Re: How did you find out that there were other conlangers?

Sai Emrys wrote:
> How did you find out that there were other conlangers?
Well, I'd heard about Zamenhof and Schleyer, from my general interest in
languages, and of course Tolkien. Tolkien's essay "A Secret Vice" was
probably the first clue that there were others who did this sort of
thing as a hobby (rather than as a candidate for an international
language). Then someone posted something in the sci.lang newsgroup back
around 1995 or so that led me to the CONLANG mailing list.

> How did you find out that it was called "conlanging", or find any of
> the online resources in general?
I don't recall if it actually was called "conlanging" yet; CONLANG was
just the name of the list.

> How could that be made easier - so that conlangers who think they're
> The Only Ones (didn't the majority of us start out that way?) can
> easily be connected to the rest of us, have more resources at their
> disposal, etc.
A "make your own language" book could be useful in that respect, if
anyone would publish it. Or web pages dealing with subjects that
conlangers are likely to search for, with mention of and links to
relevant conlang projects. E.g. "how to pronounce the IPA" (with
additional examples of conlang sounds that go beyond the sounds
represented by IPA characters, like the retroflex lateral fricative of
Lindiga).

> Basically, I'd like to improve the reaching-out that we do, but I'm
> not sure how to go about it. Even using the term 'conlanger' is
> something that's community-internal. Once you know a few resources,
> the rest are relatively easy to find - it's that initial step of
> realizing that there might even *be* something out there, and finding
> it, that is difficult.
>
> Stories? Ideas?
>
> - Sai