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

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:
>
>    http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?
S2=CONLANG&q=bearded+lithuanian
>
>The earliest post that search returns is Christophe's from October 1st, 2002:
>
>    http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?
A2=ind0210A&L=CONLANG&P=1863
>
>He's clearly referring to an established meme by this point, but
>search isn't turning up any earlier messages that have "bearded" and
>"lithuanian" in them. Can any older members shed any light on the
>origins of this?
>
>
>Thanks,
>Arthaey
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:

http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?
A2=ind0203B&L=CONLANG&P=R20569

another relevent item is Peter Clark's Poll by Email No. 17:

http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?
A2=ind0207A&L=CONLANG&P=R12541

I also found a reference to "left-handed bearded gay Luxembourgians". The
earliest reference in the LISTSERV archives to "left-handed bearded gay"
mentions an earlier discussion.

http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?
A2=ind9907B&L=CONLANG&P=R1584

--
Jeff

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