Re: The Forbidden Expariment

On Wed, 24 Nov 1999, Mia Soderquist wrote:

>"Alex C." wrote:
>> Well, many of you are perhaps bold conlangers lucky enought to have just
>> a conlanger as husband/wife. I admit I'd love to marry a conlang-freak
>I don't think I could, since my urge to talk to them constantly is
>really strong. It's a mommy thing.
I think this is the crux of the FE question.  Mommies are _designed_
to talk to and dote over their children.  A conlanging mother would
have to have two things and preferably three (at least): 1) a
_thoroughly_ devised and stable conlang with a large and diverse
vocabulary.  When the Wee Liddle Yun starts asking "a-sk@ wa, nn@nna?"
(what's that, mommy?")  [distal-demonstrative, interrogative ptc.,
mother (affectionate)] every 1.4 seconds; mother will have a good
stock of diverse words to answer with. 2) a very high comfort level
with the conlang. Essentially, she'd need to have "native level"
fluency.  The child _will_ become fluent in a few years, and mum had
better be pretty good at it in order to keep up. 3)  a husband and
father to the child is not only sympathetic, but has at least a good
working knowledge of the language and is enthused about using it in
the home (and to an extent outside) - preferably a fellow conlanger.
I realise that not every mother has a husband, so no. 3 is somewhat
optional.

Of all of us, I think only one or two could even begin to get away
with it.  Sally, I think, has a good grounding in T., and it does have
a good vocabulary (though I'm not sure how stable it is).  I don't
know much about Irina's conlanging efforts, but I suspect they may be
rather longterm.  Plus, she's got the conlanging hubby!

Brithenig?  Not a chance!

>
>My kids make up words for things all the time. I think all kids
>do that, but I think that mine do it more because I do it, and I
>don't discourage them or treat them like I think it is a "cute
>little kid game".
Sure they do.  And they're lucky that this is something mommy does -
it legitimises the activity and they won't feel pressured to "grow out
of it" as time passes.

>Lots of kids are raised with two languages, or in a
>minority-language only household, and most of them seem to get
>along pretty well. I don't think that it would be particularly
>different if the minority language was a conlang. I have thought
>about it, but I am not happy with my fluency in any one of my
>conlangs.
>
I would tend to think this is the case.  A second language is a second
language - regardless of it's "real or imagined" status.  To a child,
it'd be just another way of talking. The greatest hurdle will be the
parents' acquisition of the language and obtaining a fluency in it
before any kids come along.

Padraic.

>Mia Soderquist (tuozin@dmv.com)