Re: Is conlang a generator of conlangers? or a sustainer? (was: Oops!)

Sally Caves wrote:
>This brings up another very rich question (I said this would be my last,
>but oops I lied)... and that is: are almost all of us conlangers because
>we caught the virus independently, or are there a growing number of
>conlangers who have been inspired to create because they joined the list?
>Now this would add fuel to my idea that an electronic network has not only
>made an excellent forum for us, but is actually generating a new hobby.
For me it happened more or less as Carlos said: it didn't create my
conlanging hobby, but it took it back to life. More or less ;). I'd
stopped devoting time to my languages for a while; then I started again,
and in the middle of this I put up some webpages. Nik Taylor sent me a
message noting some mistakes I had made (and asked anyone to correct).
I think I visited his own page, I discovered he was a member of the list,
and then I thought, what the heck, I'm gonna join and see what it's like.
It was quite different from what I'd expected -- for the better.

I'd be glad if Conlang generated a new hobby on people. But I don't think
that that can happen if the bug hasn't bitten you previously.

>My other question:  how much was Tolkien an influence on your decision to
>invent a language?  I'm made curious by your story, Christophe, since it
>mirrors my own (Spanish being the instigation).  I only learned about
>Tolkien's books years after I had begun writing down early T.  and
>starting a grammar.  This was my reaction:  stunned disbelief, joy, and
>sullen resentment.  How could he do this to me?  How could he not only
>create a language that was far more complex and beautiful than mine, but
>also publish it and become famous?  With a gorgeous script to boot? I was
>fourteen. Tolkien then sustained me and determined me, but he didn't give
>me the idea.  Other folks have the same experience?  Sorry if I'm
>generating just another FAQ.
I hope you are -- and hope someone's collecting the responses.

Actually I don't remember if I read LotR before or after beginning with
my first conlangs. I had LotR-I for a while and then about one year afterwards
I bought the two others. *Then* I read The Hobbit and Silm. I think Silm was
a big influence. All those Elvish roots and words there really made me drool.
But I was inventing languages before that. It only threw more logs into the
fire. It encouraged me but also, like you said, it made me furious: this was
terrible for my self-esteem. Twas as if I had been concentrated on building
a bamboo hut, and when I raised my head to look at it, I found a huge skyscraper
just behind it. But I recovered from that :)

Now that I think of it, I've had other literary influences. Particularly
Philip Josi Farmer. Have you read anything by him? His greatest work, the
Riverworld saga, features the whole human race resurrected along the coast
of a 16-million-km river in an artificial planet. The problem of communication
is terrible. He talks a lot about it. After a few years, most of humanity is
speaking a debased dialectal form of Esperanto...


--Pablo Flores

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