Re: history of conlanging (aka Conlang influences, aka Lest darkness fall)

Sally Caves wrote:
>
> > At 5:36 pm -0800 20/11/99, Barry Garcia wrote:
>
> >
> > Well i'm probably the odd one out here, because I was never inspired to
> > start conlanging because of Tolkien
>
> Is the general consensus that Tolkien was the inspiration for most
> conlangers?  Oh I think not!  Along with Ray, and probably a number
> of others, I hadn't even heard of Tolkien until well after I was
> making up a language.  It was my mother who introduced us to Lord
> of the Rings.  She was very impressed by the appendix, and pointed
> it out to me:  Look, Sally! Here's a man who's invented a language
> and a script, just like you!  I remember a dark wave of jealousy
> and despair overtaking me at that moment.  I was thirteen.  !!!!
>
> A confession...
> Sally
>
        Count me in that club too! The first time I read Tolkien I was probably
17, so it had been at least already 5 years since I had started
conlanging! Also I remember that when I read it I saw nothing about
constructed languages at all (it's far after, thanks to friends that
knew about my hobby and were much more fans of Tolkien than me, that I
learned about the Elfic languages).

        In fact, I think that it's the studying of natural languages (and
especially a dead one aka. Latin) that made me invent my own languages
(when I saw all that diversity in languages, I decided that French was
too  narrowed for me and began creating my own languages. Now I see
French with new eyes and it's not too narrowed anymore :) ). Latin and
English were my first inspirations (they were the first foreign
languages I learned). Spanish was not as it was too near to French for
me (I wanted exoticness). I was terribly influenced by my readings,
creating a Slav conlang when I read a few things about Russian, a
Celtic-like conlang when I read a booklet about Irish Gaelic, etc... I
knew the existence of Esperanto but had no clue about its structure. Its
only influence (but a big one) was to decide me to try and invent my own
languages (I was not the only one who did that, so it gave me kind of a
credibility :) ). My first languages were merely relexes of Latin, so
you see...

--
        Christophe Grandsire

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