Re: The magic of conlang (was: Has anyone made a real conlang?)

I agree wholeheartedly with the eloquent praises of conlanging which
are being sung on this thread.  Would that I could express myself so
lyrically ... but I shall restrict myself to a couple of points.

For me, the love of the diversity of languages, spoken and written,
that Harald describes was a major push towards conlanging, as well as
being fostered by it.  The two are mutually reinforcing - the more
subtlety I hear and see in natural language, the more subtlety I am
driven to form in my own language, and the process of creating these
new forms brings new and deeper ways of thinking which further inform
the way I appreciate natural language.

In fact, exactly the same process occurs in my appreciation of music,
as a performer and a listener.  Herman's comment, 'It's interesting
how many conlangers seem to have some interest in music.', has been
discussed here before, but still it is a striking fact.  Moreover, in
this connection I can add a small contribution to the argument that
conlanging is an art form, or can be.  For some years, between my mid-
teens and early twenties, I plucked ineffectually at various modes of
creative behaviour - writing, music and so forth.  I felt a
frustrating lack of a creative outlet that would provide the right
balance of structure and freedom ... until I discovered conlanging.  I
strongly believe that the same creative drives and shaping principles
that go into the process of producing visual arts, music and
literature are harnessed in the process of creating new language.

One final comment.  John Cowan has suggested that 'IMO all natural
phenomena are truly beautiful.', and while I would perhaps not go
quite so far for myself, I sympathise with the sentiment.  In fact, as
regards my own (hopefully, in the near future) field, I consider the
human brain to be not only one of the most fascinating, but also one
of the most beautiful, objects that exists - and the meanings of those
two statements overlap.

Jonathan.

[reply to jonathan underscore knibb at hotmail dot com]
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