Re: More on the Hermetic Language

Welcome, Paul!

It is a bit late, but I still don't want to miss the opportunity to greet
another conlanger who just left his closet. Most of us had similar experiences,
you know: years of thinking that conlanging is one of the weirdest hobbies
possible and of reluctance to share it with anybody, then the shock of
discovering that there are other people doing exactly the same, and finally
joining the Conlang List. Some of us still tend to be secretive about our
conlanging, but the general tendency is that we are prepared to talk about it
with anybody who is interested in it.
As you might have noticed, you are bit of a special case, since your conlang
seems to be one of the biggest conlangs ever created (at least, as far as we
know; nobody can tell how many conlangers haven't gone public yet), and since
you appear to have achieved a fluency in your language that is quite
exceptional as well.

I've had a quick look at your website, and I agree with all others that it
really is a remarkable piece of work. Your language is fascinating, and the
script is extremely beautiful. Well, the whole thing looks indeed very
impressive. I'm just curious what the story is about. And what the meaning is
of all these chess problems near the end.

Since people have been introducing themselves and their languages to you, I
guess it is a good moment to do the same. This kind of periodical reintroducing
might also be useful to those who joined later.

I was born in the same year as your Hermetic, and both my nationality and
native language are Dutch. I work as a software engineer for a bank, but before
that I studied Sovietology, became a Polish translator, wrote music, spent a
lot of time singing, and did some other things that aren't really worth
mentioning. I've had a passion for language since my earliest childhood, and
have been fiddling with conlangs since my early teens. I must admit that I
started taking it seriously only two years ago, shortly before I joined the
list.

Unlike most other conlangs on the list, all my languages belong to the category
of "a posteriori" languages. The primary motivation of creating this kind of
language is not merely the fulfillment of the author's personal, aesthetic
needs. It also contains elements of a game: what would have happened if
language X had emerged into direction Y under the influence of condition Z? In
other words: where would the ball end if it had been pushed into a certain
direction along its way?
The best (and definitely the most well-known) example of this kind of
languages, also known as "what if" languages, is undoubtedly Brithenig (by
Andrew Smith), a Celto-Romance language presuming that Roman occupation of
Brittannia left deeper traces than *here*.

All my languages belong to the same category:

* Hattic and Askaic are two closely related languages that both belong to a
hypothetical branch of the Indo-European language family;

* Wenedyk is a Slavo-Romance language, that basically tries to show what Polish
would have looked like if it had been a Romance instead of a Slavic language;

* Vozgian is a North-Slavic language, primarily inspired by the very fact that
we have West-, East-, and South-Slavic languages in our world, but no
North-Slavic. It was my first project, and currently I am trying to rebuild it
from scratch, trying to implement some Finnish phonological and grammatical
influences. I must admit, that I was quite thrilled when I first discovered
that others have been working on North-Slavic conlangs, too (Nas^ica, Sevorian,
Seversk, Slavëni, and later Skuodian).

To end this shameless self-plug: welcome again!

Best,
Jan

=====
"Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones

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