Re: Lunatic Survey

You'll see this twice, Sally. But I've appreciated others sharing their
answers so thought I should too.

Sally Caves wrote:
>
> 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?
A number of my friends and family know about my conlanging now. It
usually comes up right after mentioning that I'm studying a foreign
language (Japanese, currently) just because I want to (i.e. it's not a
school requirement or anything external). The second is considered odd
enough that the first is greeted with little surprise.

>
>         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
>                 b) making it public?
b) mostly. I joined Conlang and enjoy the discussions with other
language enthusiasts in the same way that I enjoy my quilting guild
meetings, or my weekly lunches with my knitting buddies, or my monthly
artist support group meetings. It's a bunch of intelligent, creative
people getting together and yakking about a shared passion. Since we're
so widely scattered geographically, I feel the Conlang list is a
wonderful opportunity for sharing, that we would be unlikely to have
otherwise.

>
>         3)  How many of you, in mentioning your conlang to an
> acquaintance, received a belittling reply?  Condescension?  Disapproval?
None, at least since the first transgressor got out of the hospital.
Just kidding.

As I said above, mention of conlanging usually comes up in conjunction
with mention of my other language studies. And anyone who I'm telling
that much about myself also is already aware that I practice a number of
graphic and textile arts as well. Also martial arts (for some reason I
*never* hear condescension after that one). Being creative and
constructing "things" just is part of my public image, of which
conlanging is only one part. People can either accept the whole, or
denigrate the whole at their peril. Most people put me in the "mostly
harmless" category.

One side note in terms of public reaction: my art student, who is a
ten-year old boy, also is beginning to write computer/video games. I
just got word from his mom that he wants me to help him design a
language for his current game. I said I'd be delighted to, and we'll
pick up with that at our next lesson next week.

>
>         4)  How many of you are:
>
>                 a) high school students or younger?
>                 b) undergraduates?
>                 c) graduates?
>                 d) out of school altogether and supporting yourselves?
>                 e) Not in school, never went?
d), after a B.A. and an M.S. degree.
>
>         4a) What is your profession, or your desired profession?
Current profession is software engineer. Desired profession is artist -
either graphic or textile. Notice some dissonance here? At least
software engineering pays the bills right up front.
>
>         5)  How many of you have invented a language because
>
>                 a) you are solely interested in language experiments
>                    and linguistics?
>
>                         i) for personal experiments...
>                         ii) because you like participating in the
>                         development of an auxiliary language and its
>                         socio-political effects?
I've never really gotten into this for a language in isolation. For
whatever reason, the auxilliary language efforts have never caught my
interest.
>
>                 b) you are interested in world-building
>
>                         i) for fiction
>                         ii) for role-playing and other social activities
>                         iii) just for your own amusement?
Yup, to all of b). My work began in role-playing games, but has since
moved into the fiction and amusement realms.
>
>         5) How many of you take the time to learn another's conlang?
No, only due to time constraints. I've elected to devote my language
learning time to natlangs. Although I'm probably picking up snippets of
others' conlangs as I study them for interesting features. I think this
is happening a bit with Barker's Tsolyani since I have his two books to
hand to study as I write my own conlangs.

>
>         6) How many of you are women?
Me, me, me. Or else I've managed to fool a *lot* of people over the
years, including my husband.

>
>         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 like to participate rather than lurk, and I think I do. But sometimes
other activities begin to overwhelm, and you all won't hear from me for
a while. If I ever have need to leave the list for a while, I'll
announce it.

>
>         7a) If you are women and you are lurking, why are you not
> contributing?  This is a shamefully gendered question, but gender and
> participation has been raised, and I'm curious.
N/A, I think.
>
>         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]
Go ahead and mention me if you care to. My addys are at the bottom.

Pornography? Nah, I can't write reasonable pornography in English, let
alone in my conlangs, which aren't fully developed enough yet for *any*
type of prose.
>
>         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?
My current conlangs don't get *too* exotic. Some of it parallels my own
knowledge of linguistics - the more I learn of natlangs and other
conlangs, the more my imagination has to work with. In terms of
phonology, I'm not the best phonologist myself in terms of producing or
recognizing fine distinctions in speech. So my phonologies are generally
limited to that which *I* can pronounce and understand.

My first conlang, Old Southern, was a direct outgrowth of my RPG at the
time. I had some hopes of sharing at least some of the vocabulary with
my players (like for personal names, place names, etc.) so I again kept
the phonology simple as none of my players at the time were linguists of
any stripe.

The same will be true of some new conlanging work, where I'm
participating in a fictional alternate-history zine. I'm hoping to sneak
some conlang into that, and the editor has said such would be welcome.
But I figure I need to make it at least pronouncable to the primarily
American English-speaking readership.

>         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?
>
I think I get the same creative satisfaction out of it as I do out of my
fantasy narrative paintings and drawings. My goals in narrative painting
are to produce an image that *could* have happened, if you're willing to
suspend disbelief to allow for various fantasy or science-fictional
concepts. It's that world-building idea, I guess. My conlangs are in the
same arena. I want something that I can envision my fictional characters
and peoples actually speaking and using in their everyday lives.

Why keep at it? Because I have to. My artistic endeavors are a necessary
part of my mental health maintenance. I've had enough trips through
depression and counseling over the years to understand that now.
Conlanging, again, is one of a number of activities that I can do to
remain sane.

> what is the name of your
> conlang and in a nutshell, what are its most important features?
The conlang which is most developed is code-named "Old Southern", for
it's period of use and geographic spread. It has a simple case system,
sentence structure is primarily SVO. The most interesting feature I've
developed so far is the tense+scope conjugation of verbs. Tense
indicates when the topic occured, e.g. past, present or future. Scope
refers to the periodicity of the topic, e.g. momentary, continuing,
eternal, cyclic etc.

For that same world, I've also scoped out the Desert Tongue and the
Lizard Speech, but I've only got some bare phonology for the first and
phonology and a few vocabulary items for the second. Since Lizard Speech
was spoken by sentient bipedal lizards, I have taken a few stabs at
adjusting the phonology to what speech sounds a lizard might be able to
produce.

Laurie
---
Laurie Gerholz
milo@winternet.com
http://www.winternet.com/~milo