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

Sai Emrys wrote:
> How did you find out that there were other conlangers?
>
> How did you find out that it was called "conlanging", or find any of
> the online resources in general?
Back in 1999 (has it really been 8 years?) I was on a forum that
discussed pretty much anything. One day somebody started a thread about
Esperanto, which, as can be expected, quickly grew into warlike
proportions. In the middle of the flames, another poster wrote about
making his own language, and added a link to the LCK.

I never cared much for language classes in school. I always hated
English, and I only took Spanish because it seemed easier than Latin,
and French was already full, and those were the only choices. But the
idea of *creating* a language hooked me, for some reason.

So I knew, from the start, that I wasn't the only one, because I got the
idea from somebody else. The term "conlang" came along after a few
minutes. Honestly, I didn't even like the way the word sounded, and I've
only started using it in the last 3 years. I don't like "blog", either,
so maybe I'm just out of touch.

> 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.
>
>
> 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.
Since I didn't have the feeling of loneliness that everybody else did, I
don't know exactly how much help I could be with this part.

I think that the best way to introduce potential conlangers to our hobby
would be to go out and find them. I don't mean anything like a
professional advertising campaign, but the grassroots "activist" things.
Everybody wants to be on MySpace or Facebook, or whatever the new site
is this week, so maybe there's potential there. There are other online
communities, like MMO games or something like Second Life, where
conlanging could be "advertised". Especially if they have voice chat. ;)

Or we could do like the US Mint, and have "Are you a conlanger?"
commercials. :p

--
Michael Potter
2007 - Year of Suvile: http://idzon.potterpcs.net
Graded Sentences for Analysis: http://www.potterpcs.net/gsfa

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