Re: Language and "mysticism," whatever that is.

Sally Caves sikayal:

> Vyko, Conlangers!
Aiya!  Vyko!  Salut!  Hi!

> I hope you haven't forgotten Teonaht!
Alas, I never knew Teonaht well.  It's always fascinated me that
apparently {ht} = [T] in Teonaht.  I still tend to pronounce the name
[te.o'naht] with emphatic [h] tending to [x].

> 1)  How many of you old- and new-comers started inventing a language
> in isolation from the list?
Me, just like most of the others.  I was in 6th grade which means I was 11
or 12.  Me and a friend each started our own conlangs at the same time,
but we never worked on the same project.  All along the language was
intended for use in a fantasy world, but it had no other private use.

> 2)  How many of you newcomers heard of the list first and thought--
> Wow! I think I'll try my hand at conlanging!
Not me.  See above.

> 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 did this for a long, long time and still do it when I want to make a
work for which I have no suitable root.  I did keep bizarre,
non-systematic similarities between related words giving, for example
"pel, per, par" for "lip, tongue, speech" respectively.

> 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?
Utmost importance.  As a personal artlang in addition to a fictional lang,
it's always been very important that the words sound right.

> 5)  How many of you invented words to express concepts that could not be
> expressed in your native language?
I rarely do this, though I do have some words that I can't translate into
English.  I find that doing this on purpose gives the language an
overloaded, unnatural feel.

> 6)  How many of you used it for prayer?  For secrecy?
Both, but neither very often.

> 7)  For how many of you was it an intellectual exercise?
It was for me, in addition to being a personal lang and artlang and
fictional lang, etc.

> 8)  A language for a conculture?
Yes.

> 10)  What is your definition of a mystical language?  Would any of you
> characterize your conlang as such?
I'd call a mystical language a language used primarily for religious
purposes, i.e. prayer, incantations, etc.  Latin was a mystical language
throughout the middle ages.  My conlang was never a mysical language for
me, though in its conculture it *might* occasionally have that function.


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
--G.K. Chesterton

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