On Feb 24, 2005, at 1:41 PM, Sally Caves wrote:
> 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?
Scott Caldwell, Wikilret
> *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.
Not yet. Hopefully soon. I am working on it.
> 4. What is your email address? name at hostsite dot whatever.
sjcaldwell at mac dot com
> 5. What is your age?
31
> 6. What is your gender?
male
> 7. What is your nationality? Where do you live now?
Canadian, Canada
> 8. What is your native language?
English
> 9. What natural languages foreign to you have you studied or do you
> speak?
French (I can put together some basic disjointed sentences, reading
fluency is a little better), Korean (I know a few words)
> 10. What is your level of education? i.e., your highest degree
> achieved or sought?
Bachelor of Mathematics in Business Administration
> 11. What is your profession? Are you a professional linguist? If so,
> what also makes you a conlanger?
currently work in a factory, no, conlanging
> 14. How long have you been developing your invented language(s)?
approximately 1 year (in a "serious" or constructive way)
> 15. At what age did you first start inventing a language? Can you
> briefly describe your early efforts?
Prior to this I just made up words, no thought about morphology,
grammar,etc.
> 16. What drew you to start inventing a language and/or constructed
> world? What was the inspiration?
Roleplaying games.
> 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)
Before I had heard of the list. Tolkien got me started on the path to
role playing games.
> 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?
No one outside the list knows of it yet.
> *20. Do you consider it nerdy to be doing this?
If it wasn't nerdy I probably wouldn't be doing it. :-)
> Do you need to get a life, or is this your life? What is a life?
Yes, but not because I conlang.
Life is living.
> 21. Are you musically inclined?
Not at all.
> 22. Are you mathematically inclined or inclined towards computing in
> any way?
Mathematically inclinded: yes. (At least I was in school. :-) )
> 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?)
World building, writing (which is why I conlang), I used to be heavily
into role playing games.
> 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
> 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)?
Mostly a priori (although it draws somewhat on latin and greek words).
> 4. Do you have a script for your conlang?
Not yet. I would like to develop one.
> 5. Briefly describe the outlines of your invented language
Probably nothing innovative. An agglutinating language.
Syntactic structure: declarative sentences SVO, imperative sentences
VSO, interrogative sentences SOV
> 7. How extensive would you say your invented language is, now? How big
> the vocabulary?
Still limited. Currently I have almost 300 words in my word database.
> 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.
Mostly pulling words out of the air. I am trying to build a list of
roots. I do have quite a few affixes.
> 3. Does a constructed world accompany your invention(s)? What is it
> called?
Yes. Iryal.
> *9. Has your language and conworld ever served in a role-playing game
> or a world shared by other conlangers?
Not really. In its primordial stage it was intended to be an RPG world.
Now it has changed and mutated quite a bit. It is now a setting for my,
as yet unwritten, novels.
> *10. Briefly describe your conculture (is it within the bounds of this
> world? on another world, etc.?)
Gee, where to start? I have a huge conworld, with many cultures and
several different races. It is based on a small planet. It is a fantasy
realm of magic, faery, genies, dragons, etc.
> *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?
Alien. Very little actually. Their physiology makes it hard to
distinguish /f/ vs /v/.
> 13. Can you speak your conlang? Are you fluent in it? Is this a goal
> for you?
Somewhat--it is possible, but I am in no way fluent (the lang is still
evolving). Fluency is not specifically a goal--I hope to be able to
translate with some skill.
> *15. If you use Roman script, how recognizably "phonetic" is your
> writing system?
Very phonetic.
> 19. Which do you prefer doing: devising phonology? script? structure?
> building vocabulary?
Vocabulary. Although grammar is interesting as I learn more about
it--it is probably the most difficult for me right now.
> 20. Do you start and stop several different conlangs, or do you tend
> to stick with one and develop it over years?
This is my first one. Although I have some ideas for other conlangs
within my conworld.
> *22. Which came first: the conlang or the conworld?
Conworld
> C. PHILOSOPHY AND AESTHETIC:
> 3. Is difficulty or obscurity a goal in inventing a language?
Definitly no.
> 4. Is efficiency a goal in inventing a language?
No.
> 5. How natural do you wish to make it, or is that a concern?
I want to make it natural, although I am not overly concerned with that
concept.
> 9. How many of you have developed a rich vocabulary of magical,
> religious, or incantatory terms?
Not yet, but it definitly is a goal.
> *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?
Again, not yet, but it is a goal.
> *22. How much do you study other languages in order to discover what
> is natural in language?
Not as much as I would like. :-)
> *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 see that it matters.
> D. THE LISTSERV
>
> 1. How did you first hear of this list?
From the "Language Construction Kit".
> 2. How long have you been on this listserv or on other related
> listservs?
On this listserv possibly 8 months, pretty much continuously.
> *3. What is the appeal of being on a listserv and contributing to it?
Learning.
> Do you think you contribute moderately or excessively, or not enough?
> Do you tend to lurk ?
I mostly lurk. Occassionally ask a question or post ideas from my
conlang.
> *5. How helpful has the list been in developing your language? In
> learning linguistic information?
Immensly helpful. I can't imagine having got this far without it.
> 6. What books have you consulted? On your own, or because you heard of
> them on the list?
None. Oh the joys of living in small town rural Ontario. Hopefully I
can get to my university library soon to start checking out some books.
> *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?
What little I have posted I didn't get much response from.
> 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?
No.
> *10. Do you peruse Jeffrey Henning’s Langmaker.com site?
I have in the past.
> *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 would love a conworld list. The conculture list has too much
il-Bethesda (sp?) stuff, which is interesting, but I just don't have
the time to cull through.
> 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?
Yes, you may use any of the information I have included in this post.
First name yes.
scott