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

Den 13. okt. 2007 kl. 22.34 skrev Sai Emrys:

> How did you find out that there were other conlangers?
I guess I have never thought of myself as a conlanger. I've never
really felt that I've been part of this group. I always had problems
identifying with any kind of group. And conlanging never has been a
primary activity of mine. I guess that's why I've never managed to
develop my conlangs into such a praiseworthy state as others have. I
am too distracted in my personality. I browse here and there, gather
this bit and that, but never concentrate enough on one single thing
to make it really excellent. But there is still time I hope.

I read lots of comics and other stories as a boy with hints of exotic
invented languages in them, and this lead me to introduce exotic
names in my own fantasy world too. A major early influence was the
Legion of Super Heroes from DC comics. One of the major character
names in my fantasy is Derek Ranz, which is inspired by the first
name of Solar Lad, Dirk Morgna, and the last name of Lightning Lad,
Garth Ranzz. Finding an IE etymology for the word ranz was absolutely
vital for the shaping of the Urianian phonology in fact. But I guess
this isn't an answer to the question either as those people at DC
never did any real conlanging at all.

I wasn't very old when I first tried to tie the names together into a
language. About 14 I think. It's actually hard to figure out what it
was that made go to such a step. This was still years before I heard
of Tolkien. Possibly it was the idea of Kryptonese that triggered me.
The old Superman comics occasionally showed strings of alien text or
displayed Kryptonians uttering phrases that looked vaguely plausible
to such an impressionable character as I. I read Dunsany before I
read Tolkien, but I don't think he did any real conlanging either, so
I think it must be Tolkien and, about the same time, Vance and Hergé,
who made me aware that others did such things as well.

> How did you find out that it was called "conlanging", or find any of
> the online resources in general?
My interest in Celtic studies lead me to the Continental Celtic
yahoogroup and one of the most popular themes there was
reconstructing Gaulish. These discussions eventually lead me to the
group Celticaconlang, where they specialised in Gaulish and related
reconstruction. And some discussions there lead me to realise that
there were other conlangs too, and that the "conlang" bit of the
group name was more than just a simple abbreviation. I made (as I've
mentioned here before) an early attempt at joining this list, but
found that the traffic was overwhelming.

Actually I find myself mildly repulsed by the terms "conlang" and
"conlanging", they feel slightly debasing somehow. I've never been a
great fan of abbreviations and acronyms really - typically Norwegian
in that respect. Or maybe it's because they make me feel less unique.
After all, to me, my conworld is THE conworld. The presence of others
feels somehow disturbing. But there's no doubt that there's a lot to
learn from them.

> 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.
I guess your problem is well underway to mending itself as the means
of communication at nearly everybody's disposal are getting ever more
effective. And conlanging isn't really like a sexual aberration or
another kind of secret vice that entails a high threshold against
making contact with others of your kind (even though your mother
would have you believe it's so - I know mine did). So basically we
could just sit and wait for them to come to us. But I have noticed
that there's been relatively few newcomers on this list during the
time that I've been here. I guess conlangers who don't know that they
are conlangers don't spontaneously get the idea that 'conlang' is a
good thing to search for.

I don't have much to add in terms of ideas. But I guess that in the
field of exploiting links to and from websites there's some room for
improvement at least. And what about all those new blog-type forums
that grow up everywhere these days?

LEF