Re: Lunatic Survey
| From: | vardi <vardi@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Saturday, September 26, 1998, 21:12 |
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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?
The fact that since age 16 I've developed alphabets and conlangs of my
own is an intensely personal one. I've mentioned it at some point or
another to parents and friends.
>
> 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
Discovering the listserv Conlang has had a considerable influence both
on my approach to my Conlang Tesk and to its actual content and
structure. In terms of my approach, the doubts I always had that what I
was doing was somehow unhealthy or borderline in mental terms have been
considerably assuaged. In content terms, I have encountered conlangs
with much more radical structures than Tesk, and some of the ideas I've
gathered are now being absorbed in a new version of Tesk I'm thinking
about. Indeed, the word Conlang has even led to the emergence of a new
Tesk word: Cinlyng, according to a kind of gerund pattern implying
active implementation of a verbal concept (and creating a hypothetical
and unusually long root CNLNG). Thus Cinlyng could be translated as
"Conlang-ization," and I'm using it to mean the introduction into Tesk
of ideas and structures I'm hearing about on the list.
> b) making it public?
I now feel more confident about mentioning my hobby to people, and
always mention the listserv, perhaps as a kind of validation of what I
do.
>
> 3) How many of you, in mentioning your conlang to an
> acquaintance, received a belittling reply? Condescension? Disapproval?
Never any of the above. Usually I've encountered admiration and mild
interest. Sometimes people have wondered why I bother if only I know my
conlang - that's about the only slightly belittling response I've ever
got.
>
> 4) How many of you are:
>
> a) high school students or younger?
> b) undergraduates?
> c) graduates?
>
d) out of school altogether and supporting yourselves?
That's me! I have a BA in Hebrew Studies (graduated 1986).
d) Not in school, never went?
>
>
> 4a) What is your profession, or your desired profession?
I'm a translator, editor and writer. I also worked in the past for a
human rights organization and still have some involvement in that field.
>
> 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?
>
> b) you are interested in world-building
>
> i) for fiction
> ii) for role-playing and other social activities
> iii) just for your own amusement?
>
I'm not sure any of the above exactly fit my reasons; 5a)i) is probbly
the closest.
Firstly, I'm not at all into SF or imaginary worlds. I'm certainly not
into the idea of auxiliary languages.
For me, conlangs - and particularly Tesk, my favorite and longest
lasting conlang - has been an expression of my independence and
autonomous identity which has accompanied me since I was a teenager,
changing and developing as I myself have changed and developed, both
linguistically and personally.
I think I need to be a bit more open to make it clear what I mean. I
grew up in a medium-sized English city (Sheffield) as somone with a
strong Jewish identity, and I also knew from an early age that I'm gay.
Both of these identities placed me clearly in small minorities, in a
city which at that time had one synagogue and one gay pub (not on the
same premises, sadly!) So I think I had a strong need to stake a claim
to my own identity. I also had a practical need or desire to be able to
write personal thoughts and ideas without anyone being able to read
them. I attribute not only my interest in Conlangs but also my passion
for languages in general to this interest in minorities, alternatives,
different ways of saying the same thing.
> 5) How many of you take the time to learn another's conlang?
I haven't actually taken time to learn other people's conlangs as such,
but I read their comments about them avidly, and as mentioned above I'm
incorporating all kinds of ideas in Tesk.
>
> 6) How many of you are women?
I'm a guy. On a broader level of minorities/oppressed groups, it would
be interesting to me to know how many conlangers belong or belonged to
ethnic or other minorities.
> 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]
>
> 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.
>
> 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]
Yes.
>
> 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?
No, exoticness isn't the idea behind Tesk. See my comments on Tesk at
the end of this reply.
>
> 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?
The base appeal, as I've hinted, is independence. In terms of style, the
appeal is eclecticism. The ability to choose what I want, to blend
elements. Sometime when I look at a word I've written in Tesk and see
it's an Arabic root declining according to a pattern borrowed from
Hebrew and with a postposition of Germanic origin tagged on the end, I
have this kind of feeling of sensuality, I guess.
About Tesk: I think my model for Tesk was really Yiddish, I language I
don't know well but which I was always kind of aware of. So Tesk took a
German base, increasingly influenced by Dutch, which is a language I
adore, and then absorbed a series of influences as it grew older (as
Yiddish did through the centuries). Hebrew influence was always there;
less significant Russian and Spanish influences were added while I was
17-19. For some 8 years now the great influence has been Arabic, a
language of tremendous emotional and political importance to me.(To
continue the Yiddish analogy, a fascinating version of Yiddish emerged
during the 19th century among Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews in
Palestine, which absorbed many Arabic words).
The basic structure of Tesk is still Germanic, simplified to a point
that makes it somewhat reminiscent of Afrikaans (eg the present tense
conjugation of all but a few verbs now shows no marking for number or
person). Tesk has postpositions. I don't have the problem I often read
about on the list of not "knowing" what the Tesk word for something is;
the words are overwhelmingly drawn from the languages I've mentioned, or
from others; the same concept may use a word from German, Hebrew or
Arabic, though since I write a fair bit of poetry and diary-type
material in Tesk I often have a pretty much set way of saying any given
thing. But there is no closed lexicon and such an idea would be contrary
to the spirit of Tesk.
I've always used Semitic-style root patterns and verbal and nominal
templates in Tesk, and applied them to Germanic or other words, but at
the moment I'm working on a more regulated system for doing this.
I liked answering your survey and have enjoyed reading other peoples'
responses.
Shaul Vardi