
discovered in myself the possibility to rename the world and give it
spiritual and imaginative nuances it didn't have in English. But I also
discovered how to write English effectively, and I discovered other natural
languages because of Teonaht: medieval languages, hidden languages, dead
languages. And I embarked on this project of trying to describe this
phenomenon. I'll be going to Kalamazoo in May to talk about this to the
Medieval Institute. I've been meaning to tell you about what transpired at
Berkeley.
> Conlanging opens the mind and it IS definitely a way of expression.
> Yes, it is an art which gladly delivers a personal experience that is
known
> and loved by every artist I know: the exceedingly great pleasure of the
human
> mind which is able to express itself thoroughly, easily and deeply.
And in many different media. In my survey, more than one conlanger
described what they do as a kind of poetry.
> Creating languages is learning to speak for a second time - and to hear!
> Since I have started conlanging in March last year, my ears are much more
> (actually: much much much more ;-) perceptive for the beauty of the spoken
> word. It is very much like the difference in hearing music between a
musician
> and somebody who only "utilizes" music as a tool to have something nice
> playing. For a whole-hearted musician it is wow rather than just nice. And
so
> it is for the passionate conlanger. :-))
One might call us word musicians. In Welsh, poetry is called "tongue
music/art." Cerdd dafod.
> I think that most of the debate simply points out the key difference
between
> craftsmanship and art. The craftsman is only satisfied if the outcome is a
> practical advantage whereas the artist only rejoyces if the outcome is
> well-formed, elegant and beautiful in its own right, absolutely free and
> originally independent of any justification regarding the resulting
> masterpiece.
Was it Christophe or Padraic Brown--or both--who argued that conlanging is
an art for them and not a hobby?
> Oh may the craftsman respect the artist and may all the gentle artists
> forgive the craftsman if he knocks to loudly with his hammer at the walls
> of their ivory towers! *gggg*
Hmm. Trying to figure this one out. Who is the craftsman and who is the
artist? Aren't we all? Except for those who rely entirely on word
generators! <--joke>
> I feel grateful that I am allowed and able to create languages. And
sometimes
> even non-artistic benefits stem from conlanging. While musing about how to
> represent the relations of adjectives, adverbs and nouns, I accidently
discovered
> a significant improvement to an already patented data storage algorithm
which I
> had invented earlier. From this day on I have been convinced that actually
no
> software engineer can seriously afford to stay away from conlanging. *ggg*
> It's inspiring!!! :-))))
Tehhyn.
Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."