Re: Cambridge Mass. Conlang Get-together

panchakahq@EARTHLINK.NET writes:

> Bah! Sorry I missed this, both temporally and geographically. I'd have loved
> to meet you guys -- a new Cambridge conlang crew entirely from when I lived
> out there and met folks from the list!
>
> And Schoenhof's is nothing to sneeze at either! :)
Well, Mark Rosenfelder and I are local, but Keith Gaughan and Tom Wier are not. It
was just happenstance they were both in town.

It was my first time at Schoenhof's -- not sure how I could live here for 18
years and never even hear about it. I bought a book on Esperanto and two on
Manx. I was disappointed there was no literature in Esperanto and that the only
book they had on Pima was one I already owned; Keith bought a pan-Celtic survey
that I had my eye on. Can't wait to go back!

I was hoping one of the other three would write a nice record of the visit, but
none of us did. I remember talking about if Esperanto speakers are conlangers
(consensus: a conlanger creates a language, doesn't just use a conlang). We
also each talked about our current projects, shared some favorite web sites,
and so forth. Tom spoke quite a bit about how professional linguists for the
most part don't value conlangers, yet rocket scientists value science-fiction
fans. Linguists are missing a community that could help promote awareness of
serious linguistics, in much the way science-fiction fans have helped build
support for unmanned space probes and so forth.

Mark's not on this list, but I hope Tom or Keith will chime in with more details.

Cheers,

Jeffrey

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