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

>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!
Well, I wasn't around here when you left, but Teonaht is mentioned fairly
often by others as an example of an successful conlang.
>
>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."
>
>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?
About 15, I think. I'm 19 now. I'm worked on various "con-universes" for
longer than I can remember. My current project is a SF universe that I
started working on around 1995.

>         1b)  Was it a project with friends or a solitary project?
Solitary. My friends are weird, but so weird as to do conlanging ;-)

>         1b)  Did your invented language have some kind of private purpose?
>                 esoteric?  erotic? religious or mystical?
The original reason was providing believeable names for my con-universe.
Then it took on a life of its own. I blame a mix of my con-universe, Tolkien
influence and the general sexiness of linguistics.

The way got to hear of this list is kinda weird; I tried to translate a
short poem in my conlang into Quenya, and posted the result on Elfling,
whereupon Daniel Andreasson prodded me into joining conlang.
>
>                 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!
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.
>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've never done a methodical approach to the lexicon like that. In the
beginning, I simply made up words, but nowadays I usually begin with
"primitive roots". The difference isn't great in my case tho', since in my
main conlang Tairezazh the bare root usually exists as a full word.
>
>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?
Well, I usually conjure up a word or root that sounds nice, and then finds a
meaning that seems to fit. If I desperately need a word with a particular
meaning, I'll agonize over it for a while and eventually come up with
something.
>
>5)  How many of you invented words to express concepts that could not be
>expressed in your native language?
Well, I think everything I've created can be translated, but some unitary
words will have to be translated by multiword phrases, and some have no
EXACT parallel in English or Swedish (my 1st lang).
>
>6)  How many of you used it for prayer?  For secrecy?
Neither.
>
>7)  For how many of you was it an intellectual exercise?
If "intellectual exercise" is meant to mean an activity that parcipitate in
in order to hone my intellectual skills, then no. I do it purely for fun.
But doing conlanging has undoubtly increased by knowledge and understanding
of linguistics.
>
>8)  A language for a conculture?
Well, I guess the concultures is primary for me.

>10)  What is your definition of a mystical language?  Would any of you
>characterize your conlang as such?
Mystical language? I guess that be an language used for communicating with
"transcendent" beings (gods, daemons, spirits etc), or possibly a language
for esoteric holy books or alchemy. I wouldn't characterize Tairezazh or any
of my other conlangs (the rest are mostly sketches) as such. They're all
supposed to be used by humans like us.

                                                          Andreas
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