Re: LUNATIC SURVEY: 2005
| From: | Geoff Horswood <geoffhorswood@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, February 25, 2005, 18:10 |
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>LUNATIC SURVEY 2005, by Sally Caves
>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")
Geoff Horswood (not a pseudonym).
conlangs: Xinkùtlan, Franj, Lauranthea, several fragments & false starts.
>*2. Are you new to the Lunatic Survey or have you filled out a version of
>this survey before?
New.
>3. Do you have a website for you language/world(s)? If so, please list the
>URL address.
No. I keep meaning to, but so far, Real Life keeps interfering.
>4. What is your email address? name at hostsite dot whatever.
geoffhorswood@hotmail.com
>5. What is your age? (vague answers allowed, but it is an important
>demographic)
32.
>6. What is your gender?
Male.
>7. What is your nationality? Where do you live now?
English. Hertfordshire, UK.
>8. What is your native language?
English
>9. What natural languages foreign to you have you studied or do you speak?
Kazakh (fluent), Russian (fair), German, French, Uighur (can understand but
can't really speak).
>10. What is your level of education? i.e., your highest degree achieved or
>sought?
BSc (Hons) in Biological Sciences
>11. What is your profession? Are you a professional linguist? If so, what
>also makes you a conlanger?
Missionary, currently employed in temporary work.
>12. If you are a student, what is your major or your area of study?
N/A.
>13. How long have you been developing your invented language(s)?
Lauranthea since 2003.
Xinkùtlan & Franj since 2004.
>14. At what age did you first start inventing a language? Can you briefly
>describe your early efforts?
Early efforts were made in childhood- they usually ended up as ciphers of
English with extremely bizarre scripts (usually descended from
those "secret code" alphabets that kids of a certain persuasion enjoy). In
my teens, I developed some naming-languages for a couple of conworlds I was
creating.
>15. What drew you to start inventing a language and/or constructed world?
>What was the inspiration?
I don't know. I've always been fascinated by languages, especially non-
roman orthographies. I loved CS Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" as a child,
and later got into sci-fi & fantasy in a big way. It probably came from
there.
>16. 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)
Before I heard of the list. After I heard of Tolkien & Esperanto, but
Tolkien was only a tangential inspiration, and Esperanto not at all.
>17. 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?
I'm very reticent in general, and especially about conlanging.
>18. 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?
The very few I've told have had reactions like "[double take] what? OK...
Cool."
>*19. 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?
It's just something I do. A lot of what I do would probably get
called "nerdy".
>20. 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 enjoy singing and I bang drums, but other than that, no.
>21. There has been a connection noted between linguistic and mathematical
>ability. Are you mathematically inclined or inclined towards computing in
>any way?
No.
>22. 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?)
Writing poetry, drawing, calligraphy, map-making (I'm a definite map
fiend!), stargazing (Several of my early con-worlds had full star charts),
cookery.
>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.
Artlang. Franj might also be considered a lostlang; I'm not too sure.
>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)?
Franj is a posteriori, based on Old French with heavy Turkish influence.
My other conlangs are a priori, which seems more usual for me.
>3. 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?
Lauranthea had a script, unnamed, but I've lost the paper I had it on.
Xinkùtlan has a script known as "ac sùra" ("letter markings") which can be
written in full, with tlùi (vowel diacritics) or without tlùi.
Franj uses a modified Greek script called "li eskripe Franj" ("the Franj
script"). Neither of these are on Langmaker.
>4. 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.
Xinkùtlan is VSO, (poly)synthetic, agglutinating. About the most
innovative thing I've done with it is that varying the order of the affixes
changes the meaing of the word.
Franj is at present gramatically more similar to French than anything slse,
SVO (sometimes SOV), fusional (becoming agglutinating). Adding vowel
harmony spiced things up a little. It still needs grammatical work.
>5. 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?
Xinkùtlan currently has a vocab of about 1000 words; Franj a few hundred.
>6. 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.
With my a priori langs, I play around with sound combinations and gibberish
words that fit the phonological constraints I've set up until I find
something I like. Occasionally I borrow from a natlang and modify heavily.
>7. Does a constructed world accompany your invention(s)? What is it
called?
The Shannalara (Lauranthea-speakers) came from a world called Kir. The
Xinkùtlan live on the landmass of Nàzika ("Our Land") in a world which
doesn't have a name. Their word for "world, cosmos" is Tlàxaq.
>*8. Has your language and conworld ever served in a role-playing game or a
>world shared by other conlangers?
No. One of my early naming languages, Talla, shared a world with a fellow
conworlder, but I don't count that as a "real" conlang.
>*9. Briefly describe your conculture (is it within the bounds of this
world? >on another world, etc.?)
The Xinkùtlan are in the Late Bronze Age wrt technology, vaguely Aztec/Maya
in concultural "feel", with some Ancient Mesopotamian overtones. No magic
(though they believe in it); extensive spirit world believed in, but I'm
unsure as to how accurate their beliefs about their world are.
The Franj are developed up to about the 18th or 19th Century in an
alternate Earth.
The Shannalara are high-tech, with interstellar travel and settlement on a
number of worlds.
>*10. 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?
The speakers of Xinkùtlan and Franj are human.
The Shannalara are humanoid aliens descended from birdlike ancestors. The
main physiological trait that affected their language is that they change
colour according to their emotional state.
I also have an undeveloped sketch of a conlang spoken by intelligent alien
elephants- the =HnhfwuuS. They had a number of interesting features-
multiple tones, infrasound, no non-nasal stops, non-nasal/nasal/very nasal
vowel distinctions, vowel disharmony, and a with/without nasal blowing
distinction in some of its consonant series. Also, because complex
manipulations generally require the assistance of one or more other
=HnhfwuuS, they lacked a first-person singular.
>11. What do you write in it? Poems? chants? lullabyes? prayers? history?
>stories? recipes? Are any of these exhibited on your website?
History, some poems & prayers, some of the conculture's legends.
>12. 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 speak Xinkùtlan and Franj a little. It's not that big a goal for me;
I don't want them interfering with the natlangs I speak (like learning
Kazakh & Russian interfered with my knowing German and French).
>13. Have you made any soundbytes of your language? Could you provide me at
>a later date with a sample of them?
No, but that's a good idea...
>*14. 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.
Xinkùtlan is relatively phonetic. Franj rather less so- lots of mutation
based on where the sound is in the word, some silent letters, vestigial Old
French spellings and non-obvious phonetic combinations (c = /ts/, but ch
= /x/, for example)
>15. How many of you sing in your language and have invented songs for that
>purpose?
No.
>*16. 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?
Yes, I do glossolalia. And yes, I get conlang ideas from it sometimes.
And yes, I sing in "gibberish" too.
>*17. What on-line games do you play? (or devise?) Translations, Babel-
text, >Relays, etc.
Translations, Babel-texts & so on I enjoy. I haven't participated in a
relay yet. When the latest relay came around, I wasn't sure any of my
langs were developed enough.
>18. Which do you prefer doing: devising phonology? script? structure?
>building vocabulary?
Script, vocabulary and phonology (in about that order). Devising
interesting grammatical structure I usually find a bit of a bear.
>19. Do you start and stop several different conlangs, or do you tend to
>stick with one and develop it over years?
I seem to be a starter/stopper. "The tyranny of the new and interesting"!
>20. 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?
A conlang is only ever "complete" relative to another; you can have "more
complete" and "less complete", but they simply describe the relative level
of development.
>*21. Which came first: the conlang or the conworld?
I started developing conworlds long before I got into conlanging, but more
recently, the two develop very closely together.
>C. PHILOSOPHY AND AESTHETIC:
>1. What aesthetic features do you value in inventing language? Be specific
>as to phonology, structure, script, etc.
A beautiful or interesting script is a sure way to my heart. I like odd
and unusual phonologies; clicks feature in one of my fragments; the
elephant language had a whole glom of bizarre phonemes, and I love the
natlang Kazakh for its crunchy guttural sound. I respect any wildly "other"
structure; but I can never seem to figure them out properly on my own.
>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.
I'm trying to avoid Celtic-feel languages, as there seem to be quite a lot
of them out there already. Basically, anything that seems very common,
I'll try to avoid. I want to come up with a fluid orc language or a
crunchy Elvish!
>3. Is difficulty or obscurity a goal in inventing a language?
It can be. It depends what feel I want to achieve.
>4. Is efficiency a goal in inventing a language? This question needn't
>cancel out the previous one.
No, not really.
>5. How natural do you wish to make it, or is that a concern? Or rather,
how >unnatural do you wish to make it?
Again, depends on the speakers. I'll usually try to avoid making something
unspeakably (literally) weird for the sake of it, but alien speakers,
especially humanoid ones, should have alien features. "Naturalism in
context" about describes what I aim for.
>6. Can conlanging be sexy? sensual? obsessing? how does it heal or harm
you?
Not sure what you mean. Obsessing, probably. Expressing creativity in
whatever way is a healing experience for me.
>*7. How many of you have developed a rich vocabulary of obscenities?
No. I've got a fairly extensive repertoire of Xinkùtlan curses, but that's
not really the same thing.
>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?
Mystical/spiritual- insofar as creation is a mystical/spiritual process,
yes. Magical- no, not in the usual sense of the word.
>9. How many of you have developed a rich vocabulary of magical, religious,
>or incantatory terms?
Yes. I have extensive religious vocabulary in both Franj and Xinkùtlan (in
the latter, religious and magical are practically the same thing).
>*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?
Oh very yes!
>11. Name a few of the words in your language(s) that you are most pleased
>with and are the most original to you.
In Xinkùtlan:
|tlàiman|: "shaman-priest", related to & derived from the word tlàias
("smoke"; other cognates include |setlài| "to worship").
|seratàn|: "to use an atlatl". I like the idea of there being a specific
word for the action.
|mùtlikal|: literally "tail-ling"; a word for the young of an opossum.
|dzalàqu|: a spirit that can possess and animate tools. I'm just really
pleased with this concept.
I'm also quite pleased with some of my words for livestock animals that
differentiate based on age and gender.
>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?
It just fits. I play around until it does.
>*13. Do you ever rely on a software program to build vocabulary? Do those
>who don't think that's cheating? :)
No. And no, it's not cheating. It's just not helpful to me. I've tried.
It takes a lot of the pleasure out of the process for me.
>*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?
All of the above! It's part art, part craft, part hobby.
>*15. If it is, who do you think are its consumers?
The interested, of course! ;)
>*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?
It can be a political tool, I guess. Serbo-Croat seems a case-in-point.
Though I'd probably say more of a political _statement_ than a tool as such.
>*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?
Conlanging is like gardening. Prune something here, cut back there,
encourage growth over there, reshape the landscape according to your
desires, while keeping in mind the nature of the soil and environment.
>*18. Why or why not would you eschew the metaphors "miniature" or "model"?
I personally dislike both. They just sound too trivial,
especially "miniature". Though "model" used technically of something like
a loglang or philosophical language would be acceptable.
>*19. Is a conlang more like a glimpse of something lifesize? (Irina's
>suggestion in 2001)
Perhaps. I'd suggest a window into someone else's inner world.
>*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 in my 3 more established conlangs. My elephant conlang has OSV word
order, and I was going to use it for Xinkùtlan, then chickened out. I'm
toying with an older idea of mine for a language where the words are akin
to Chinese ideographs- a limited number of roots expressing basic ideas
that are then put together to express one's thought. In this system "The
man went to the river" might be "man.movement river", and "The river flowed
past the man" might be "river.movement man".
>*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?
A human-speaker conlang with enough cultural depth could probably most
easily be taken for a natlang; I don't know.
>*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?
Not so much to discover what is "natural" as to find new (to me) and
different ways of doing things.
>*23. Can such a language function?
Depends what you mean by "function". If the lang's sole purpose is to push
boundaries, and it does so, that's "fuctioning" on some level. If you
mean "Could it be an actual spoken/written language?", go talk to an
auxlanger! ;)
>*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?
Don't know. It's not something which has much relevance for me.
>D. THE LISTSERV
>1. How did you first hear of this list?
Random web searching when designing Xinkùtlan. I think I got it from Pablo
Flores' language design page.
>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?
4-5 months now, continuously. No other listservs.
>*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 pooling of resources, and mutual contributions/help. Nothing
beats having a pool of knowledgeable people to go to with questions, and
having a whole spread of people who don't think you're a nutter is very
nice!
>*5. How helpful has the list been in developing your language? In learning
>linguistic information?
Very. Even if you ask for contributions and then go and do your own thing
anyway, it's helpful to see how others have solved similar problems. Quite
often something someone else has posted as an idea will spark off a train
of thought that may take one of my langs further on, in a similar, or
completely different, direction.
>6. What books have you consulted? On your own, or because you heard of
them >on the list?
I don't really do this. On the occasions I have done book study of a
language in depth, it tends to make me lift things wholesale and crowbar
them into a structure which is otherwise all of a piece. Borrowings of
this sort always seem (to me) to stick out like a pink patch on a pair of
blue jeans.
>*7. Do you peruse the websites of other conlangers?
Yes.
>*8. Do you sense that people on this list are interested in your conlang
and >give you feedback on it?
Yes.
>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 on purpose. Sometimes words or phrases stick, though.
>*10. Do you peruse Jeffrey Henning's Langmaker.com site?
Occasionally.
>*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?
None. I often feel something of a Net incompetent, in fact.
>12. Have you ever tried to introduce a friend to the list?
No.
>13. Do you know of anyone who does this kind of thing but who has never
>heard of the list?
I have a friend who conworlds, but AFAIK he doesn't develop languages. I
haven't seen him for a while.
>*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?
Don't know. The ability to have discussion on any and all aspects of
conlanging is one of the big positives for me.
>*16. What Internet technology would you most like to see developed that
>would aid you in showcasing your language(s)?
Gary's tinkerfont stuff looks amazing, for one.
>*17. What lists like conlang exist in other cultures and languages that
you >know of?
None that I know of.
>*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?
For me, yes.
>*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
>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?
I do both. I don't see a conflict.
>*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?
Depends on the language. Natlang innovation tends to come from borrowings
from other languages, AFAIK. Conlanging seems to be a different animal to
neologism. Neologism is like painting the horns of an animal, whereas
conlanging is (or can be) like performing radical cosmetic surgery and/or
genetic manipulation on the same animal.
>*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?
It's perhaps not so much that conlanging has become "respectable" as
possibly the relative anonymity of the internet, and the ability to connect
the like-minded without their ever meeting face-to-face.
>*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 think it's such a thing as to become "banal" through over-
exposure. Does one's own imagination fade through over-use? Do the inner
worlds grow dim through visiting them too frequently? Does painting or
sculpture become mundane to a painter or sculptress?
>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?
>Thanks!
I don't mind you using any of this, though I'd appreciate it if you'd let
me know that you are doing so.
Geoff