Re: CHAT: Which world? Which culture?

Harald Stoiber wrote:


> It is said that language is a mirror of its speaker's culture. In fact,
this
> sounds so very true to me that I am even creating an entire world for
> my current conlang. On the other hand it seems to me that there are
> people on this list who don't create cultures when they create languages.
> So my question to those fellow conlangers would be: Which culture do
> you mirror into your conlangs? Your native one? Another existing culture
> that you deliberately choose? Or some ancient culture? Just curious...
> *smile*
>
> Another solution to the problem could be to make a culturally neutral
> language - which sounds so extremely impossible that my writing fingers
> keep asking my brain if it really would like to even mention such a
> strange idea. *g*

Well, for the languages that I have developed a longer time (and the
cultures I have though on languages I have not developed too much), I can
comment:

Rithian.  Was some kind of personal cryptolanguage that was supposed to be
talked in my future transnational megacorporation as corporative language.
The culture involved: well mine and that of my expectations as an
imaginative teenager.

Hangkerimce.  Is the language of the Hangkerim culture, a conculture that is
by far more developed than the conlang.
Moscha.  Is the language of the Moscha people, which are part of the
Hangkerim culture.  Also very sketchy.
Proto-Hangke and other proto languages for the Hangkerim cultures: sketchy.

Chleweyish.  It is the language of the Chleweiness, which I have described
as the one man culture I live in.  So the culture is, well, defined, even if
it really does not exist, or, rather, is not a culture per se.

Biwa.  It is an attempt to create a language that seems to be part of some
culture but this culture is neither mine, nor a conculture I have created or
plan to create.  As I have not come to culture specific jargon, it is still
working.  I would like to go on as far as I can without having to describe a
bit of the culture, and without making it an extention of my culture or of
any of my concultures.

Interlecto.  It is an International Auxliary Language, so the culture should
be any current culture in the world, interacting with other cultures.

Projects that are not mine, but I have worked in:

Tokcir.  It is the New Generation Language (NGL) and the culture it is
suposed to be is: 1) any current culture in the world, but not any historic
culture.  2) the culture of an internationalized (i.e. via Internet) new
generation.

-- Carlos Th