Re: CHAT: Conlanging couples

--- In conlang@y..., Kala Tunu <kalatunu@H...> wrote:
> i think this is an important issue because a lot of
us have or will share their
> life with a "non-conlanger". i rarely tell my
friends that i conlang but always
> tell a prospective g/f and make it sure she fully
understands what it is and
> feels comfortable with it.
It would be interesting to hear how different people
frame the hobby to normal humans <g>. I mostly don't
tell people about it, if I do how I frame it depends
on the person I'm dealing with. There is usually
_some_ angle that can serve as a basis of
understanding. For example, I could get my mother to
understand and even approve of to some degree my
little project when I was a teenager by telling her it
was so I could keep secret notes. It's amazing how
many people can be very readily placated by citing
even the barest scrap of a purpose or use to the
activity. Oh, the most original thing I ever did to
introduce conlanging to others was I wrote a little
lesson for the Tokcir/NGL language called "Guy and
Babe Watching in Tokcir". The prototype was invented
for me and my friend Bern so that we could comment on
guys' attractiveness and probable sexual orientation
when out and about at the supermarket, for example,
openly and with impunity :P. e.g., {Ace dumin xuxuje.
¿Li visam indàbuije?} = "That guy is cute. Do you
think he's queer?" :P

Now, con-_culturing_, I have been doing since I was,
oh, four, and this is the first time I have made the
slightest public mention of it - I don't tell people
about it, period, although the stuff I did for D&D I
didn't mind telling people about, cuz there's a
purpose for that that they can grasp. I never flesh
out the langs that go with them except descriptively
(I don't want to do a botched job on them - they have
features I lack sufficient knowledge and skill to
actually be able to fully describe and implement).
Although, since all this stuff exists _only_ in my
head and is not written down anywhere, things like the
names of imaginary cities, provinces and people make
an excellent source of unguessable passwords that I
can easily remember :P.

> i've never come accross neither reaction like "you
> didn't look insane, though" nor "how nice, my own
language is Shmolinian from
> Voydzic alternate-history on planet Barzag". i can
remember Boudewijn and Irina
> in London suggesting to me that meeting a conlanger
is it--but wasn't their
> piece of advice biased ;-) anyhoo, if the proportion
of female/male conlangers
> on this list reflects that of the population of
conlangers in the world,
> shouldn' we fear that conlanging couples would
endanger our species with
> inbreeding and monomania? <g>
Yeah, I definitely think conlangers should not
inbreed, who knows what you'd get <weg>... look at
those folks in Silicon Valley whose kids have
heightened levels of Asperger's syndrome from computer
geek inbreeding :/. I'm more or less a fan of having a
bit of a contrast in personalities in a relationship
:).

>however, i do wonder whether problems with a
> non-conlanger spouse aren't due to arise at some
point anyway and how to deal
> with them. the conlang FAQS don't share this kind of
experience.

This looks to me like just a subset of the sort of
problems that introverted and intuitive type folks
have getting along with the rest of humanity that does
not understand some of their little hobbies ;). So the
problem might be best addressed on the level of
general personality theory, where there may be many
situations broadly parallel, rather than as a
conlanging-unique problem, which I don't think it is
necessarily...

Stephen


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