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

From:Robert Hailman <robert@...>
Date:Saturday, April 28, 2001, 17:46
Sally Caves wrote:
> > 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!
Vyko! But of course we haven't forgotten.
> I'm speaking, again, at a conference in a few days, and I > wanted to ask you a couple of questions--sort of along the > lines of my old "Lunatic Survey."
Ooh. Conference.
> 1) How many of you old- and new-comers started inventing a language > in isolation from the list?
Same deal as with Yoon Ha. I did.
> 1a) If so, how old were you?
I was in grade 8, so that makes me... uh... 13.
> 1b) Was it a project with friends or a solitary project?
Solitary, although my friends knew.
> 1b) Did your invented language have some kind of private purpose? > esoteric? erotic? religious or mystical?
No purpose. Just a French clone, same deal as with Yoon Ha.
> 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!
Well, like with Yoon Ha (it's getting freaky here) I encountered the Language Construction Kit, and that inspired me to start again more seriously.
> 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.
I did that for a while, I still do it when there are no suitable roots. My vocabulary is still very small, so there aren't roots for everything.
> 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?
It had to sound... right. I haven't figured out what that means for Ajuk, although I know a good word when I see it. Not usually very suggestive, or beautiful in the conventional sense of the word. Yeah, it just has to sound "right."
> 5) How many of you invented words to express concepts that could not be > expressed in your native language?
So far with Ajuk it seems to be the other way around, especially with the motion verbs.
> 6) How many of you used it for prayer? For secrecy?
Not me.
> 7) For how many of you was it an intellectual exercise?
Yeah, mostly this one. It's been fun.
> 8) A language for a conculture?
The conculture came later, for me. <snip>
> 10) What is your definition of a mystical language? Would any of you > characterize your conlang as such?
A language with an extensive religious or spiritual vocabulary, to be used in the same sense. Ergo, Ajuk isn't one. -- Robert