Re: Conlanging skills? (was Re: Myers-Briggs Types and stuff.)

Sally Caves wrote:
>
> On Tue, 29 Sep 1998, Tim Smith wrote in response to Laurie:
>
> > Basically, it's the grammar of a conlang that really excites me.  The
> > phonology and lexicon are secondary; I just need them to be the physical
> > manifestation of the grammar.  I suspect that I'm not typical of conlangers
> > in this.
>
> No, the more I listen on this list, the more actually typical this sounds.
> I've heard quite a number MEN (not surprising) tell me just this: that
> making up grammars is what excites them.  Do you mind if I use this for
> the survey?  I'd like to hear from Laurie on this one.  And some of the
> other women.  But I imagine it's like fixing up old houses: some men, and
> some women, love the recreation of a building, and they go from house to
> house to house fixing it up and refurbishing it, and then losing interest
> in it when it's too familiar.  Time to sell and get a new project!  Other
> men, and other women, like to work endlessly on the same house.  That's
> me.  About my house, and about my conlang.
>
Hm. Like Sally, I've really only been involved with one world. And I
don't really see myself doing artlangs *without* a world. Conlanging,
for me, is entirely a part of world-building. So whereas I do find a lot
of abstract interest in syntax, and I do love playing with grammatical
structures, in the end I'm more concerned with how it structures the end
product - a language that is part of a particular fictional culture. I'm
not sure I'm answering anything here.

And the more I think of it, I approach conlanging in a similar fashion
as I do to painting pictures. In conlangs you ask which excites:
phonology, lexicon, syntax, something else? In painting you might ask
about basic composition, drawing construction, application of color,
etc. I'm not trying to draw direct comparisons, only to say that both
arts can be broken out into separate, if interlocking, stages.

I'm still working on these original language projects because they are
so far from being done. There's so much left to fill in to make it
anything close to a "real" language that real people could use. It's
like the painting in it's early sketch and lay-in stage. There's so much
more to do! Now, maybe when Old Southern, say, becomes more complete
I'll get bored with it. But I think it's closer to finishing a painting,
learning all you can from it, and then going on to the next one to learn
something more. I think that's why I've been starting to lay out the
surrounding languages in my world - more canvases to work on once Old
Southern is mature.

And you know, painters are known to come back and re-do subjects,
sometimes repeatedly. It doesn't mean you've trashed your old canvases.
It means that it takes more than one look at a subject to learn all you
can from it.

And I'm certainly not speaking for all artists here! I've known people
who never finish a project because then it will be over. Others make
tons of false starts and constantly paint over old canvases until they
get a good one. I don't know that I've ever really observed a gender
breakdown among these methods of working.

Laurie
milo@winternet.com
http://www.winternet.com/~milo