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Re: THEORY: Browsing at Borders Public Library

From:Eli Naeher <enaeher@...>
Date:Monday, October 11, 1999, 14:03
>So here's the conlanger challenge: > >What are some of your concultures' "Keywords"?
The name itself of my new-ish conculture, the Swlos, is a good keyword. The literal translation I tend to use is 'exiles',' and words like 'pariah' or 'outcast' also convey some of the meaning. But there is a sense of unworthiness and shame that is hard to translate succinctly. If you've read that David Brin book--I believe it's _Brightness Reef_, although I may be thinking of a different one--this will be clearer. The societies in the book are exiles of one sort or another living illegally on a planet which has been temporarily quarantined in order to allow the ecosystem to regenerate; not only are the people aware of their heritage as the descendants of criminals, they consider their own existence a sin for which they hope to redeem themselves by devolving into an animal state. The same general feeling exists among the Swlos. They are shameful; they are unworthy; they have been 'cast out into the wilderness,' and rightly so. ___ )_|_) Eli Naeher - enaeher@emma.troy.ny.us )__|__) )___|___) "A whaleship was my Yale College and my Harvard." \-,__|_,---/ --Herman Melville \________/