Re: Lunatic Survey

Sally Caves <scaves@...> wrote:
> THE SURVEY:
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>         1)  To what extent is your conlang an "intensely peersonal"
> pursuit--one that you don't often reveal to people other than =
conlangers?

     I don't hide it from others, but on the other hand I don't go out of=
 my
way to mention it, and it doesn't seem to just come up in conversation.  =
My
family certainly knows I conlang, and I put my homepage's URL on every =
email
I send (even business ones), and my homepage has a link to my conlang =
pages.

>         2)  If so, to what extent do you feel that the listserv =
"Conlang"
> has given you a _raison d'etre_ for
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>                 a) pursuing your invented language
>                 b) making it public?
     It has helped motivate me to work on it, but it hasn't been a =
_raison_
_d'etre_.

>         3)  How many of you, in mentioning your conlang to an
> acquaintance, received a belittling reply?  Condescension?  =
Disapproval?

     Not I, although I have encountered (as someone else here put it)
bemusement.
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>         4)  How many of you are:
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>                 a) high school students or younger?
>                 b) undergraduates?
>                 c) graduates?
>                 c) out of school altogether and supporting yourselves?
>                 d) Not in school, never went?
     The second c.

>         4a) What is your profession, or your desired profession?
     My profession is programming.  (My education is in Mathematics.)
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>         5)  How many of you have invented a language because
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>                 a) you are solely interested in language experiments
>                    and linguistics?
>=20
>                         i) for personal experiments...
>                         ii) because you like participating in the
>                         development of an auxiliary language and its
>                         socio-political effects?
>=20
>                 b) you are interested in world-building
>=20
>                         i) for fiction
>                         ii) for role-playing and other social =
activities
>                         iii) just for your own amusement?
     Primarily b)i), but also partly b)iii).
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>         5) How many of you take the time to learn another's conlang?
     I've looked at a number of other conlangs on the web, enough to get =
a
feel for what they're like, but if I were to expend the energy to learn a
language I would first expend it on improving my Spanish and then on
learning another natlang.

>         6) How many of you are women?
     Not I.

>         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]
     I haven't been posting recently because I've been busy elsewhere, =
but
I'm about to revise how Gladilatian handles loanwords and when I do =
that'll
result in a post.  I also keep meaning to contribute to the "let's all
translate this" threads, since translating something I didn't come up =
with
myself is more likely to reveal an unresolved issue with the language, =
but
again I've been busy.  (On the good side, however, one of the things I've
been busy at has been actually writing some of the fiction Glad. was
invented to support.)
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>         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]
     You have my permission both to mention my work and to use my name.

>         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?
     Well, Gladilatian is an alien language, and it was intended to =
reflect
the alienness of the gladifers.  The lack of verbs is the most obvious
exotic feature of the language, although how it handles such concepts as
"good" reflects my conception of gladifer culture.
     I've also tried to avoid putting in exotic features just to be =
exotic.
I agonized for a while about how Gladilatian handles numbers too large to
have a separate morpheme, because it was so much like how English does =
it,
until I realized there were good theoretical reasons for doing it that =
way
in the context of Gladilatian, and left it in.

>         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?
     It's a work of art, even if not too many other people ever really
experience it.  It's a way to communicate a way of thinking, and in that
sense is on par with the fiction it was originally created to support.

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             Dennis Paul Himes    <>    dennis@himes.connix.com
             homepage: http://www.connix.com/~dennis/dennis.htm
        Gladilatian page: http://www.connix.com/~dennis/glad/lang.htm
=20
Disclaimer: "True, I talk of dreams; which are the children of an idle
brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy; which is as thin of substance =
as
the air."                      - Romeo & Juliet, Act I Scene iv Verse =
96-99