Re: Lunatic Survey

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From: Rugpretzel@aol.com
Return-path: <Rugpretzel@...>
To: scaves@frontiernet.net
Subject: Re: Lunatic Survey
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 00:06:01 EDT
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>THE SURVEY:
>        1)  To what extent is your conlang an "intensely peersonal"
>pursuit--one that you don't often reveal to people other than conlangers?
  It isnt really.  I freely share it [or would, if anyone i knew really cared]
I occasionally make up a nursery rhyme or a little song in it and if it is
catchy enough my friends will pick it up.  plus they have used some terms to
hold clandestine gossip corners and insult people in public places.

>        2)  If so, to what extent do you feel that the listserv "Conlang"
>has given you a _raison d'etre_ for
>                a) pursuing your invented language
Conlang has allowed me to see that there are people who can appreciate the
fine points of language construction and not just the occasionally kitch
output of it.

>                b) making it public?
I still dont think there would be enough outside ineterest to make it [Siniuz,
'the MAIN project'] public, because I have seen most of the Conlang web pages
out there and none of them [except Teonaht and MAYBE Zoinx] has given me the
slightest yearning to learn them.  plus in vocabulary and proominal syntamy
language is a blatant [though semicryoti] euroclone.

>        3)  How many of you, in mentioning your conlang to an
>acquaintance, received a belittling reply?  Condescension?  Disapproval?
Of course.  or it will become a running joke.
>        4)  How many of you are:
>                a) high school students or younger?
Actually, on a total tangent, the other day I gave an oral report on
Hildegardis Von Bingen's Lingua Ignota and I am almost ashamed to say it but [
And i know this disgraces her memory etc.  but at teh time i wanted somebody
to hear something in my language]  I passeed off Siniuz as The Ignota.  nobody
noticed, of course , because nobody had heard of Hildegardis.


>        4a) What is your profession, or your desired profession?
Hopefully someday  Anthropologist, Linguist, or Ambassador

>        5)  How many of you have invented a language because
>                a) you are solely interested in language experiments
>                   and linguistics?
>                        i) for personal experiments...
>        5) How many of you take the time to learn another's conlang?
Again, almost never.


>        7) Who is lurking period?  [these questions I don't expect
>                public answers to--if any answers--but I ask it anyway
>                to see what happens]
t can't hurt to post occasionally.  Usually lurking is less a decision than
the realization that there is much more for one to learn before they start
lecturing

>        8) Which of you would give me permission to (or object to) my
>mentioning your conlang and webpage (if any) at a convention, in an
>academic article?  I'll protect names if so desired [as though this is
>writing pornography!-- now there's something]
>        9) For how many of you is "exoticness" in your invented language
>and absolute must?  How many of you pursue more familiar models... and
>why to both?
Not especiallly.  Siniuz Phonology, for instance, is exactly that of the Long
Island New York dialect of English that I probably speak [N.B., not a
stereotyped higly nasal drone, but the way the mostly emigres from the outer
boroughs of NYC speak]

>        9)  FINALLY: what is the appeal of an invented language for you?
>Wherein is its "sexiness"?  Its spirituality?  its sensuality?  What keeps
>you at it?  How does it benefit you?  Does it harm you?  heal you?
This is a difficult question to answer.  I was once workinon a harsh, germanic
language and speaking out loud had an enormous 'sexiness', i suppose, to me.
I think my eventual goal is to have my kids learn Siniuz [or whatever Siniuz
is if and when I ever have children].   I want it to spin out of my control
and take a life of its own and be marked by the hands of other speakers.

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