> Sally Caves wrote:
> > I hope you haven't forgotten Teonaht!
It's my favorite conlang, and it always fills me full of despair that my
work can't compare to it. :)
> > 1) How many of you old- and new-comers started inventing a language
> > in isolation from the list?
Oh, yeah.
> > 1a) If so, how old were you?
Gee, damn young. Maybe thirteen, fourteen. OR even younger. I was
pretty precocious.
> > 1b) Was it a project with friends or a solitary project?
Solitary.
> > 1b) Did your invented language have some kind of private purpose?
> > esoteric? erotic? religious or mystical?
Well, I kept trying to make a philosophic language based off of Golden
Dawn type stuff. I remember a line from one of them: "naki mash khokh."
> > 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.
Mostly, I kept trying to make philosophic languages. So I'd try to define
a list of concepts, put letters to them, and then make a word by combining
the letters.
> > 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?
Not very. Aesthetics was a latter development.
> > 5) How many of you invented words to express concepts that could not be
> > expressed in your native language?
A few.
> > 8) A language for a conculture?
Not until adulthood.
> > 10) What is your definition of a mystical language? Would any of you
> > characterize your conlang as such?
A mystical language would probably be experimental or philosophical, like
Enochian or Ouranian Barbaric. My languages usually aren't like that, but
I want to make one that is, since that was sort of my childhood
proclivity.
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