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Re: Lighting Some Flames: Towards conlang artistry

From:Herman Miller <hmiller@...>
Date:Friday, March 15, 2002, 3:44
On Wed, 13 Mar 2002 21:01:33 -0000, Michael Poxon <m.poxon@...>
wrote:

>One way we could present our languages better is through websites. I often >find it difficult, impossible, or just plain frustrating to try and decipher >interlinears with various phonemic representations through the medium of >email, and if each conlang had its own site, we could find out more about >their individuals grammars, histories, phonologies and so on. I know many of >do this now, but it might be taken as an across-the-board suggestion.
This strikes at what seems to me to be the most important point. The presentation of conlangs has yet to reach a form that presents itself for ready appreciation or criticism. Klingon comes close to that goal. But it's inherently difficult to get a feel for any language, and especially so with conlang projects that have a tendency to change and grow as time goes on. A conlang presentation which aims to attract attention and criticism might read like a novel. It should have a strong opening that attracts the reader's interest in the first page, in the first sentence. It should have the equivalent of memorable characters and an interesting plot to keep the interest going throughout the long, detailed presentation. A "teach yourself" format, with sample dialogs and exercises with keys, is one format that could be used as a model. But this would be a monumental amount of work, with very few examples to draw on, and a highly limited audience. A more realistic goal would be to treat *conlang samples*, rather than the conlangs themselves, as the objects of study and criticism. A single conlang sample might be a poem with interlinear translation, a translation of a familiar text, a recipe, or a bit of a story in dual-language side-by-side format. Or it could be a major work like the restoration of the original Klingon version of Hamlet. Or a collaborative project in several conlangs, like the translation relays that frequently pop up on this list. To put the symphony analogy into a different perspective, a symphony is like the Klingon Hamlet, and the Klingon language itself corresponds to the rules of harmony, composition, and orchestration that go into writing the symphony. A well-written symphony can prove the artistic value of the musical "language" it is written in. And there is still much value in conlanging for its own sake, without regard to the goal of producing objects suitable for commentary. Even if you have the eventual goal of making an art-worthy end product (which doesn't necessarily have to be the case), constant sketching is always good practice for artists. -- languages of Azir------> ---<http://www.io.com/~hmiller/lang/index.html>--- hmiller (Herman Miller) "If all Printers were determin'd not to print any @io.com email password: thing till they were sure it would offend no body, \ "Subject: teamouse" / there would be very little printed." -Ben Franklin