Re: Origins of the Gay Bearded Left-Handed Lithuanian Conlanger

Jeffrey Jones wrote:
>
>On Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:44:50 -0800, Arthaey Angosii <arthaey@...>
>wrote:
> >
> >I decided to search for the earliest reference to gay, bearded,
> >left-handed Lithuanian conlangers:
>
>I recall that these came from one of the discussions of _Lunatic Lovers of
>Language_ (by Maria Yaguello) in 1998. So far, I've found this:
>
>http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?
>A2=ind9809D&L=CONLANG&P=R2911
>
>A key paragraph:
>------------------------------------------------------------
>He is an idealist: if he creates a philosophical language, it is to
>reconcile language and thought; if he creates a language for
>international communication, it is to reconcile mankind. He is often a man
>from Central Europe, born in a country divided and torn apart by history:
>many inventors from the turn of this century came from the Russian or
>Austro-Hungarian Empires. Mostly, he is a man of the church, a teacher or
>a doctor, in other words precisely a study-dweller, a man with a pointed
>beard and gold-rimmed spectacles, as he appears in the portrait gallery
>which graces Monnerot-Dumaine's book, one of the two "bibles" of
>interlinguistics.
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The "man from Central Europe" somehow morphed into "Lithuanian", the first
>mention of left-handed Lithuanians seems to be here:
Well, bless your good memory. That bit from Yaguello via Sally Caves was my
thought too, though I couldn't remember all the details. I joined the list
in 2000, and Sally did a(nother?) survey sometime after that, mentioning
Yaguello and that paragraph (I think). Since you've found a 1998 ref, she
must also have discussed it prior to my joining.

I'm probably thinking of the published article by Sally (Sarah Higley),
available online, that was ref'd early in my tenure, where I believe she
quoted that same paragraph. She also mentioned the resemblance between
secret conlanging and closeted gayness. (I've lost the link, but I think
google still has it.)

Was Yaguello taking a sly dig at Zamenhof? (but I don't recall photos of
him) with maybe just a wee bit of anti-Semitism too?

Moi, I'm 2 for 2: +gay, +bearded (goateed for several years now, not then)
-leftH, -Lithuanian (AFAIK, but there's N.German/Dutch somewhere in my
background so anything is possible), oh, and +glasses too.

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