Re: LUNATIC SURVEY: 2005

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")

Shaul Vardi (born name - Paul Rose)

 *2. Are you new to the Lunatic Survey or have you filled out a version
of this survey before?

Done a survey some years ago, don't know if it was Lunatic or other.

 3. Do you have a website for you language/world(s)? If so, please list
the URL address.

No.

 4. What is your email address? name at hostsite dot whatever.

Sent by private e-mail.

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

41

 6. What is your gender?

Male

 7. What is your nationality?  Where do you live now?

I have British and Israeli nationality.  I was born in Sheffield,
England, moved to Jerusalem in 1986 and have lived here since then.

8. What is your native language?

English.

 9. What natural languages foreign to you have you studied or do you
speak?

Hebrew - fluent (though accented).  French and Arabic - good level.
German - fair.

Also studied Spanish and Russian at school (O level), and less formally
and intensively have studied Yiddish, Dutch, Turkish and Tagalog.

 10. What is your level of education? i.e., your highest degree achieved
or sought?

BA in Hebrew Studies including a "minor" in Arabic.

 11. What is your profession? Are you a professional linguist? If so,
what also makes you a conlanger?

Professional translator (mainly Hebrew > English).  Also grant writer
and fundraiser for social change organizations.

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

N/A

 14. How long have you been developing your invented language(s)?

When I was about 6-7 I started to claim that my baby talk was Piggish, a
respectable language with its own culture.  Around 14, in math classes,
I began to develop my language Tesk, which has accompanied me since
then.  I have also developed a written alphabet (which I use mainly to
write Hebrew and English rather than Tesk), and another, simpler,
alphabet based closely on the Hebrew alphabet but allowing me to write
Hebrew without it being legible to anyone else.

  15. At what age did you first start inventing a language? Can you
briefly describe your early efforts?

See above.

 16. What drew you to start inventing a language and/or constructed
world? What was the inspiration?

What drew me was I guess an emotional need for secrecy and for some kind
of secret world, and an intellectual ability and curiosity.

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 there were "lists" in this sense!  I had heard of Esperanto but
didn't connect Tesk with that at all.  Unlike so many on the list, I
have never been interested in science fiction or fantasy, didn't
particularly like Tolkien (though looked politely at the list of runes)
and see Tesk more as a part of real me, albeit a fairly private part.

 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?

As you imply - before I found the list, I was a little careful and only
told close friends, but since the list I am more open.  I also explictly
refer to the list whenever I mention conlanging to someone new, as
though its existence constitutes a clear bill of mental health.

 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?

No. Never.  Reactions vary from considerable interest and requests to
see/hear bits to polite apathy.

 *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?

It is certainly an introspective hobby and I should probably develop
some of my less introspective hobbies too.  But I wouldn't call it
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?

I love singing, don't do so in any formal framework but sing to my
children, sing to myself, can pick up an electric organ and play any
song that I know.

 22. There has been a connection noted between linguistic and
mathematical ability. Are you mathematically inclined or inclined
towards computing in any way?

Enjoy computers but only on the user end (love modifying Word, etc. to
do what I want, usually end up helping people with computer problems).
No special mathematical ability - as I noted above, I began to develop
Tesk in math class.  I always thought that was because I was bored
there, but maybe the influence was more benign.

 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?)

Some poetry writing, especially when younger.

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.

Diary language.

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)?

Profoundly, inherently and proudly posteriori.

 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?

Tesk is most usually written in Latin letters, and sometimes (with a few
modifications) in Hebrew letters.  I do have my own alphabet, with
complex systems of ligatures, called "Dialekt," but I usually use that
to write English or Hebrew.

 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.

Basic syntactial structure is now OV, having switched some years ago
from VO.  It's heavily agglutinating.

 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?

Vocabulary is big.  Also because of the way it (and I) work, and the
fact that it's some kind of natural entity that's accompanying me
through life, I can think at any given point of what WOULD be the Tesk
word for almost any idea or concept, since it's a matter or pulling and
blending sources, affixes and so on from the source pool of languages
(in declining order of importance: Germanic [Dutch, German, Yiddish,
Afrikaans], Semitic [Arabic, Hebrew], Romance [Spanish, French], and
<oddities. (Turkish, Russian and occasional words from Hungarian,
Icelandic, Tagalog and others).  All covered in a crunchy oatmeal
coating.

 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.

See above.

 3. Does a constructed world accompany your invention(s)? What is it
called?

No, very much not, which is why even here, on this our homeland list, I
sometimes feel left out.

 *9. Has your language and conworld ever served in a role-playing game
or a world shared by other conlangers?

Not at all.

 *10. Briefly describe your conculture (is it within the bounds of this
world? on another world, etc.?)

N/A

 *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?

N/A

 12. What do you write in it? Poems? chants? lullabyes? prayers?
history? stories? recipes? Are any of these exhibited on your website?

Diary entries, poems, jottings during boring work meetings.

 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?
:)

Can speak it and read it out loud.  Have a couple of songs I made up
years ago (which are now way out of date grammatically and in terms of
vocabulary).  Sometimes dream of the ideal partner who will learn Tesk
(or suddenly appear speaking it already!)

 14. Have you made any soundbytes of your language? Could you provide me
at a later date with a sample of them?

Not yet.

 *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.

Most of the letter combinations come from some natlang, but the
collection is eclectic.

 16. How many of you sing in your language and have invented songs for
that purpose?

A little.

*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?

No.

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

None.

 19. Which do you prefer doing: devising phonology? script? structure?
building vocabulary?

Building vocabulary and develpoing structure.

 20. Do you start and stop several different conlangs, or do you tend to
stick with one and develop it over years?

Tesk is my life-long conlang, others are just messing aobut.

 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?

It's just there.  I don't spend as much time "working" on it as I once
did because I'm busier and because it's already fairly well developed.

*22. Which came first: the conlang or the conworld?

There ain't no conworld.  This is the only world and we've gotta live in
it like it or not.

C. PHILOSOPHY AND AESTHETIC:

1. What aesthetic features do you value in inventing language? Be
specific as to phonology, structure, script, etc.

Don't consciously apply esthetic considerations.  Obviously I choose
sounds and forms that apepal to me, which means a blend of soft and
harsher sounds, of Romance and Semitic/Germanic sounding elements maybe.


 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.

N/A

3. Is difficulty or obscurity a goal in inventing a language?

Not in my language.

 4. Is efficiency a goal in inventing a language? This question needn't
cancel out the previous one.

Not in my language.

 5. How natural do you wish to make it, or is that a concern? Or rather,
how unnatural do you wish to make it?

It's natural cos it comes from inside me in response to the world around
me.

 6. Can conlanging be sexy? sensual? obsessing? how does it heal or harm
you?

Can be sexy and relaxing. Maybe once it was a bit harmful when I spent
too much time on it.

 *7. How many of you have developed a rich vocabulary of obscenities?

Not particularly.

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?

Spritual, yes.  I have some prayers or spiritual passages I've written
in Tesk over the years (but these exist as journalistic records, not as
blueprints for any kind of service or act of spirituality or anything).

 9. How many of you have developed a rich vocabulary of magical,
religious, or incantatory terms?

No.

 *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?

No.

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

I like some of the sprinlikng of words from "minor" languages in Tesk
terms, such as utfarp (radio, from icelandic but written to meet Tesk
consonant rules), voant (train from Huungarian).  Also endless blends -
tussendayl = international, calque (tussen from Dutch = between, and
dayl from Arabic dawla = nation).

 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?

Just sense is and don't labor or care.

*13. Do you ever rely on a software program to build vocabulary? Do
those who don't think that's cheating? :)

I don't do it and I don't think it's cheating.

 *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?

For me it's a hobby.

 *15. If it is, who do you think are its consumers?

*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?

Auxlangs have an obvious political context, conlangs (and certainly
Tesk) don't, although Tesk reflects my own personal political leanings
(eg in the blending of Arabic and Hebrew sources...)

*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?

-

 *18. Why or why not would you eschew the metaphors "miniature" or
"model"?

I see those fit conlangs I read about on the list but they don't
describe Tesk.

 *19. Is a conlang more like a glimpse of something lifesize? (Irina's
suggestion in 2001)

More like that, yes.

 *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?

I'm more inclined to the been there done that school, or at least to a
feeling that a natlang could do any of these things.

 *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?

Not sure.

*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 for those reasons.  I study them because I like them and want to
learn to speak and read them, and as I do so, they influence Tesk but
not in a utilitarian way.

 *23. Can such a language function?

Yes.

*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?

Doesn't matter.  Conlangs, and anyway Tesk, are probably of more
interest to psychologists than to linguists.

D. THE LISTSERV

1. How did you first hear of this list?

Don't quite remember, stumbled on it on the net somehow.

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?

Been around since about 1999 but not very active.

*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 ?

Contribute sporadically and not very frequently, usually on discussions
about real languages and occasionally to give an example from Tesk.

*4. For those of you who remember its inception, how has it changed over
the past decade?

Haven't seen any real change since I've been around.

 *5. How helpful has the list been in developing your language? In
learning linguistic information?

Very interesting.  The list created a new word in Tesk - Cinlyng - which
means "Conlangization" and means a few conscious efforts I've made to
introduce concepts or approaches I've found on the list.  I've also
learned a lot about natlangs, linguistics and human nature from the
list.

 6. What books have you consulted? On your own, or because you heard of
them on the list?

None.

 *7. Do you peruse the websites of other conlangers?

 Occasionally and briefly.

 * 8. Do you sense that people on this list are interested in your
conlang and give you feedback on it?

Yes, although as I mention I feel a bit isolated even here in that I'm
not so much aiming or crafting my conlang, it's just flowing there with
me, and it doesn't have a conculture.

 9. Have you ever set out to learn at least a little bit of someone's
conlang, if only a word or two, or a phrase?

Not really.

 *10. Do you peruse Jeffrey Henning's Langmaker.com site?

No, but I will now.

 *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, come to know a little since I came  on the list.

 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?

No.

 *14. What other lists do you frequent related to conlanging?

Sgned up on Westasian conlangs (name?) but not active.

 *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?

A conworld list would help keep conlang more relevant to me.

 *16. What Internet technology would you most like to see developed that
would aid you in showcasing your language(s)?

?

 *17. What lists like conlang exist in other cultures and languages that
you know of?

Don't know of any.  I surf a lot in Hebrew and a fair bit in French and
Arabic and have never encountered anything.

 *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?

Not looking for respect or newspaper/web articles.  Conlang does have a
certain element of community, like all lists and discussion groups.

*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?

Basically disagree with the quote.  When conlang gets too much I just
erase a few days entries without reading.  No-one gets hurt (I hope).

 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've learned quite a few languages and use at least three natlangs
(English, Hebrew, Arabic) in every day of my life so I feel ok on that
front.  Some reading about natlangs would seem to be fairly essential
for a monolingual conlanger, but hey - if they're having fun, who cares?

  *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, the effect of the web cannot be overestimated.

 *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?

Yep, I think it's up there alongside thousands of quirks, hobbies,
trends and movements, no less and no more acceptable than the gay
vicars' site or the detailed site about caring for your Madagascan
hissing cockroach from which I found information for my son after he
forced me to buy him just such a creature.

 *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?

If everyone were doing it I guess it might be less appealing, but no
immediate cause for worry there I think.

 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?

Yeah, whatever and however you like.

Thanks!

No, thank you.