Re: LUNATIC SURVEY: 2005

Hallo!

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 13:41:04 -0500,
Sally Caves <scaves@...> wrote:

> LUNATIC SURVEY 2005, by Sally Caves
>
> There are four parts (A through D) of about 22-24 questions each.
> These surveys have aided me in my ongoing research on conlanging, but
> they are also for YOU.
>
> *For the few that have requested it, I've put asterisks by the
>  questions that are new to this third installment of the "Lunatic
>  Survey," first posted in 1998, in honor of Marina Yaguello's
>  dismissive title, Fous du langage, translated by Catherine Slater as
>  "Lunatic Lovers of Language." BEAR IN MIND, though, that I've started
>  from scratch, and many of my "old" questions are recast in new ways.
>
> You need not answer every question; if you do, please keep most of
> them fairly brief, although I don't want to deny you a chance to
> effuse!  I would like all the questions answered for A, 1-17, though,
> even if you took the survey in 2003.
>
> Please read them over before responding, so you know what lies ahead.
>
> You may respond publically or privately to me at
> scaves@frontiernet.net. I posted this publically, though, because I
> think you all like seeing other people's responses, and it was
> requested.  However, If you respond to any of the public responses,
> PLEASE CHANGE THE HEADER!!! Firrimby. :)
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> 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 am Jörg Rhiemeier, my main conlang right now is Old Albic, but I
have plans for further languages of the Albic family, and I have also
invented a Romance language named Germanech.

> *2. Are you new to the Lunatic Survey or have you filled out a version
>     of this survey before?
I remember filling out one in 2003.

> 3. Do you have a website for you language/world(s)? If so, please list
>    the URL address.
There is no proper website for any of my conlangs, but several CONLANG
posts about Old Albic, including a grammar sketch, can be conveniently
accesses via a page on the Conlang Wiki:

http://talideon.com/concultures/wiki/?doc=Albic

> 4. What is your email address? name at hostsite dot whatever.
joerg_rhiemeier at web dot de

> 5. What is your age? (vague answers allowed, but it is an important
>    demographic)
35.

> 6. What is your gender?
Male.

> 7. What is your nationality?  Where do you live now?
German.  I live in Braunschweig, Germany.

> 8. What is your native language?
German.

> 9. What natural languages foreign to you have you studied or do you speak?
I am quite fluent in English; have taken classes in Latin, French,
Spanish and Japanese.  There are too many languages I have studied
sketches of to mention them all.

> 10. What is your level of education? i.e., your highest degree
>     achieved or sought?
"Diplom-Informatiker" (roughly equivalent to a M.Sc. in computer
science).

> 11. What is your profession? Are you a professional linguist? If so,
>     what also makes you a conlanger?
I am an unemployed web designer/freelance artist.  Not a professional
linguist.

> 13. If you are a student, what is your major or your area of study?
See above.

> 14. How long have you been developing your invented language(s)?
I have been working on the Albic project, on and off, for almost five
years now, starting with Nur-ellen, a modern-day descendant of
Sindarin; the thing went through at least one complete overhaul in the
meantime.  I started Germanech in 2001 and pretty much abandoned it
again about two years later.

> 15. At what age did you first start inventing a language? Can you
>     briefly describe your early efforts?
I don't remember exactly when it started, but I was definitely
occasionally inventing words and grammar bits when I was 12 years
old.  I did my first serious conlang at 16 or 17, but little survived
from that project (though an unfinished dictionary is still in
existence).

> 16. What drew you to start inventing a language and/or constructed
>     world? What was the inspiration?
I don't know when it started.  Since my childhood, I had been
fascinated by imaginary worlds, and the notion that imaginary worlds
include imaginary languages has been with me from the start of that.

> 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)
Long before I heard of the list (in fact, long before the list existed
at all), and before I became aware of the linguistic inventions of
Tolkien (though my first *serious* conlang projects were after that);
I first heard of Esperanto when I was ten or so, so my conlanging was
mostly after I heard of it.

> 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?
I don't keep it secret from my friends; however, I don't talk about it
to my parents (whose position about my world-building obsession, as I
learned early, lies somewhere between disinterest and diaspproval),
nor to my brother (who thinks it is meaningless).

> 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?
My parents always disapproved of my dabbling with imaginary worlds
(though they did virtually nothing to actually stop me from it),
and I stopped telling them about my worlds long ago.  My brother
thinks that conlangs are meaningless and thrusted Wittgenstein's
argumentation against "private languages" (which in reality has no
bearing on conlangs at all) at me.

> *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?
Truth is that I haven't found my place in life yet.  But I don't
consider invention of languages "nerdy".

> 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?
Yes, I am musically inclined.  I have a taste for progressive rock
music, and sing and play keyboard in a band (not a progressive rock
band, but I have been dreaming of founding one, and perhaps will make
that real with some friends later this year or in the next).  I also
sometimes compose music.

> 22. There has been a connection noted between linguistic and
>     mathematical ability. Are you mathematically inclined or inclined
>     towards computing in any way?
Yes.  Mathematics and computers have fascinated me early on.  However,
I am no longer much into computer programming.

> 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?)
Drawing, calligraphy, story-writing, role-playing games, map-making,
web design.

> 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.
Both Old Albic and Germanech are artlangs of the naturalist school,
more precisely, "lostlangs".

> 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)?
Germanech, being a Romance language, is a posteriori.  Old Albic is
part a priori, part a posteriori (I imagine it to be remotely related
to Indo-European without actually being Indo-European).

> 3. Does a constructed world accompany your invention(s)? What is it
>    called?
The world of my current languages is the world of the "League of Lost
Languages", i.e. a world not patently different from our world, but
featuring some extra languages.

Earlier language inventions of mine were set in various fantasy and
science fiction worlds of my own devising.

> 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?
Old Albic has a script called "Gretiñ Elbirin"; it is a featural
alphabet.  Unfortunately, it doesn't exist in digital form yet.

Germanech is written in Roman letters.

> 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.
Old Albic:

Free word order (but basic order VSO); synthetic; active (fluid-S)
with degree-of-volition marking on agents by means of different cases.

Germanech:

SVO; synthetic; accusative; the language has gone through sound
changes similar to those of High German.

> 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?
Old Albic:

The grammar is fairly detailed but not complete; vocabulary is still
lacking (about 400 items so far).

Germanech:

Overall more developed than Old Albic but still incomplete (actually,
I lost my interest in it), perhaps about 500 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.
In Albic, I use root words and affixes; the roots are partly derived
from Indo-European roots by regular sound changes, partly invented
"out of the air" or drawn from other sources (including some
Tolkienian Elvish roots that survived from the Tolkienian beginnings
of the project).

Germanech is based on Latin and borrowed Germanic roots.

> *9. Has your language and conworld ever served in a role-playing game
>     or a world shared by other conlangers?
Not in a role-playing game so far; but both Albic and Germanech are
part of the League of Lost Languages, and Nur-ellen (the forerunner of
Albic) was briefly part of Ill Bethisad.

> *10. Briefly describe your conculture (is it within the bounds of this
>      world? on another world, etc.?)
The speakers of Old Albic are humans with an "Elvish" culture.  They
believe that the purpose of humanity is to preserve and enrich the
world by creating new and beautiful things.  In order to deploy their
creativity, people must be free.  Old Albic society is thus liberal
and egalitarian.

The conculture of Germanech is not worked out in detail; it is
certainly not much different from that of other people in the
Rhinelands (where Germanech is a tiny linguistic minority in the
vicinity of Trier).

> *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?
Human.

> 12. What do you write in it? Poems? chants? lullabyes? prayers?
>     history? stories? recipes? Are any of these exhibited on your
>     website?
I haven't written much yet in Old Albic, but I have already translated
the Babel Text (it is buried somewhere in the CONLANG list archive).
I am intending to write poems and songs in it, but for that the
language needs more refinement.

I haven't written anything substantial in Germanech.

> 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 barely speak any of my conlangs, and I am definitely not fluent
in any of them.  (My Japanese is almost better than my Old Albic.)
I haven't taught any of my conlangs to anybody or anything yet.

> 14. Have you made any soundbytes of your language? Could you provide
>     me at a later date with a sample of them?
No.

> *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 Roman transcription of Old Albic is strictly phonemic.  It uses
some "Celtic" conventions such as the use of |c| for /k/ even before
front vowels.

The orthography of Germanech is modestly phonemic, with some
etymological distinctions (e.g. |s| for /s/ from Latin /s/, but |z|
for /s/ from Latin /t/).

> 16. How many of you sing in your language and have invented songs for
>     that purpose?
Not yet, but I am planning to write and sing songs in Old Albic.

> *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?
Not me.

> *18. What on-line games do you play? (or devise?) Translations,
>      Babel-text, Relays, etc.
Relays, Babel text, occasionally translation exercises.

> 19. Which do you prefer doing: devising phonology? script? structure?
>     building vocabulary?
Structure; I am slow at building vocabulary.

> 20. Do you start and stop several different conlangs, or do you tend
>     to stick with one and develop it over years?
I stick with one and develop it over years, but I occasionally digress
into smaller-scale side projects.  The Albic family gives me enough to
do for years to come.

> 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?
I don't think completeness is a practical goal, but a conlang can be
nearly complete in grammar and have a rich vocabulary.  I seek to
attain both goals with Albic.

And growing "tired" of a conlang, this happened to me with Germanech.

> *22. Which came first: the conlang or the conworld?
With most of my earlier creations, the conworld.  With Albic, conlang
and conworld evolved at the same time.  In case of Germanech, the
basic idea of the language was there first.

>
> C. PHILOSOPHY AND AESTHETIC:
>
> 1. What aesthetic features do you value in inventing language? Be
>    specific as to phonology, structure, script, etc.
I want the Albic languages to sound "beautiful", in a subjective way.
This has partly to do with phonology (my taste here is indeed quite
similar to Tolkien's) and grammar (such as my preference for fluid-S
systems), partly with the language resembling a natural language.
I find conlangs which give away their artificiality ugly.  I like a
balanced mix of the familiar and the exotic, and that is reflected by
the structure of Albic, which is like Indo-European in some respects,
and very different in others.

> 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 try to avoid excessive regularity, but also excessive irregularity.

> 3. Is difficulty or obscurity a goal in inventing a language?
No.  Only naturalistic complexity.

> 4. Is efficiency a goal in inventing a language? This question needn't
>    cancel out the previous one.
No.  Only functionability.

> 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 wish to make it as natural as I can.

> 6. Can conlanging be sexy? sensual? obsessing? how does it heal or
>    harm you?
It has nothing to do with sex, but it is an intellectually pleasurable
pursuit, and I have gone through phases when I was obsessed with it.
It is often healing for my soul, when I have to get rid of negative
thoughts.

> *7. How many of you have developed a rich vocabulary of obscenities?
Not 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?
Not really, at least not to me.

> 9. How many of you have developed a rich vocabulary of magical,
>    religious, or incantatory terms?
Not me.  I'll perhaps do that later for Old Albic, but I haven't done
yet.

> *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?
Not yet, though I think I'll do later.

> 11. Name a few of the words in your language(s) that you are most
>     pleased with and are the most original to you.
Just two words here:

Old Albic _abal_ `apple' (my first non-Tolkienian root);
Old Albic _macalmatera_ `barbarian' (lit., `meat-eater').

> 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?
Intuition.  I cannot force "right-sounding" words into being; they
have to "occur" to me.

> *13. Do you ever rely on a software program to build vocabulary? Do
>      those who don't think that's cheating? :)
I don't use computer software to generate words, and I feel it is
something like cheating, like using a rhythm machine in music.

> *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 is a hobby, and an art (no contradiction to me; an art can be a
hobby).

> *15. If it is, who do you think are its consumers?
So far, mostly fellow conlangers.  But I plan to use Albic languages
in novels, stories and songs.

> *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?
Does not apply to me because I don't design auxlangs.

> *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 don't know.  Perhaps art in general, with naturalist languages
comparable to representational art, and non-naturalist languages to
more abstract styles of art.

> *18. Why or why not would you eschew the metaphors "miniature" or
>      "model"?
I think "model" is a good metaphor, even though it captures only some
aspects and others not.

> *19. Is a conlang more like a glimpse of something lifesize? (Irina's
>      suggestion in 2001)
Yes.  Few conlangs grow ever into something as rich as a natlang.

> *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, at least not seriously.  My interest lies in creating languages
that could be imagined to be human natlangs.  I know of natlang
precedents for most features of Old Albic, but that's OK to me.

> *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?
Most conlangs tend to be simpler, more regular and less rich in
vocabulary and grammar than natural languages, but with a good
naturalistic conlang, the difference becomes indeed hard to tell.
There are many conlangs, though, that give away their artificiality at
first sight, especially conlangs that depart from the principles human
natural languages are based upon.

> *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 study other languages quite much in order to discover what is
natural in language, to widen my linguistic horizon and to see how
natural languages work.  I feel little interest to stretch the
boundaries to make my conlangs do things that are unnatural.

> *23. Can such a language function?
Depends on the kind of unnaturality.  There is no reason why a
schematically regular grammar should not work if it is rich enough to
express everything a natlang can express.  A closed vocabulary,
however, or a philosophical language, quickly runs into difficulties
because reality is too complex to pigeonhole it into a rigid taxonomy
of ideas.  A stack-based language may be able to express everything a
natlang can, but humans will never be able to parse it in real time.

> *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 know.

>
>
> D. THE LISTSERV
>
> 1. How did you first hear of this list?
I don't remember; I think it was some web site about fantasy
world-building.

> 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 have been on it since the spring of 2000, with some interruptions
(most of which were not due to disinterest, but due to ISP problems).

> *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 ?
It gives me access to other conlangers and their projects, and
provides me with a forum where I can share my conlangs and ideas.
I am a moderate contributor who ignores many threads and sometimes
falls silent for several days.

> *4. For those of you who remember its inception, how has it changed
>     over the past decade?
I haven't been on since its inception, but I feel that during the last
five years, the signal/noise ration did not excatly improve.

> *5. How helpful has the list been in developing your language? In
>     learning linguistic information?
Helpful in both.  I got quite a few ideas and insights from the list.

> 6. What books have you consulted? On your own, or because you heard of
>    them on the list?
Too many books to mention them all; most on my own.

> *7. Do you peruse the websites of other conlangers?
Yes, occasionally.  In the early days of my participation in CONLANG,
I collected grammar sketches of other people's conlangs from the Web,
mainly in search of ideas for my own projects.  This is no longer the
case, but I still look at websites announced on the list.

> *8. Do you sense that people on this list are interested in your
>     conlang and give you feedback on it?
Some, 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?
Yes.  But not much.

> *10. Do you peruse Jeffrey Henning's Langmaker.com site?
Occasionally, but not ofen.

> *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 of the above.  I have some web pages under work, but I use quite
old-fashioned hand-coded HTML.

> 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?
There are certainly such people, but I don't know any.

> *14. What other lists do you frequent related to conlanging?
Currently, lostlangs.  I have been on Nostratic-L at some times.
There are a handful of lists, such as Conculture, where I occasinally
check out the archives, but which I am not subscribed to.

> *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?
It would be helpful if the volume of off-topic traffic was decreased,
and more on-topic stuff was posted instead.

> *16. What Internet technology would you most like to see developed
>      that would aid you in showcasing your language(s)?
I don't know.  I can showcase them quite well with the technologies
there are today.

> *17. What lists like conlang exist in other cultures and languages
>      that you know of?
I have heard of Spanish and Russian lists, but I don't read them.

> *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 would of course appreciate a wider audience, but I don't really
expect finding 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?
Hard to say.  I perhaps would be just as devoted to conlanging, but
without the exchange with other conlangers, many ideas would not have
occured to me, and my conlangs would be more naive than they are now.

> 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 I *am* open to learning natural languages.  I have
taken classes in Spanish and even Japanese, for instance.

> *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?
More open, I think.  The openness of our time towards unconventional
artistic expressions is unprecedented in history, and the notion of
fictional worlds is commonplace in our culture today.

> *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?
We have at least come closer to it.  Many people study Tolkien's
languages as well as Klingon.  Imaginary worlds are now commonplace in
popular fiction (which they were far less in Tolkien's time), and how
can imaginary worlds be complete without languages?

And regarding what Tolkien would have done if he had CONLANG at his
disposal, I fancy that he would have been a witty and insightful
contributor.

> *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 think the latter.

> 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 have my permission, and that under my very name.

Greetings,

Jörg.

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