Re: THEORY: Conlanging as reverse Sapir-Whorf?

Paul Bennett wrote:
>
> I've been talking off-list with Rob Nierse about the Gbwia version of the relay.
> We got onto the subject of understanding other peoples' conlangs, based on
> shared experience of having to explain far more than we had thought would be
> required to the person who followed us on the relay.  We realised (I think) that
> the features of each of our conlangs had some degree of intrinsic "rightness"
> and/or "obviousness" within our own mind.
>
> I started thinking about Sapir-Whorf (we dont need to discuss the valididty of
> it -- we've only recently been through that game -- it's just a handy label for
> a phenomenon that exists, to a greater or lesser extent, within various scopes).
> I've come to the theory that conlanging express the exact reverse of this
> theory; i.e. "The way one thinks effects the type of conlang one produces".
> There's something bigger and deeper lurking there, but I'm only peripherally
> aware of it and certainly lack the terminology to describe it adequately.
>
> Anyone care to jump in and help describe/refine/refute this?
Oh this is REALLY interesting... I would really like to jump in, but I
can't... I'm between stages in a duck dinner for Thanksgiving.  I've
noticed the different degrees to which members of the relay withhold or
impart information to each other, which depends, I think, on differing
concepts of the game and how easy or hard you're supposed to make it for
the next guy: me, I'm pretty easy.  Teonaht is so analytic that an
interlinear
gloss would practically give it away, nor is it so agglutinative that I
can
describe the function of particles and make my translator piece it
together.
So what I do, which is probably fairly easy, is to explain that verb is
final, that adjectives follow nouns, that the interrogative pronouns
function
this or that way, and then give them an alphabetical glossary for every
word.
Easy peasy.  Yet when I got Paul's text in Wenetaic, I was totally at
sea!
His language has infixes, it has compounds that he expected me to work
out;
I was constantly at his door asking to get more information!  But I have
no
pride; I think the relay results vary as much as they do because some
people
are determined to work it out on their own with no help when the
explanations
are slim.  This makes it interesting.

I think it's a matter of practice.  I'm a schoolteacher, so I always
assume
that my "student" is going to have gaps in his understanding of Teonaht,
so
I overkill.

The relay is being relayed to the minilist, and when it's all in order
with smooth translations, I'll post them to the list!  It's a pretty
interesting group of poems!

Sally
(the duck calls.... bomkkwecyrem il kwermit "cooking duck")
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--
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SALLY CAVES
scaves@frontiernet.net
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves (bragpage)
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html (T. homepage)
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/contents.html (all else)
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Niffodyr tweluenrem lis teuim an.
"The gods have retractible claws."
                                from _The Gospel of Bastet_
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