Re: CHAT: Sally's questionnaire

> > I hope you haven't forgotten Teonaht!
    Who could forget your song?
>
> > 1)  How many of you old- and new-comers started
> inventing a language
> > in isolation from the list?
>
     I did.
>
> > 1a)  If so, how old were you?
>
     When I was 11. I started out with codes when I
was younger, so I could call my sister names and she
wouldn't know what I was saying (Mom, Aidan called me
a gakjshgjksha!). I started adding language features
(plurals, conjugations, and so on) and worked my way
up to langs using complicated coding systems to derive
words or roots. True conlangs didn'really start until
I was eleven.


> > 1b)  Was it a project with friends or a solitary
> project?
>
   Solitary also.
>
> > 1b)  Did your invented language have some kind of
> private purpose?
> esoteric?  erotic? religious or mystical?
>
     Yes. All three. Esoterically, it was a way for me
to make notes on divination systems without fear of
... Satan! I was raised by a Pentecostal woman, so
pretty much everything was evil. Didn't see Bambi
until I was thirteen because it was satanic. Of
course, she's less than happy with where my life is
now (gay, pagan, and so on). Erotically, I used
various langs to write out elaborate fantasies during
puberty, and I'll leave it at that. Again, secrecy was
important. Religiously, I knew that my mother's
religion wasn't for me. I spent a year living in
Missouri with my mom after my parent's divorced.
During that year, she worked so much that we never saw
her. Maybe once a week. It was then that I started
investigating other religions and developing my
divination systems, and on at least three different
occasions, developed conlangs to go with the elaborate
pantheons I developed.
   I focused on words relating to religion, of course.
Altar, god, goddess, prayer, soul, and so on. And many
words that were used in my prayers and chants.
    I also designed a couple of langlets to be magical
languages, and played aound with this use all the
time, for every language.

>
> >     Since the topic of my panel is "the language
> of mysticism,"  I'm
> especially interested in this last.
>
> > 3)  How many of you, when you were starting out on
> this on your own,  did this kind of thing:  you have
> a list of words you want to invent new ones for, so
> you drew di-and polysyllabic words out of the air.
  I had elaborate systems to develop words out of
english words. I started out developing the whole
(using my coding tables applied to the whole word,
incliding -ings and re-s). After a time, I began to
differentiate these endings and affixes (I was
learning spanish, my first natlang learnt). Then I
found Tolkien's language stuff (I had only read the
Hobbit until after my stay in MO, so I hadn't really
been exposed to the languages of Arda). I immediately
started using my tables to find roots, and then
derived from there, like Tokien did in the
Siilmarillion and so on. The one root from that lang
that I remember was IL-, which became ilo, eye, ilen,
optic, and hail, to see. I remember it because I tried
to teach it to a toddler I was babysitting at the
time.
   My most complete lang isn't a lang at all, but It's
the one I can still write in fluently, simply because
it's a modified form of english, written backwards.
Here's an example of this paragraph (from "my most...)
in it:
   Egawen tso-etemploch to shi egau lha ta, tuw shi
enoth nachi etiruni litse il-tanewolu, il-emplis esauk
shi moru de-ifidom shingleo, il-drokau d-etiru. Erech
shi emplashe phagrau-sitho (moru "egawen...) tin:
>
> > 4)  If so, how important was it that the new word
> sound "exotic," "beautiful," or "suggestive" in some
personal way of the word you wanted it to stand for?
>
    Very important. I agonized for days sometimes over
certain words. They had to sound right in all the
compounds I could think of. I also borrowed a lot...
especially from Quenya and Finnish. They were the
prettiest languages I could find. My tastes have
changed, I like Sindarin more now...


> > 5)  How many of you invented words to express
> concepts that could not be expressed in your native
language?
>
    I did. I mean, they could be expressed in English,
but it took a long explanation. Some examples of
definitions included "the life energy, equivalent in
some respects to Qi, Ki, or Prana", "an event which is
significant and bears the distinct mark of a deity"
(significant events didn't count unless there was a
deity's mark upon it, and the same goes for omens.
Names for various rituals I devised were also unique
words unto themselves, and their definitions consisted
of explanations of the ritual. Various classes of
sacrifice / offerings had their names as well.

>
> > 6)  How many of you used it for prayer?  For
> secrecy?
>
   yep. See above...
>
> > 7)  For how many of you was it an intellectual
> exercise?
>
    It was probably that, but I didn't recognize them
as exercises until much later. I didn't create them
just to see, I did them for specific reasons.


> > 8)  A language for a conculture?
>
> I did a little bit of conculturing for one of my
> languages at one point,
> but not usually.
>
> > 10)  What is your definition of a mystical
> language?  Would any of you characterize your
conlang
> as such?
   A mystical language is any language that attempts
to provide some means for explaining or dicussing the
Mystery. The mystery being the world, the gods, the
spirits, or any other truth hidden in the mundane.
Mystical languages also depend on the power of the
word to be a magical force, shaping the world as they
describe it. I very much agree with Navajo ideas about
this, to this day. A "sing" or ritual is beasically a
singing/chanting of the creation myth, renewing the
world by reenacting it, with proper changes to restore
beauty / balance.

     Aidan


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