Re: does conlanging change your sense of reality?

I was intrigued by some of the earlier discussion about verbal and
pre-verbal (sub-verbal?) thought.  I've found that when I'm actively
creating my conlang Angosey, there seems to be more than just superficial,
verbalized reasoning going on.  For example, changes in my grammar rarely
happen due to foresight.  In other words, the grammer changes "on its own"
and I'm left scrambling around trying to figure out how it happened.  The
emotive aspect suffix is the best example I have: it just appeared out of
nowhere, and I have had to figure out how it works and why it does what it
does after the fact.  It's like I have to study my own language sometimes.

Just out of curiousity, has that happened to anyone else?

For me, the process of language creation is not to test a particular
philisophical idea or alternate history.  It just comes to me, and I write
it down.  It has a certain life of its own.  Ironically, it backs up the
argument that we do a lot of our thinking subverbally, else otherwise how
could ideas come to us without us "thinking" of them beforehand?

On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 11:53 AM, Paul Schleitwiler, FCM <
pjschleitwilerfcm@...> wrote:

> Two things.
> One is that I am not verbal from the time I awaken until about half the
> day.
> But I am visual and thinking and can remember 'about' what I was thinking
> when I switch over to verbal. Before I go to sleep, I am primarily verbal.
> I
> do my best visual art in the mornings and my best writing and speaking in
> the evenings. Part of the time I am both and otherwise, asleep.
> Every day, all my life.
>
> The second is that the argument about whether one can express a thought
> only
> or better in one language over another and the notion that language shapes
> our thinking only consider linear, denotative forms. Poetry shows that
> language is holistic. Meaning in poetry is connotative, which is why it is
> so difficult to translate poetry. While I am verbal, I am simultaneously
> visual (note the body language here) as well as all the other senses (e.g.
> body language is also kinesthetic).
>
> The non-holistic description of language is, IMO, the result of considering
> written language as the true form and ignoring how it is used in real life.
>
> I agree with earlier posts that it is easier to think some things in one
> language versus another (try math for instance), that any language can
> express any thought (but not as easily) and that there is value in this
> diversity.
>
> I think that language does shape our thinking (most of us are lazy
> thinkers)
> but we also shape language by what we are interested in communicating.
> Think
> of all the linguistic terms and ways of thinking about language that have
> been invented and that have shaped our thinking about language at the same
> time.
>
> Kinship terms are another example. In German, I am related to more people
> than I am in English and those are two closely related languages. (To J.
> Burke: How do speakers of Central Mountain languages speak and think of
> kinship?)
>
> Living languages do not have a one to one denotative meaning for
> utterances.
> I think a good conlang should be more than that also.
> What do you think?
> God bless you all always, all ways,
> Paul
>

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