Re: "Coming out"

On 31 Jul 2001, at 0:22, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:

> As far as family and friends are concerned, I've never had any
> anxiety. I've always been weirldly creative enough that it didn't
> come as a surprise that I also created languages - it just confirmed
> my mother's feeling that I was a 'language type'...
I'll start with how I first got into languages.... My just thought
that all the languages I learned were just a strange hobby of mine
(but a good tool for conversation when boasting of me to friends). My
father tried to stop me as he thought I'd be doing too much if I
learned lots of languages. Then I learned Esperanto and tried tyo
create my own auxlang (only as an experiment, I knew I did not have
the ability to go and create a simple one) called "inaglasa" (i-
nominative marker; na- noun marker; -glasa language, cf. "glosa").
Few ever found out about it - I've lost those 18 neatly typed pages
now... :(

> In the second job I used conlanging
> and other weirdnesses as a strategic weapon against the general
> dullness of the surroundings.
My current summer job is like that - Sitting there with my dictionary
pages of my language whilst working is enough to stave off the
boredom, and my colleagues don't really notice as they think it's
just another language I speak, not realising I made this one all up
:)

> Acadically speaking, I've had two or three different experiences. The
> first was with my Modern Chinese teacher, who went out to Bitnet to
> find articles on Guaspi and Loglan for me. He was obviously interested.
My fiancé finds it interesting that I make up languages. I have plans
for creating a language which will have a base in the Chinese
(Mandarin) language, so she (she's from Beijing) has agreed to help,
but I don't know how that will work out.

> Then there was the (sorry! no flame intended, just historical narrative)
> Esperantist who denounced me for wasting my time and not appreciating
> the beauty of Esperanto.
as an Esperanto speaker, I feel perhaps Esperanto-speakers should have some more
sympathy for those who try Zamenhof's and Tolkien's game as it ain't easy and
conlangers deserve appreciation! One of my friends, who actually taught me
Esperanto, wondered WHY I bothered to make up a language.
"Aren't there enough already?" he said. "I do it for the love of
exploring language," I said.


-
igh wær go, hwær ðy Scyp na dear tei go.
http://members.tripod.co.uk/damonmlord/wessisc/
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Damon M. Lord
Estydent Yæiþau
LordDM@cf.ac.uk
dirtybiblestories@priest.co.uk