Re: The 2007 Smiley Award Winner: Teonaht

On 7/2/07, David J. Peterson <dedalvs@...> wrote:
>
> Edgard wrote:
> <<
> BTW, for not letting this message to be totally off-topic: My conlang,
> Ausónya Bháma, is my linguistic credo, and I shape it as the easiest way
> (for me) to think about something. It will be very hard for me
> creating any
> other language, as this one already got all my effort. In this
> respect is
> easier for me to understand Sally Caves' fidelity than those creating
> dozens
> of new languages. Once I decided that gold, for instance, is "ausóm",
> it is
> _really_ 'ausóm', and I am even more sure about that than I was in my
> old
> days of naive monolingualism. Weird, hm? ; )
> >>
>
> I think it really has to do with one's...not attention span, but
> level of satisfaction.  My first language kind of coincided with
> the start of my study of linguistics, and my knowledge expanded
> by leaps and bounds each month.  Every time I learned something
> new, I wanted to try it, and it required a new forum, not an old
> language.  The old one was no longer enough to satiate my
> conlinguistic appetite.

Were I to guide someone... it's better to improve something than creating
from scratch. But as a friend of mine rightfully says... "sometimes we spend
too much time polishing what should be corrected by a really big hammer" ;
).

Also, part of it is that, for me, at least, there was a huge break
> when I realized that my first language wasn't good.  Huge.  It
> reminds me of the time when I learned that all of my favorite
> male singers were actually singing an octave higher than me
> when I was singing along with them (this was when I was twelve,
> I think).  I realized it, and then tried to sing at their octave, and
> couldn't, and suddenly my world changed.  Same thing happened
> with my first language.  I forget what it was, but something
> made me realize that everything I'd done with my language
> was tantamount to a fancy relex of English.  Not the morphology,
> or the phonology, or anything, but the *semantics*.  I had words
> for "dog" and "canine" (separate words), there was a single word
> for "fortify", and its verbal noun was "fortification", with the
> same exact meaning as it has in English (a fortified building--not
> simply the act of fortifying something).  That was when I realized
> I had to start ALL over, and totally rethink the way I looked
> at language.  Since then, it's been hard for me to be a one
> language man.

I quite see the point, that was a hammer case ; ). But don't you feel
attached to the words you create? I guess not... maybe I care too much about
my words... I'm trying to develop a new language from the one I already
have, and it's so difficult to find something to do that will not cripple
the meaning. I know a word is just a word, as good as any other... well...
but it needs not to be the case with our conlang : )

Edgar:
> <<
> Anyway, nice text!
> >>
>
> Thanks!
>
> Oh, since this is on topic, I know it's been a year, but in case
> there are some new faces, you should check out Sally's speech
> at the first Language Creation Conference.  It's viewable on
> Google Video:

I saw the video, really liked it! What do you mean by "in case there are
some new faces"... you mean, on this list... as... me? : )

http://video.google.com/videoplay?
> docid=-3117774526155284922&q=language+creation+conference
>
> And a shameless plug: LCC2 is less than a week away!  If you're
> in the Bay Area, stop by!  It will be well worth your while:

Ah, subjunctive is my predilect mood. I live in Brazil... not thaaat close :
). But I'm happy my English can pass as native... even if I'm not sure it's
really the case, anyway.

http://conlangs.berkeley.edu/
>
> -David
> *******************************************************************
> "A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
> "No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
>
> -Jim Morrison
>
> http://dedalvs.free.fr/
>
Edgard.

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