Re: LUNATIC SURVEY: 2005
| From: | Thomas Wier <trwier@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, February 27, 2005, 22:08 |
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> A. PROFESSION, DEMOGRAPHICS, INCLINATION:
>
> 1. Who are you, and what is the name of your invented
> language or languages? Pseudonyms allowed. (Are you using
> one? asked "Sally Caves")
Thomas Wier. (I also go by Tom.) I've worked on three
languages over my conlanging career: Degaspregos, Phaleran,
and C'ali. The first I consider somewhat of an embarrassment,
back when I thought auxlanging was a cool idea, and wanted to
improve on Esperanto. (The online grammar technically still
exists, but I cut off public access to it four or five years
ago.)
> *2. Are you new to the Lunatic Survey or have you filled out
> a version of this survey before?
I'm sure I took part in the second, and think also the first.
> 3. Do you have a website for you language/world(s)? If so,
> please list the URL address.
The closest thing I have to a public website for Phaleran and
C'ali is
<http://home.uchicago.edu/~trwier/phaleran/>
It mostly consists of links to this list's archive of short
grammatical sketches I've put up from time to time.
> 4. What is your email address? name at hostsite dot
> whatever.
My university address is: trwier at uchicago dot edu
One can also find me at trwier at yahoo dot com, or on
AIM with the handle trwier.
> 5. What is your age? (vague answers allowed, but it is an
> important demographic)
I turned 26 yesterday.
> 6. What is your gender?
Male.
> 7. What is your nationality? Where do you live now?
United States / Texas. Now I live in Chicagoland, as the
locals call it.
> 8. What is your native language?
English.
> 9. What natural languages foreign to you have you studied
> or do you speak?
German (8y), Anc. Greek (3y), Latin (2y), Georgian (2y),
Meskwaki (1y), Akkadian (mostly Old Babylonian, 2quarters),
Modern Nahuatl (2q), Old Georgian (2q), Russian (1q), French
(1q), Lak (a Daghestanian language, 1q). That's all in terms
of course work; I've read grammars of Sumerian, Hurrian,
Onondaga, Mingrelian, Shoshoni, Mam, and bits and pieces of
other languages.
> 10. What is your level of education? i.e., your highest
> degree achieved or sought?
I'm currently in the linguistics PhD program at the
University of Chicago, and I've passed my quals, so that
would give me a masters.
> 11. What is your profession? Are you a professional
> linguist? If so, what also makes you a conlanger?
Depends on what you mean by "professional". I hope to make
money by being a talking-head, if that's what you mean :)
My conlanging interests actually antedate my interests
in formal linguistics, though about coeval with interest
in languages.
> 13. If you are a student, what is your major or your area
> of study?
I'm a fourth year gradstudent at the UoC, as stated. I
specialize in Georgian, Meskwaki and other gratuitously
morphological languages.
> 14. How long have you been developing your invented
> language(s)?
Phaleran I think is about 5 years old now, give or take.
C'ali two or three years.
> 15. At what age did you first start inventing a language?
> Can you briefly describe your early efforts?
>
> 16. What drew you to start inventing a language and/or
> constructed world? What was the inspiration?
15 + 16:
My first exposure to Esperanto was in 10th grade, I think.
After about six weeks of this, I did what it seems every
auxlanger does: think he or she can improve upon it. So,
that was the impetus for Degaspregos. After a while, I grew
to think of this as naive, and dedicated myself to
artlanging.
> 17. Did you start inventing before you had heard of the
> list or after? Before you had heard of Esperanto or
> Tolkien? (I name the two most common inspirations)
I definitely started before I heard of the list. I think I
discovered the list sometime in 1998. I haven't been on
the list uninterruptedly during that time, but I've been on
for probably the majority of the time. (It helps that the
list has a digest function.)
> 18. Tolkien calls it a "shy art" and a "secret vice"; but
> that was before the Internet. How secret do you keep it
> from others outside this list for much the same reasons?
>
> 19. Yaguello has called it "pathological," influenced,
> unfortunately, by a lot of psychiatric writings such
> as _Le Schizo et la langue_. To what extent have you
> encountered such reactions by outsiders you had taken
> into your confidence?
18+19:
I'm "out of the closet" about conlanging, but I don't talk
about it much, especially around the department. I'm also
"out" to my parents about conlanging. But with few
exceptions, it's considered just another idiosyncracy of
mine, but not something particularly offensive or to
be looked down upon.
> *20. Do you consider it nerdy to be doing this? This is a
> term that gets tossed around a lot. Or actually
> sophisticated? Do you need to get a life, or is this
> your life? What is a life?
I think I might agree with Dirk that most nerdy enterprizes
are sophisticated in at least some sense. I think
conlanging is less nerdy than, say, playing Dungeons and
Dragons or being sure to watch every new episode of _Star
Gate: SG1_, but more so than writing poetry. Maybe that's
partly a sociological fact: in modern Anglophone culture,
prose seems to have more esteem than poetry for some
reason. (At least that's my nonscientific impression.)
If our culture were different, or less hostile to
multilingualism, it's possible that conlanging would have
wider appeal.
> 21. There has been a connection noted between linguistic
> and musical ability. Are you musically inclined? Do you
> sing and/or play a musical instrument? Do you compose
> music?
I listen to a lot of music, but AFAICT, I have almost no
musical talent myself, though, and I can't see any connection
between this and my conlanging interests.
> 22. There has been a connection noted between linguistic
> and mathematical ability. Are you mathematically inclined
> or inclined towards computing in any way?
No... actually, I'm quite mathematically inept. In
linguistics, we do have to use quasi-mathematical formalisms
a lot, though, so one might say that there is a connection.
Conlanging is for me definitely a left-brain activity.
> 23. What other passions do you pursue that give you creative
> pleasure? (painting, drawing, sculpting, calligraphy,
> model-building, novel or story-writing, role-playing
> games, map-making, book-making, poetry, web-designing,
> star-gazing or other?)
I don't really have much time for any of these. I've had a
long term dream to write an epic poem about the rise of fall
of Robert Sieur de la Salle during his travels in the New
World, but I still don't own copies of all the original 17th
century French manuscripts to make that workable, and I'm
still not otherwise familiar with the details of his
journeys.
> B. FEATURES OF YOUR INVENTION
>
> 1. Pick the best term for the invented language you are
> currently invested in: auxlang, artlang, engelang,
> loglang, lostlang, philosophical language, or "other." etc.
Phaleran and C'ali are both artlangs, in that they exist
purely as an expression of structural esthetics. There's
something really fascinating
about languages with radically different systems of
morphosyntax and
phonology...
> 2. Is your conlang a priori (devised from scratch) or a
> posteriori (based on an existing natural language or drawing from a
> language class such as Semitic)?
In point of fact, both Phaleran and C'ali are a priori
languages, in that I didn't work in any actual lexemes or grammatical
properties peculiar to known language families. But as a matter of the
literary conceit, both languages are claimed, in some extremely remote
manner, to be descended from languages spoken on Earth today, but at a
chronological remove so great that virtually all traces of our tongues are
removed. This gives me the freedom to invent and do as I will.
> 3. Does a constructed world accompany your invention(s)?
> What is it called?
Yes, for Phaleran and C'ali. I like to put it this way: like
a baroque opera, the conculture exists for my conlangs like a skeleton
on which I can hang grammatical description. I have relatively little
interest in it beyond this purely linguistic dimension.
> 4. Do you have a script for your conlang? What is it called?
> Could you provide me at a later date with a sample of it? Is it on
> Langmaker's "neography" site?
I actually once did work out a conscript for Phaleran and
C'ali (which share the same writing system). It was very loosely based on
a kind of Devanagari system and Tolkien's Tengwar, in that phonological
categories had consistent graphemic representation (e.g. all labials had
some kind of distinguishing feature in common). But I never really had
the time to work out the implications of this. Because in the
conculture the Phaleranophones borrowed most of their high culture from
C'ali, the writing system is supposed to be less well suited to their own
language than that of the C'ali.
> 5. Briefly describe the outlines of your invented language
> (syntactical structure--VO, OV, etc.; class or type--analytic, synthetic, =
> agglutinating, incorporative, accusative, ergative, active,
> trigger, other, combinations, etc.), noting what you have done with
> it that is innovative in your opinion.
Phaleran: SOV, agglutinative tending towards polysynthesis,
little incorporation, ergative case morphology and accusative syntax,
nontonal, pitch-accent
C'ali: VSO, agglutinative and extremely polysynthetic, lots of
incorporation, split-S case morphology and split-S syntax, tonal,
> 7. How extensive would you say your invented language is,
> now? How big the vocabulary? Do you provide a vocabulary list or
> taxonomy on your website if you have one?
It's difficult to say. Phaleran is by far the most developed
of my languages, and it has only ca. 1000 words, since I find it
easier to constantly reuse words in building my grammar. Its grammar is
also the most extensive; the running reference grammar runs almost
40 pages right now, and shows no sign of slowing down. C'ali is
relatively rudimentary, has no formal reference grammar, existing almost
entirely in posts to this list, and has fewer than 50 words.
> 8. How do you build vocabulary? Some people pull words out
> of the air; others build up a base of root words and affixes.
> Many do both.
I do both. Most words in fact come from a random lexicon
generator for Phaleran, which takes syllable structure and phonemic
inventory and spits out potential candidates. I'm sure many of y'all
have already seen this on the net.
> *9. Has your language and conworld ever served in a
> role-playing game or a world shared by other conlangers?
No. Actually, that's not entirely true: I was once contacted
by some guy in Poland who wanted to use my Indo-European inspired auxlang
Degaspregos for some New Age fertility rite or some such
thing. I don't remember if I ever gave him any material; he's never contacted
me since.
> *10. Briefly describe your conculture (is it within the
bounds of this world? on another world, etc.?)
Phaleran and C'ali are spoken on Phalera, an imaginary
satellite of the very real planet discovered not too long ago orbiting the star
Upsilon Andromedae. The planet it orbits is huge, and so could
plausibly have Earth-size satellites orbiting it. In the conceit, many
thousands of years in the future, this world has been colonized by men in
two successive waves: first by the ancestors of the C'ali and other groups,
and then about 1000 years later by Tlaspi speakers. After the Collapse
of the first human interstellar empire, the Tlaspi-speaking
underclass overthrow the C'aliphone elites, and for propaganda purposes call their
language that of the planet. The setting for the writing of the
grammar is some hundreds of years after this event, when the
Tlaspi-speakers still dominate much of the planet.
> *11. Are the beings who speak your invented language human
> or alien? If alien, what features have you given the language to make
> it alien or how have you restricted or expanded its phonology?
> vocabulary?
They're all human. AFAIK, humans have made no contact with
any sentient life in their exploration of known space.
> 12. What do you write in it? Poems? chants? lullabyes? prayers?
> history? stories? recipes? Are any of these exhibited on
> your website?
Mostly poems and religious texts. I've been mulling ideas for
bilingual monumental inscriptions with some gaps in the text and an
accompanying apparatus criticus for understanding them.
> 13. Can you speak your conlang? Are you fluent in it? Is
> this a goal for you? Have you tried to teach it to an intimate? a
> companion animal? :)
I can neither speak, nor am particularly interested in doing
so. It's a philological program for me, in a number of senses
of that word. :)
> 14. Have you made any soundbytes of your language? Could you
> provide me at a later date with a sample of them?
I haven't. Maybe I should...
> *15. If you use Roman script, how recognizably "phonetic" is
> your writing system? In other words, do you use unconventional
> letters or letter combinations to represent sounds? Why or why
> not? I'm thinking, of course, of Etabnannery, for those who
> remember it.
The romanization I use putatively represents the patterns and
idiosyncracies of the Phaleran writing system itself. So, for example,
there are two different ways to indicate vowel length: by a macron,
which represents an underlyingly long vowel, and a circumflex, which
represents a vowel which has become long as a result of some phonological
process, either synchronic or diachronic.
> 16. How many of you sing in your language and have invented
> songs for that purpose?
Not I.
> *17. How many of you, for entertainment or any other reason,
> resort to gibberish? (This is in response to Adrian Morgan's question in
> December). Does it give you ideas for conlanging? (Have you
> ever fooled anyone?) How many of you have sung gibberish?
Nope, no gibberish for me.
> *18. What on-line games do you play? (or devise?) Translations,
> Babel-text, Relays, etc.
The closest thing I have to this is a language game I invented for
Phaleran which is used as evidence for foot-structure and
potential moraicity of coda segments.
> 19. Which do you prefer doing: devising phonology? script?
> structure? building vocabulary?
Definitely morphosyntax. I mean, that's what I study in my
professional life anyways... but I don't disdain those other areas.
> 20. Do you start and stop several different conlangs, or do
> you tend to stick with one and develop it over years?
Mostly the latter. C'ali and Phaleran are both worked on off
and on, but that's it.
> 21. What do you think makes a "complete" conlang, if a
> conlang can attain completion? What are your goals for completion?
> When do you grow "tired" of your conlang, or don't you?
Conlangs can never be complete, for the same reason that the
description of a real language's grammar cannot in practice be. This is
perhaps the most important commonality conlangs have with natlangs.
> *22. Which came first: the conlang or the conworld?
Certainly the conlang. Like I said, conworlds for me are a
skeleton on which to hang grammar.
> C. PHILOSOPHY AND AESTHETIC:
>
> 1. What aesthetic features do you value in inventing
> language? Be specific as to phonology, structure, script, etc.
Even when I've tried to work on relatively isolating
languages, they always end up being polysynthetic. So I guess I like
polysynthesis. Phonologically, I like complex morphology-phonology
interactions like reduplication or infixation, and I like to play
around with phonation systems.
> 2. What commonly applied aesthetics have you ever tried to
> avoid in your invention? This has been an oft debated question,
> especially when it comes to Tolkien.
Well, I want my languages, ideally, to be indiscriminate from
a language that one could actually find in this world. This is
impossible, of course, but in the approximation one can make
plausible models (in both relevant senses of the word "model").
> 3. Is difficulty or obscurity a goal in inventing a language?
Not as such. Polysynthetic languages tend to be difficult, so
my languages tend to be more difficult than some. But not by any
means by orders of magnitude or anything like that. Sometimes, though,
obscure processes in real languages can provide great inspiration for
modeling created ones.
> 4. Is efficiency a goal in inventing a language? This
> question needn't cancel out the previous one.
Efficiency in what sense? I suppose not any more than one
would want "efficiency" in real natlangs.
> 5. How natural do you wish to make it, or is that a concern?
> Or rather, how unnatural do you wish to make it?
I want it very natural, but very unusual from a Standard
Average European standpoint.
> 6. Can conlanging be sexy? sensual? obsessing? how does it
> heal or harm you?
I generally don't have time for it to be any of these things.
I would probably have a very different personality if they did.
> *7. How many of you have developed a rich vocabulary of
> obscenities?
I haven't, but mostly for lack of time and effort. The idea
appeals to me.
> 8. Can it be mystical? To what extent does conlanging
> fulfill a spiritual purpose for you? Or a magical one? Did it ever
> start out that way?
Certainly, if one buys the notion of subcreation as a divine
mandate. It has not by and large been that way for me, though.
> 9. How many of you have developed a rich vocabulary of
> magical, religious, or incantatory terms?
I haven't.
> *10. How many of you have striven to invent words that
> express novel ideas, or are not expressed in any natural language
> that you know?
To the extent that I've done this, they mostly involve
political or institutional structures, and this is where the conculture
comes into play.
> 11. Name a few of the words in your language(s) that you are
> most pleased with and are the most original to you.
My favorite words seem mostly to be toponyms... perhaps
because I try to make them have some phonological lilt that
appeals to me.
> 12. How do you sense that a word is "right" for its meaning?
> How much do you labor at fitting a sound to its sense? Or don't
> you care?
I care about this greatly, but I have no proper answer for
this. Even when I use random lexicon generators, I often have to run
my eye over many words before I find one that strikes me as appropriate
or interesting. There's something ineffable about answering this...
> *13. Do you ever rely on a software program to build
> vocabulary? Do those who don't think that's cheating? :)
As I said I do, and I certainly don't think it's cheating,
since I don't just choose any word it spits out, but only some.
> *14. Is conlang a hobby, a craft, or an art in your mind?
> This has been hotly debated, so the question is not as weird as
> it seems. Can conlanging be considered an art? Why or why not?
It has properties of all of these... but for me it's appeal is
mostly as art, in creating an esthetic grammar.
> *15. If it is, who do you think are its consumers?
Mostly just me.
> *16. This question is directed as well at any auxlangers on
> the list. Is it an art, a political tool, both? And who do you think
> could be its consumers?
N/A
> *17. There has been some exciting talk recently (and over
> the years) about what a conlang is or is not. If you could pick a
> metaphor or write a descriptive phrase defining "conlang," what would
> that be?
I think I've used the metaphor of a tapestry before... or maybe a
piece of chamber music. It can be appreciated both for its
structural properties (how, say, the weave or rhythm are organized,
what kinds of textiles or instruments it's composed of,etc.) and also for
the emotional feel it provides, much like poetry.
> *18. Why or why not would you eschew the metaphors "miniature" or
> "model"?
I would say miniature is inappropriate, since most miniatures
can be completed, and appreciated as a whole. But part of the
interest of conlanging is the exploration and knowing more lies behind the
surface.
> *19. Is a conlang more like a glimpse of something lifesize? (Irina's
> suggestion in 2001)
Yes, I think so.
> *20. There has been some invigorating discussion lately about what a
> conlang can do that most natural languages don't (such as produce OSV
> structure, or eradicate verbs) What experiments have you made with your
> artlang(s) along these lines?
None, since I don't think they are likely to arise in natural
languages.
> *21 What do you think distinguishes a conlang from a natural language,
> if you think so at all? What would it take for a linguist to be fooled
> into thinking a conlang was a natural language?
Lexicalization, lexicalization, lexicalization. Idiomlessness and
nonidiosyncratic constructions and perfect compositionality of meaning
across the entire grammar would be a sure sign that real humans have not
used this language.
> *22. How much do you study other languages in order to discover what is
> natural in language? Or to discover how you can stretch the boundaries
> of language to make it do things that are unnatural?
Well, I actually study other languages mostly for professional purposes,
but of necessity these leak into my conlangs.
> *23. Can such a language function?
It could, in principle. It would almost certainly quickly be altered beyond
recognition.
> *24. There has been quite a bit of fascinating debate about the
> relevance of conlanging to linguistic study. We all know that
> linguistics can aid conlangers, but in what ways can conlangers aid
> linguists? Or does it matter?
I don't think conlanging has much relevance to linguistics as such,
because of the overwhelming tendency, even for those of us who are
professional linguists, to relexify languages. This is actually a
problem in linguistics itself: that we expect other languages to
act the way our language acts, even when we also know the language
is very different. Who would know that superiority effects don't
occur in German, but they do in English? (Briefly, there seems to
be an assymetry between the kind of long-distance dependency in
multiple wh-word constructions between, such that in English you
can't say *"Whom did who see?", but in German you can say "Wen liebt
wer?"). So, if even linguists make this kind of mistake frequently,
how much more will conlangers making their own languages!
> D. THE LISTSERV
>
> 1. How did you first hear of this list?
I don't recall exactly. I musta been doing a websearch for it.
> 2. How long have you been on this listserv or on other related
> listservs? Continuously? Infrequently? Off and on? More off than
> on and vice versa?
I've been on CONLANG off and on for about eight years now. I think
I was actually on AUXLANG for a very (very) brief period.
(*blush*)
> *3. What is the appeal of being on a listserv and contributing to it?
> Do you think you contribute moderately or excessively, or not enough?
> Do you tend to lurk ?
I enjoy the list because I like being able to talk to people who don't
find my interest odd. But the list also has so many interesting people
that I think I actually spend many of postings on tangents or things
outright irrelevant to conlanging.
> *4. For those of you who remember its inception, how has it changed
> over the past decade?
I don't remember the inception, but it seems to me that the average
age of the list members first declined, and is now beginning to rise
again.
> *5. How helpful has the list been in developing your language? In
> learning linguistic information?
I think it's been helpful to get feedback, and mostly, encouragement.
I don't think I'd conlang nearly as much as I do (which is not much
of late) if I weren't constantly reminded how much fun it can be.
> 6. What books have you consulted? On your own, or because you heard of
> them on the list?
Well, lots of books about linguistics of course. Lately, I've been
turning more to theoretical articles. For example, an article by
Joan Bresnan on binding theory ("Linear Order vs. Syntactic Rank:
Evidence from Weak Crossover") for my comparative posting a while back
on weak-crossover in C'ali and Phaleran, and my earlier post on tonality
in C'ali was rather obviously but indirectly influenced by my class
with John Goldsmith on Bantu tone languages.
> *7. Do you peruse the websites of other conlangers?
I used to do this more, but I barely have time for anything nonacademic
nowadays.
> *8. Do you sense that people on this list are interested in your
> conlang and give you feedback on it?
I think they are, but in point of fact, I think in the whirl of
posts on the list, my single posts on my langs often get
drowned out.
> 9. Have you ever set out to learn at least a little bit of someone's
> conlang, if only a word or two, or a phrase?
Not really... though I've been tempted by Tolkien's languages.
> *10. Do you peruse Jeffrey Henning's Langmaker.com site?
I have... that's where I got the lexicon-generator.
> *11. What on-line techniques do you use to showcase your conlang, such
> as Audacity or other sound programs, Dreamweaver, Illustrator,
> Fontography, and so forth? Did you hear of them on the list?
My exposure to such things has been almost exclusively through this
list, but I've never made much use of them.
> 12. Have you ever tried to introduce a friend to the list?
Well, I did speak to a friend often enough about it that he joined sometime
back. (Don't think he's on now, though.) He mostly had a tongue-in-cheek
attitude about conlangs. For example, one of his conlangs, Doenitz, was
designed to sound exactly like a Nuremberg Rally. (Yes, my friend has
a very dark sense of humor.)
> 13. Do you know of anyone who does this kind of thing but who has never
> heard of the list?
Not really, though of course they exist.
> *14. What other lists do you frequent related to conlanging?
None.
> *15. What do you think will be the future of the list? I see it giving
> birth to alternate lists like Conworld, Lostlanguages, Romlang, etc.
> What improves the present list and its helpfulness or entertainment
> value?
I think the list will continue much the way it has this past age. :)
I agree, though, that excess population will siphon itself off to these
other lists.
> *16. What Internet technology would you most like to see developed that
> would aid you in showcasing your language(s)?
Perhaps I'm an old fuddy-duddy, but the tools I use are pretty minimalist,
not to say Luddite: Word documents, PDFs, and other than the lexicon
generator, nothing but pencil/pen and paper.
> *17. What lists like conlang exist in other cultures and languages that
> you know of?
I seem to recall there's one in Spanish in which Carlos Thompson was
taking part a while back.
> *18. There has been some terrific talk about CONLANG as a community.
> And yet so many of us seem to want the world to know of it and respect
> it. Is the CONLANG community enough?
I feel so, for me at least. Though I do like the fact that the world outside
is starting to acknowledge. I sympthatize with you, Sally, that you didn't
like how National Public Radio fudged your discussion with them... but if
the man in the street only took away from it that we conlangers have an
ancient heritage stretching back to Leibniz, Hildegard of Bingen, and
even into antiquity, then it was worth it. It's like one of professors
says about linguistics articles: even if they screw it up, it's worth it
just to have the field popularized.
> *19. In my 2000 on-line article
> (
http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0003/languages.php) I suggested
> that the Internet "may provide a site that, with the impetus of
> competition and showmanship, encourages inutile and obsessive
> activity"; I was quoting Jeff Salamon's article "Revenge of the Fanboys."
> Village Voice 13 Sep., 1994. He wrote that over ten years ago. Do
> outsiders still entertain such notions, do you think, about listservs
> like this one? Do you? To what extent has the list increased obsessive
> development in you? Would you be inventing as furiously as you are without
> the list or knowledge of other inventors?
> 20. If asked whether it is not better to turn your linguistic talents
> to the learning and speaking of natural languages (a common response I've
> met with and aimed at criticizing introversion or solipsism), how would
> you answer?
Linguists themselves so frequently do not speak the languages they study
that it would be rather ridiculous of them to make that particular
allegation. One might as well criticize one for producing art and
literature.
> *21. In Elizabethan times there were the inkhorn neologisms. There were
> ciphers and pasigraphies. Today there is conlanging. Do you think the
> contemporary world is more open to language innovation or more closed?
Yes and no. On the one hand, modern technologies tremendously liberate
the individual to pursue the kind of interests that he or she would like
to pursue. As is a commonplace observation on this list, the internet
revolutionized conlanging by bringing together individuals who never
before realized what they shared in common. On the other hand, never
before has it been so obligatory for all nations to use a single tongue,
English, in which to communicate. Thus, while we are freer to do what
we wish as individuals, the chains that bind us to the wider world, and
thus its culture, are heavier than ever before.
> *22. What would Tolkien have done with such a community? He writes in
> "A Secret Vice" that language inventors "hardly ever show their works to
> one another, so none of them know who are the geniuses at the game, or
> who are the splendid 'primitives'." He suggests that perhaps in a later
> time language invention will become respectable, and such things can be
> exhibited. Have we reached that time?
Yes and no. Anyone with a computer and internet access nowadays can
post whatever they wish, including their conlang. But the very fact
that it is so easy to do this reduces its respectability in some sense
for many people: it is not qualitatively different from the ease with
which obscure political or religious sects can post their propaganda.
Conlanging will only come of age when our grammars and discussions
enter journals of conlanging and are published by publishing
houses.
> *23. Is there a danger that over-exposure can make conlanging "banal"?
> To what extent is it exciting because it is a) considered disreputable,
> "corny" or "mad," or b) largely unknown to the world? Does it have a
> fizzle-out date? In other words, is it just a fad, or is it a natural
> human inclination that will stand the test of time?
I don't really derive any excitement from the "forbidden" aspects of
conlanging. It's all entirely personal for me. When I'm artlanging,
when I create languages purely for the esthetic enjoyment, I never
fizzle out because it serves as its own justification: it is because
it is.
> Finally, may I have your permission to use any of this material of
> yours for my academic work on conlanging? First name? last name?
> pseudonym? anonymous?
You may certainly use my work, although please tell me that
you are doing so before you do.
-- Tom
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