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

Am 04/28 10:33  Sally Caves yscrifef:
> Vyko, Conlangers!  I've taken a long long holiday (which
> essentially amounts to doing my dayjob at the university).
> I hope you haven't forgotten Teonaht!
>
Flee!  Flee! The Sally has returned!  The Sally has escaped from her
Caves.

> 1)  How many of you old- and new-comers started inventing a language
> in isolation from the list?
>
Yes.

>         1a)  If so, how old were you?
Hmmm.  Early teens I think.  Mid-eighties (1980s, I mean, I'm not an
elf!)

>         1b)  Was it a project with friends or a solitary project?
A solitary project.

>         1b)  Did your invented language have some kind of private purpose?
>                 esoteric?  erotic? religious or mystical?
>
I was dabbling in language creation, discovering what could be achieved
with sound and word.  There was nothing significantly esoteric about it,
although I did attempt to name the major arcana of the tarot pack.
Unfortunately this language is no longer extent.

>                 Since the topic of my panel is "the language of mysticism,"
>                 I'm especially interested in this last.
>
> 2)  How many of you newcomers heard of the list first and thought--
> Wow! I think I'll try my hand at conlanging!
>
No.
> 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.
> This is
> what I did when I was new at this and a teenager.  Many of these still
> remain vocabulary words in Teonaht, but I've since then learned to build
> up through word roots.
>
Yes, I did that.  When I returned to language creation a second time in
my early 20s I started exploring eclectic language creation borrowing
words from existing languages to create a new one.  Hmmm.  I've never
tried constructing a babel text for that language.  That maybe today's
project.  Then I moved on to playing with Old Englisc and Romance
languages.  Now I want to see if I can put together a language that is
purely an art language again.

> 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?
>
For an art language the word must sound right.  This is an subjective
process.  Eclectic languages are just as bad.  World languages always
have words that would be better and inventive than the one you are
currently using.  You are continually hitting the grammars and
dictionaries to fill or replace a gap.  With creating languages from
sound changes effected on existing lexicons, Old English and Vulgar
Latin, in my case, you are stuck with what's there.

> 5)  How many of you invented words to express concepts that could not be
> expressed in your native language?
>
I have decided that any future art languages I create would include such
words as "the warm season of an indian summer" and "cold, as the
characteristic of atmosphere not just of an object, cold that eminates".
:)

> 6)  How many of you used it for prayer?  For secrecy?
>
No definately not.  For me prayer should be expressed in a language of
the speaker or the shared language of a religious community that has
emotional resonance for the participant(s).  I have not developed a
language to that extent.

Secrecy, maybe.

> 7)  For how many of you was it an intellectual exercise?
>
yes, as long as it recognised as recreation.

> 8)  A language for a conculture?
>
Only if both the language and the conculture emerged at the same time.
More often I recreated imaginary worlds and languages separately.  The
languages developed the residue of their own culture, but this was not
fully developed.

[snip]
> 10)  What is your definition of a mystical language?  Would any of you
> characterize your conlang as such?
>
Hmm.  Which form of mysticism?  I think my definition of mysticism is
"Seeking metaphysical communication with the Other".  I found a book by
the post-Christian theologian Don Cupitt helpful because he argued that
language comes first then the expression of the mystical experience (I
think).  My favorite conculture, which I wrote about in a comic fantasy
for my own amusement, used powerful magic although they were
geographically constrained, had a high religious tradition, were
argumentive, earthy, and fun.


- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith, Intheologus                       hobbit@griffler.co.nz
http://hobbit.griffler.co.nz/homepage.html

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