Re: David Peterson, CSANA, and Made to Order Conlangs

Hey!

Sorry it's been awhile (a.k.a., one day...?).   I've been away from my 
computer, and spending far too much time playing Civilization III on my 
girlfriend's computer.   Oh well.   At least if anyone ever asks me to direct 
the building of a civilization from 4000 BC to 2050 AD, I'll be better 
equipped (possibly).

Now, onto the response:

<<YOU'RE the one!>>

Indeed.   :)

<<Is that your article in _Berkeley Studies in   Linguistics_?  Brian O 
Chonchubair wants to read it.  Did you catch up   with him?>>

'Fraid not.   Ever since I've been in the linguistics department people have 
been asking, "Are you/Is he *the* David Peterson?"   Apparently there was a 
grad. student named David Peterson who graduated from Berkeley the year 
before I declared the major as an undergraduate.   I actually met him once, 
too, which disproved the theory that he and I are the same person, via the 
Clark Kent/Superman Method.

<<I still would like to have a   computer word-generator, and might ask you 
how you got yours.>>

I did post on how I got mine.   Unfortunately, you have to have or obtain 
FileMaker Pro (an expensive program, apparently.   I obtained it 
underhandedly).   It's a program created with FileMaker, and what it is is 
basically a random number generator that, instead of generating numbers, 
generates phonemes in the order you specify.   The historical changes, as 
well, are just recognizing sequences and replacing them with other sequences. 
  Currently, there's no way to say "voiceless obstruents become voiced 
intervocalically".   To do it you have to write:

p > b / a_a
p > b / a_e
p > b / a_i

etc., for every consonant and every vowel combination.   It takes awhile.   
So, it's not the best, but it gives me joy to watch it create huge lists of 
weird words.   It's fun to do during commercials while watching the Simpsons. 
  :)

<<BTW, I went around looking for you   after the conference.>>

Oh, it pains my heart!   See, before the conference I had no idea that you 
had actually been to school at Berkeley and had family in California, etc.   
When I discovered that, I assumed you would be spending time with people you 
knew and wouldn't have any time for conlanging.   Besides, my girlfriend was 
getting bored.   She came because her friend is in the Celtic Studies 
department and was helping with conference.   And I, once the conlanging 
aspect was over with, had no real interest in hearing about Celtic-related 
stuff, sad to say...   Though I do like the occasional Enya tune, I'm not 
that "hard core".

<<Good to match name and face,   David.  Too bad we didn't get a chance to 
talk.>>

True, but I was glad to hear your talk.   Fantastic!   And besides, I have 
met a disproportionate amount of language creators recently:

1.) At the Berkeley Linguistics Society Symposium, Dirk Elzinga and Marc 
Smith came up and we had a bite with Josh (friend of mine here who created 
the RandWord program) and much fun.

2.) At UCSD's open house, I saw your own Doug Ball, who also got accepted to 
UCSD and was visiting.

3.) At Cal Day (an event to show off Cal to prospective undergraduates), I 
was manning the phonology lab when a friend of someone who got in happened to 
mention that she created languages.   Small world!

4.) Then there was your talk.

All in a span of three months!

<<What is your work at   CAL, and whom are you working with?>>

I'm an undergraduate in the linguistics department (and English), so I'm not 
working with anyone, per se.   I'm going to UCSD next semester, and Eric 
Bakovic has contacted me about creating a class on language creation (I 
posted to the list about it when I returned).   I'm the president of the 
Society of Linguistics Undergraduates (SLUG), and we had a symposium last 
fall, in which I gave a talk on conlanging (I focused more on "Why 
Linguistics Shouldn't Put Down Language Creation").   I did do a project with 
John McWhorter and Leann Hinton, though, where I taught a class with a 
made-up word list (no grammar), to see if the students would invent something 
pidgin-like.   That was also last semester.   And now, I'm looking forward to 
being at UCSD, though it'll be too bad Doug won't be there.   Not that he 
hasn't made a good choice in Stanford.   He'll be good there (and I need to 
reply to his e-mail...!).

Oh, also, isn't the next Celtic Conference at UCLA?   Will you be there?

<<The walk from Berkeley back to Rochester is indeed long...>

Wow!   And to think the main reason I didn't apply to any place north of 
Santa Barbara for graduate school is because of the terrible, terrible 
weather.   I can't stand the weather here!   So cold!   It needs to be 80 or 
higher for me to be happy--year round.

So, I think that was it.   I'll try to be more punctual with my replies.   :) 
  Happy day to all.

-Dave

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