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.
The latter may be a little early to call, but it certainly sounds
plausible. As Tom Wier so aptly put it mere moments ago:

>Conlanging, as a true pastime, and not as the haphazard
>occurrence of a few distantly related individuals, is in its infancy.
> My other question:  how much was Tolkien an influence on your decision to
> invent a language?
None whatsoever. I read "The Hobbit" back in junior high and enjoyed it,
but I must have started the first book of the trilogy at least a dozen
times and never made it through (it wasn't until years later when I was
stuck in my first mainland China winter with an expat hand-me-down copy
that I hunkered down and finished it - I have yet to start the second).
I may have been vaguely aware that he had a lot of behind the scenes
stuff supporting the fiction, but it wasn't until I joined the list that
I found about "The Secret Vice" and things like the "Black Speech".

I also knew _of_ Esperanto and Sapir-Whorf in high school but I wouldn't
count them as impetuses for my conlanging (unless in some very abstruse,
subconscious way...nah!)

No, my experience closely parallels Christophe's. I caught the virus
through Latin - Ancient Greek and German only helped to spread the
infection.

Kou