Re: LUNATIC SURVEY: 2005
| From: | Cian Ross <cian@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, February 25, 2005, 10:24 |
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On Thursday 24 February 2005 12:41 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? Pseudonyms allowed. (Are you using one? asked "Sally Caves")
I'm Cian Ross. I'm possibly a dilettante among conlangers :) because I
have a variety of conlangs in various stages of development (or not).
I've probably made up fast sketches that I no longer remember and might
eventually find in the back of a dusty notebook one day. The conlangs
and/or fast sketches that I have in files on the computer are Veldan,
O:radiendelsa, Anglysc, Ceranese, Kal Pol Ling, Kyet Kenawme, Taroan,
Lokwandaze, Thagnarvi, an unnamed PIE-based sketch (based on a lot of
information out of Beekes), and the beginnings of a protolang sketch
tentatively named Sprot.
> *2. Are you new to the Lunatic Survey or have you filled out a version of
> this survey before?
I'm a newbie. :)
> 3. Do you have a website for you language/world(s)? If so, please list the
> URL address.
Not everything is on the site, because not all of it is in a state in
which I would choose to "publish" it. The site is:
http://crlh.tzo.org/~cian/CR/conlang/
> 4. What is your email address? name at hostsite dot whatever.
cian@cox-internet.com
> 5. What is your age? (vague answers allowed, but it is an important
> demographic)
mid-40s
> 6. What is your gender?
male
> 7. What is your nationality? Where do you live now?
US, Texas
> 8. What is your native language?
Texan. :) English. (I probably don't sound much like I grew up here
except when I'm deliberately choosing to sound like it.)
> 9. What natural languages foreign to you have you studied or do you speak?
I'm very rusty in Latin, Greek, Spanish, and I once taught myself a
little bit of Irish Gaelic. I've read through books on Anglo-Saxon,
Swahili, Hausa, Welsh, Nahuatl, Hawaiian, and Sanskrit, and a web page
on Vietnamese, though I'd not care to claim even rustiness.
> 10. What is your level of education? i.e., your highest degree achieved or
> sought?
Bachelor's degree
> 11. What is your profession? Are you a professional linguist? If so, what
> also makes you a conlanger?
Computers (software and QA, with occasional sysadmin and technical
writing)
> 13. If you are a student, what is your major or your area of study?
Non-student.
> 14. How long have you been developing your invented language(s)?
Veldan dates back to early high school. Ceranese (such as it is),
Thagnarvi, Kal Pol Ling, Anglysc, and Taroan are very slightly younger.
Kyet Kenawme and Lokwandaze are newborns. :) The PIE-lang and Sprot
are each a few years old.
> 15. At what age did you first start inventing a language? Can you briefly
> describe your early efforts?
I was, IIRC, 14 or 15.
If I haven't destroyed all of my notes of the first versions of Veldan
it wasn't for lack of intending to. :) There were a lot of things I did
_not_ understand about language then--quite possibly there still are
now, though I think I've learned something at least in the interim. My
first versions of Veldan were (in addition to having the de rigeur (?)
inspiration by Tolkien) a reaction to the perceived (at the time)
"oddness" of Latin (e.g., that two substantives could agree in case,
number, and gender but not have identical-sounding inflections). There
are still traces of some of that in Veldan (like the single-feature
marking of differing meanings by changing only a thematic vowel) because
some of those things have become "traditional" to me. But, early
sketches of Veldan might not strike anyone as being terribly similar to
what I have made the language into in recent years, other than for some
of the root stock.
> 16. What drew you to start inventing a language and/or constructed world?
> What was the inspiration?
Tolkien. :) And, in about the same time as discovering Tolkien, being
force-fed Latin--for the first couple of weeks, after which I started to
like it, and branched out from there. The other thing that got quickly
connected to conlanging was FRP gaming, in which I had started doing my
own worldbuilding. I almost immediately realized I had a source of ways
to get consistent naming for places inhabited by particular cultures.
This then drove the invention of several new conlangs, to include
Ceranese, Thagnarvi, Anglysc, Kal Pol Ling, and Taroan--and added to my
interest in Veldan, as they became one of the primary cultures in the
back-story of the conworld.
> 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 go back far enough into the dark ages :) that electronic mailing lists
didn't exist yet, nor any other part of the internet, AFAIK. (I don't
miss that aspect of those days.) I don't think I'd heard of Esperanto,
or if I had it didn't leave an impression. (I also don't miss being
stuck with pen and paper--I get writer's cramp very easily.)
> 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?
The people off-list who know I invent languages are almost entirely
those who have played in my FRP campaigns.
> 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?
I was from the start wary of negative reactions in the first place.
Announcing that one make up new languages, at least for me, shares at
least a few aspects of "coming out" (in the more usual meaning of the
idiom). I'm not familiar with the above author, but I can perhaps guess
some of the derisiveness and/or judgmental rejections one might find
there?
On the rare occasions in high school when someone not connected to FRP
gaming found out I made conlangs and conworlds, I passed it off as that
I was maybe thinking about writing a fantasy novel. (That was a "think
fast" the first time--I didn't have a prepared response at first.)
> *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?
This ties in with the previous question: I _am_ a nerd, geek, etc. My
favorite subject in high school was physics. (I went into software
because it's the closest I could get to building things in pure thought
and thus with the minimum of limitations on what can be built and
realized.) There is no way I was ever going to be other than a
nerd/geek--the social outcast with interests that seem incomprehensible
to almost everyone else and who lacks any real interest in the "usual"
things.
> 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'm very rusty with a couple of guitars and extremely rusty with
classical pipe organ. I've written a few bits and pieces of music now
and then, but mostly only friends have heard them. I once played in a
garage band (and that's probably exactly where we belonged :)). It's an
interest that comes and goes over time.
> 22. There has been a connection noted between linguistic and mathematical
> ability. Are you mathematically inclined or inclined towards computing in
> any way?
I get along with math until one gets into the more "interesting" sorts
of differential equations. Things beyond that often leave me feeling
like my brain just got bent into a pretzel. :) I've been building
software and sometimes doing related things professionally for a long
time.
> 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've tried a bit of sketching, painting, and fiction writing, but I
don't think I'm all that great at any of them. FRP-game worldbuilding
and map-making are connected to most of my conlangs. I'm a very spartan
web-page designer, such as that may be. :) I find it more interesting,
in general, to look at planets than stars--I have on occasion been able
to find all four Galilean moons of Jupiter in a telescope.
> 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.
I'd call all of mine artlangs. They exist for their own sake and for my
amusement in creating them and sometimes in using them.
> 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)?
Veldan is a posteriori with occasional a priori bits and pieces, but
sometimes "twists" and/or reanalyzes a posteriori items.
Ora:diendelsa is an Arda-lang, based on the a priori protolanguage, Dele.
Anglysc was an attempt to construct the language that some of the
Veldans' (former) enemies would speak. It started out as a (very
misguided?) attempt to run Modern English "backward" to before the Great
Vowel Shift and before the loss of most of the inflections, but while
retaining a modern vocabulary. It probably sounds like a particularly
barbarous :) dialect of Anglo-Saxon with some strange additions (e.g.,
Veldan loanwords) and semi-weird inflections. (And I think that's the
most I've ever said about it in public. :))
Kal Pol Ling is an attempt at an isolating variant of Veldan, so is
a posteriori.
Ceranese is spoken by yet another of the former enemies of the Veldans.
A lot of the root stock is a posteriori. The grammar is...odd.
Kyet Kenawme, Thagnarvi, Sprot, and Taroan tend toward being totally a
priori.
Lokwandaze is almost totally a posteriori: it uses mostly Latin and
Greek roots, usually taken directly, but puts them into what is based on
my current understanding of a possible polysynthetic structure.
The unnamed PIE-based sketch is necessarily a posteriori.
Sprot is a priori, or at least is intended to be.
> 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?
A while back I found a page in an old ringbinder that had what appeared
to be a conscript I made in high school and then forgot about. These
days, I so vastly prefer doing things in text on a computer to doing
things by hand that I have very little room to do much with conscripts.
> 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.
Veldan is VSO (other orders are possible but mean something is being
explicitly marked), accusative, inflecting in an sort of a "classical IE
language" way. It has perhaps a (slight?) tendency toward polysynthesis
(if that's the right word) in the use of compounding and in the way
multiple endings are used concurrently (e.g., in participles and
possessive pronouns).
Ora:diendelsa is accusative and highly inflecting, very slightly less
than Dele, mostly because I did sound changes that quite inadvertently
had those sorts of consequences. Word order tends toward SVO, though it
can be very free because of the inflections. Orad can perhaps look
notably different from Dele because I was exploring what could be done
with metathesis (if I'm using the word right), so the ends (and even
middles) of roots tend to have vowels and consonants swapped from their
orderings in Dele. On top of that, Orad nouns regularly end in a
classifier suffix applied after the metathesis and the tense and mood
markers of Dele became infixes in Orad, producing something inspired by
Germanic strong verbs, sort of. And then the phonotactics get into the
act.... :)
Anglysc wobbles between SVO and SOV, and is otherwise a weirdly
motivated (?) twist on a Germanic language, thus is accusative.
Kal Pol Ling is totally isolating, is accusative, and has a very fixed
word order. I have pondered whether to add a minimal tone structure to
it, but never got very far with that. KPL grammar attempts to treat
verbs almost as "adjectives" that modify the subject of the sentence.
(A bare verb that does not modify a subject, depending on context, can
function as any of a command, an infinitive, or a verbal noun.)
Ceranese is an ongoing (if slow) attempt to test the limits of what can
be done with linked and nested topic-comment structures. There are days
when I still find this interesting--and days when I think this was one
of my dumber ideas. Ceranese forms plurals by appending the vowel of
the first syllable to the end of the word: a singular form may not end
in the same vowel as found in the first syllable. There are dialectical
variations in how compounds and foreign words are handled, in how
plurals are formed if the first syllable contains a vowel diphthong, and
in the "movable" consonant that is appended to prevent vowel elision at
the ends of words (which would turn a plural back into the singular
form). Examples: "ciav" (city) vs. ciavi (cities), "ni" (I, me)
vs. "nia" (we, us; from the original and now contrast forms a:ni/a:nia);
"lo:te" (person associated with something) vs. "lo:teo" (persons...);
"oidav" (fact) vs. "oidavoi" or "oidavo" (facts), but never *oidavi.
Note that long vowels are shortened when making a plural (this rule
holds across all of the dialects).
Kyet Kenawme is ergative, Verb-Patient or Verb-Agent-Patient.
Thagnarvi is also ergative, with an internal ablaut (?) system that
marks case in conjunction with an s- prefix used in three of the cases.
Word order is free, though tends often to Absolutive-Verb(-Ergative),
and the topic can often be attracted to the front of the clause.
Sprot is more an incipient root stock than a language, so far. :)
Taroan was at first very vaguely inspired by Hawaiian, but perhaps goes
off in its own direction. Word order is SVO except that there is a
short list of enclitics by which grammatical function can be marked,
allowing any word order. I suppose Taroan would be called an accusative
language because the (optional) marking of a subject is the same for
transitive and intransitive verbs, and the same holds for the fixed word
order if the enclitics are not used. (There is no passive, middle,
reflexive, etc.) Every clause, other than imperatives, must be
"bracketed" by a start-particle and end-particle. Together with the use
of the perfective or imperfective form of the verb (almost always marked
either a change of vowel or an outright suppletion), these mark the
tense of the clause. BTW, Taroan's speakers call their language
"bahonga 'ta roa" (roughly, "how to talk" or "the means of speech").
The name "Taroan" is the fault of an unidentified foreigner (possibly an
Anglysc speaker :)) who mistook "'ta roa" for a noun and then the
misunderstanding spread through the various trade networks.
Lokwandaze sets (mostly) Latin and Greek roots into a polysynthetic
structure vaguely inspired by Inuktitut. The "frame" structure of each
clause-word is OVS. I was calling the grammar ergative but really the
deal is that the objects always precede the verb root and one knows
they're objects (and not being compounded with the verb root itself)
because of an ergative (?) marker postfix on the subject.
The unnamed PIE-based sketch is ergative, based on a speculation that
I've seen (unfortunately, I don't remember where) that some stage of PIE
might have been. It is SOV.
Note: several of these languages are ergative, but when I first started
conlanging in high school I had not the foggiest notion what ergativity
was or even that it could exist. All of the ergatives are relatively
recent creations or changes made on top of older versions of the
languages.
> 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?
The non-"blue" Veldan lexicon has at this instant 1285 words, though
that keeps growing slowly. Add to that about 50 "blue" words that
aren't on the server. :) Orad is at 1306 words. The others are smaller.
All of three of the web-posted languages have lexicon pages to go with
the grammar web pages.
> 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.
It depends on the language. For Veldan I often take inspiration from
other languages but sometimes "twist" and/or reanalyze words. E.g.,
Veldan "vasilewos" (war leader), from Greek "basileus" (king), is
reanalyzed as va-, a root that gives rise to several words about
fighting, battle, etc.; vasi- is then reanalyzed in parallel as a Veldan
causative verb in -VsW- (cause a war, start a fight); lewos (leader) is
further taken as a nominalization in which the verb lewo- (lead) is
found. One further level of reanalysis is posible here, as -w(o)- is an
old and semi-productive suffix that makes a transitive verb denoting
motion or action. (This is one of the more extreme examples. :))
> 3. Does a constructed world accompany your invention(s)? What is it called?
Yes, though not all of the languages are set in it. Veldan, Anglysc,
Ceranese, KPL, Taroan, and Thagnarvi are set on that world. (Some of
the others might get added to the conworld eventually.) Each has its
own name for the world (or not, depending on how the native speakers see
things):
Veldans have a contingent of half-elves (and a much smaller contingent
of full elves), and I started the language right after first reading
Tolkien, so they still call the world Arda. (Not to be confused with
either Tolkien's Arda nor with Aidan Grey's Arda-lang Arda.) This
survey prodded me to figure out this (re)use of Old Mannish root for
earth or ground, among others, thus "Gae:os" (= "the physical World").
Oops...make that 1287 words. :)
KPL calls it "Mu:nd" (picking up an alternate root).
The Anglysc call it "Weorold" (surprise! :)).
The Ceranese call it "Osmod" (-sm- = radical for life, etc.; -d- =
radical to do with perception; thus "(the place where) life is
perceived").
The Taroans don't have a name for "the" world as they do not generalize
beyond specific places, islands, etc.
The Thagnarvi speakers call it "Vithand," though they may also use this
word to refer to any planet, so one might have need of some care about
context. The word means "(concrete entity where) speech goes,"
apparently referring to the impossibility of communication via sound
outside of a planetary atmosphere.
> *9. Has your language and conworld ever served in a role-playing game or a
> world shared by other conlangers?
I think I'm the only conlanger in that group. If I hadn't found this
mailing list, I might have blithely assumed that conlanging was the
province belonging to Tolkien, a few F&SF authors, and me, plus a few
auxlang inventors.
> *10. Briefly describe your conculture (is it within the bounds of this
> world? on another world, etc.?)
Veldans in the "now" of the conworld timeline live in a post-royalist,
post-slavery, post-patriarchalist culture that has deliberately been
made far more egalitarian, though some will surely dispute that about
their political system (any group who can afford to pay for a 1/N share
of the national government's budget can elect one of their number to the
Senate). One of the chief figures of that revolution, Evanda Tarienna,
is still venerated and statues of her are to be found in lots of places.
(Basically the monarchy deteriorated to the point of teaching everyone
else what _not_ to let happen in a government.)
The Ceranese are a fragmented people who once ran an extensive empire
and who are even "now" systematically prevented from going anywhere near
that again.
The Taroans are islanders who welcome visitors but otherwise live fairly
simply and keep to themselves.
The Anglysc started out as (mostly) pirates but have long since (mostly)
settled down into a moderate number of (mostly) peaceful kingdoms.
The KPL speakers "now" live in a sometimes-uneasy truce with the
Veldans, who almost completely physically surround the small country of
KPL speakers. The latter make use of the natural defense offered by
living in a very large valley inside an almost-closed arc of tall
mountains, which tend to keep the peace as long as no-one gets ideas
about the lands on the other sides of the passes. The situation is
complicated even "now" by the KPL speakers having tried to intervene in
Velda at various times, including right after Tarienna's revolution.
Thagnarvi is the native tongue of sapient, heavily magic-using dragons,
the Thagnar, who have thus a culture rather unlike anything human.
Among other differences, there is almost no even semi-permanent physical
wealth or capital structure beyond land, food animals, and raw
material--they can make just about anything else they want with a few
well-worked spells. Being immortal (though not unkillable), they have a
rather different view of time, to include sometimes taking multi-century
"naps," from which it can be very unsafe to wake them. :)
> *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?
The conworld languages are spoken by humans and as the L2/etc. of
others (elves and such). Thagnarvi is the dragon-tongue, in which I
have blithely assumed that the phonology is a lot like those of my
human conlangs.
> 12. What do you write in it? Poems? chants? lullabyes? prayers? history?
> stories? recipes? Are any of these exhibited on your website?
I started to translate the Babel text into Veldan, then realized that it
totally did _not_ fit the culture. I sat then and wrote (in English) the
equivalent story, but I've not yet gotten around to translating it into
its putative original. :) Other than that, there tend only to be bits
and pieces (the languages that have web pages on my server have at least
a few sentences in each).
> 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 sometimes produce one-liners in Veldan. I really don't know
anyone else who is interested in learning conlangs here. I have been
known to yell at my cats in foreign languages (when the cats get into
things I'd rather they didn't), to include Veldan and Anglysc...yelling
"Cadan aragasti?!" at a cat is good for a few odd looks. :)
> 14. Have you made any soundbytes of your language? Could you provide me at
> a later date with a sample of them?
>
> *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.
Unfortunately, not at this time. But, see this page for my conlang
orthographic conventions:
http://crlh.tzo.org/~cian/CR/conlang/standorth.html
I have basically one standard orthography for all of them that covers
everything (with variations about how long vowels and accents are
marked). It's very phonetic (in reaction to English "ortho"graphy).
> 16. How many of you sing in your language and have invented songs for that
> purpose?
I've thought about it. All of the communities of speakers would have
those in one form or another.
> *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?
I haven't...I have always wanted words to make sense to me.
> 19. Which do you prefer doing: devising phonology? script? structure?
> building vocabulary?
I'm really more into grammar and syntax, then vocabulary building, with
phonology running a distant fourth more as a means to an end, though I
do think I have a distinct sense of the phonotactics that I prefer in
each language.
> 20. Do you start and stop several different conlangs, or do you tend to
> stick with one and develop it over years?
Veldan tends to be an ongoing thing. The others are more variable.
> 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?
The closest I get to a notion of completion is a "complete" grammar and
syntax plus a moderately well-defined way to extend the vocabulary when
desired. I don't think I get tired of any of the languages so much as
running out of ideas for a time--but I always seem to go back to each
of them later.
> *22. Which came first: the conlang or the conworld?
With the exception of the later conlangs, they almost happened in
parallel: the name Veldan probably preceded the language, but not even
by half a year. The map of that (large) island was the first, but I
drew maps of several more within a year or less.
> C. PHILOSOPHY AND AESTHETIC:
>
> 1. What aesthetic features do you value in inventing language? Be specific
> as to phonology, structure, script, etc.
I have distinct preferences in phonotactics and in sound inventories. I
like the sounds of Latin, Greek, and Quenya, though I've almost always
built less restrictive systems in my conlangs. I came to like some of
the sound of Gaelic once I started learning something of it. I think my
taste in inflectional systems is rather more artlang than natlang, as
most of the irregularities tend either to be very "old," core words (be,
go, etc.) or to be the artifact of phonotactics, etc.--I notice that I
often tend to design so as to avoid the chance of creating irregular
features.
> 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 a little afraid to answer that question, as I don't want to slam
anyone's taste but I'm afraid of being seen to do that. That said, I
strongly stay with things I would find reasonably easy to pronounce and
remember, which means that you won't find very many (if any) sounds in
my conlangs that are not found in English, Latin, Classical Greek,
Gaelic, Welsh, and similar. From reading the conlang list, I almost get
the sense of some inventors reaching for the most unusual phonologies,
etc., that they can, and I don't mean to slam that, but it's just not my
thing.
> 3. Is difficulty or obscurity a goal in inventing a language?
Not for me. I'm more often looking for some sort of elegance, which I
might consider to be an opposite of obscurity and hopefully a reducer
of difficulty.
> 4. Is efficiency a goal in inventing a language? This question needn't
> cancel out the previous one.
I don't quite know what that means. If you mean the shortest possible
utterances, then, no, I'm definitely not seeking that as such.
Veldan, etc., have some very short words (the stem for "to be" is
"a-") but this is a consequence of my belief that the most-heavily
used words can get "worn down" the most over time. (If I were ever to
get around to constructing a near-past Proto-Veldan, which I sometimes
call Old Mannish, these stems would doubtless be longer.)
> 5. How natural do you wish to make it, or is that a concern? Or rather, how
> unnatural do you wish to make it?
Each of my conlangs has an inner "logic" or "sense" for me that I follow
in creating it. (Whether anyone else sees that is something you'll have
to decide on your own. :)) Whether a community of native speakers in the
real world would do similar things isn't something I worry about too
much. On the other hand, the ANADEW principle (?) suggests that reality
is always stranger than conlang. :)
> 6. Can conlanging be sexy? sensual? obsessing? how does it heal or harm
> you?
>
> *7. How many of you have developed a rich vocabulary of obscenities?
Veldan has a separate "blue" file of words that are often considered
offensive by English speakers (though the Veldan culture lacks the
notion of obscenity). This file includes the explicitly sexual
vocabulary. I have been known to swear in Veldan. :) It has unabashed
terms for items and actions that English speakers often circumlocute.
Some might call conlanging in general unhealthy, obssessive, harmful,
etc., but I don't see that at all unless one were to pursue it to the
exclusion of all else. Sometimes for me it's just the thing with which
to take a break and then come back to something else later with more
energy. I've also either heard somewhere or been tempted to invent (I'm
not sure which) the word "conlanguor"--that pleasant feeling of calm and
accomplishment after spending a few hours conlanging. :) [The word stumps
Google, so it's possibly my invention.]
> 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?
For me, it's fiction. (I don't mean to slam getting other things out of
conlanging.)
> *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?
Sometimes. Taroan has the word "bahonga" which means any and all of:
means, method, ability, thing required for doing or accomplishing
something, tool, skill, and/or gumption. I don't know of a natlang
word that covers all of that. :)
> 11. Name a few of the words in your language(s) that you are most pleased
> with and are the most original to you.
"Bahonga." :) Alaeke (the Taroan sea god; I just like the sound of that
word). Veldan "vasilewos" for the sheer productivity of reanalyzing it
into components. The set of specific negatives in Veldan. Veldan's
-aina suffix that can make almost anything of metaphorical or
descriptive value into a term for some kind of weather.
ANADEW, probably, but Veldan separates adverbs of time into future and
non-future, with different endings, and I don't remember seeing that
elsewhere (likely as not because I haven't seen the relevant natlang(s)
or have forgotten), though I _think_ I came up with that independently.
> 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 seem to have some sense of that, though I'd have a hard time pinning
down just how that works for me. I have rejected potential words
because they just didn't seem to "fit."
> *13. Do you ever rely on a software program to build vocabulary? Do those
> who don't think that's cheating? :)
I have a little bit of Perl that I use to generate lexicon web pages
(from files in a format similar to nroff/troff source files). I once
wrote a random stem-maker program, but I never really liked what I got
out of it, even when I put in patterns more complex than CVCV, etc.
> *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?
Any or all of the above. Art, as I see it, is invention and is
interpretation of reality. Conlaning is definitely invention. :) Does
it interpret reality? I think so--if nothing else we're each in our own
way exploring or even pushing the boundaries of what human language is
and can do, and what humans can handle in a language. Somewhere in
there is at least a certain amount of attempting to interpret the
reality of human language.
> *15. If it is, who do you think are its consumers?
So far, unless you're a rare someone like Marc Okrand, it seems that we
are our own consumers. The people playing in my FRP campaigns can be
considered my consumers, I suppose, as the place names and the names of
most of the NPCs come out of my conlangs.
> *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?
I prefer to keep conlanging separate from real-world politics. Perhaps
this is escapism--so be it--but for me there has to be some kind of a
calm space in which to get away from the world's controversies.
Conlanging is among the things that do that for me. But, I would be
unsurprised to see one or more auxlangs used to push political agendas.
> *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?
A conlang is a language created by one person (or a few people)
explicitly as an act of deliberate creation, as opposed to a natlang
that "grew" through the daily interactions of a (possibly very large)
group of native speakers. (No, I don't know where pidgins and creoles
fit in there. :))
> *18. Why or why not would you eschew the metaphors "miniature" or "model"?
Probably I would not be happy with them. A miniature is something
that's deliberately small: my conlangs are small only because of the
limits of my time and energy. A model is either equivalent to a "map"
(sort of) or is a specification (more or less) for something else or is
a thing constructed to facilitate making predictions about something: I
don't see how those apply, either.
> *19. Is a conlang more like a glimpse of something lifesize? (Irina's
> suggestion in 2001)
I hope mine are. That's certainly among my intentions.
> *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?
Lokwandaze is OVS in part because I thought the structure interesting
and in part because it takes its root stock from Latin and Greek, and
Latin is SOV--except if the subject is implied by the verb's ending, in
which case it's sometimes sort of OVS? E.g., "Puer canem pulsat" (The
boy hits the dog) can be reduced to "Canem pulsat" (He/she/it hits the
dog), to my eye moving the subject to the verb ending, thus putting it
last. Lokwandaze actually requries that the "terminator" follow the
subject even when the subject is explicit, so it's possible to have an
explicit subject marked in the 1st or 2nd person directly, which in
English would have to be done with something like an apposition.
Ceranese attempts to probe the limits of what one can do with pure
topic/comment structures. So far I have to call it something of a very
iffy notion, though I've kept it around because once in a while I have
an idea about it that I pursue.
> *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?
They are distinguished by origin, if nothing else. I'm not a linguist,
so I'm not sure I want to hazard a guess about what might make one take
a conlang to be a natlang. In any case, I think the boundary is not
entirely sharp: at some point there were no human languages because
there were no humans. All languages thus were created, starting at some
point, so I'm thinking that the real difference is mechanism and purpose
of those creations, not creation itself, as well as the length of time
and number of people involved.
> *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?
I look at natlangs much more for inspiration than for limits. (I don't
mean that as a slam.) There are so many natlangs that do things in so
many different ways that I'm a bit disinclined to worry about
naturalness (and I don't want to get into an argument about whether
notions of language universals have merit).
> *23. Can such a language function?
Meaning, could a group of people pick up (e.g.) Veldan, flesh out the
lexicon, and use it among themselves daily? I certainly like to think
so. One of the general principles that I remember from somewhere (I'm
not sure if it was an elective linguistics course) is that languages are
always observed to be adequate to the needs of their speakers. I gather
that this is because an inadequate language gets extended quickly. :)
If so, then even if a conlang were not initially sufficient, I would
expect that a determined group of speakers would soon extend it enough
to suffice.
> *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?
There was a time when I could never have even expected there to be a
mailing list of conlangers. Even after having been on the list for a
while I'm still fascinated by the directions in which different creators
take their languages. I don't know if that will ever be academically
interesting, but it perhaps offers points of data about the extent of
what's possible in human language (though this may come smack up against
ANADEW :)).
> D. THE LISTSERV
>
> 1. How did you first hear of this list?
>
> 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 don't actually remember. I'ts been a few years. Some years I've had
more time to read the list than others.
> *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'm more of a lurker. Just knowing that there are others out there who
conlang is interesting all by itself, as it seems to be one of the rarer
or more rarely expressed sorts of creativity. I don't post very much:
often I read the replies to a message and see that someone else has
already said something I might have (and I generally don't see the use
in "me too" postings).
> 6. What books have you consulted? On your own, or because you heard of them
> on the list?
I have a copy of Beekes' PIE book, that I heard of first on the list.
Other than that I've built up my notions of language gradually, from a
lot of sources, starting with having learned a couple of classical
languages.
> *7. Do you peruse the websites of other conlangers?
If I see them posted to the list I will certainly go take a look.
> *8. Do you sense that people on this list are interested in your conlang
> and give you feedback on it?
I think feedback is probably often hard to give, particularly for
conlangs like mine that are artlangs that are not directly romlangs and
such. It's probably hard to say more than "I like it" or "it's not to
my taste."
> 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?
More from F&SF works. (From memory: Senvanissai'n ar Roke! :))
> *10. Do you peruse Jeffrey Henning's Langmaker.com site?
I have, some time back.
> *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?
Very basic web pages. :)
> 12. Have you ever tried to introduce a friend to the list?
Not yet.
> 13. Do you know of anyone who does this kind of thing but who has never
> heard of the list?
Not so far.
> *14. What other lists do you frequent related to conlanging?
This is it....
> *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?
I'd answer that my time is my own and to each his own. :) I might also
answer that anyone who tries to make me into anything other than an
introvert is in for a very rough ride. :) I don't understand where
solipsism comes in--if no-one but the self exists, then there's almost
not reason for any kind of language.
> *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?
I'd hope that each of us would have found something of a kindred spirit
in Tolkien, at least about language invention. I can't guess what he
would have done, if anything, though I do seem to remember that he might
have discussed ideas sometimes with C.S. Lewis?
I doubt we've reached anything even remotely like large-scale
"respectability" (for instance, I have my doubts, possibly unfounded,
about how many people even among Star Trek fans know who Marc Okrand is
or what he did). But, already being a geek and a nerd otherwise, I tend
to worry about that as little as I can.
> *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?
Humans make languages. Humans paint pictures. But, just as not nearly
all humans paint, not nearly all make up new languages. I would at
least hope that intellectual and artistic diversity will continue to
increase and that conlanging will be included.
> 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, and quote me by name as you like. One request: if you're going to
quote from my web pages, please send me a fast email first because I
often develop things separately and then eventually put them on the
server, so what's there will sometimes be slightly out of date.
BTW, part of my conworld is available as part of a small MUCK (for those
who may know of such) that runs on my web server. Connect to
crlh.tzo.org port 4201 as "guest" (password "guest"). Then enter the
command "t u-velda" to go to the University of the Veldamaros, which is
as good a place as any to start looking around at what of Velda (Velda
City) is currently described in the MUCK database. Points of attraction
include the University, the Senate complex, and the Crystal Temple. The
guest account is single-threaded, so if someone else is already logged
in to it, please be polite. :)
CKR
cian@cox-internet.com