Sally Caves asked:
> 1) How many of you old- and new-comers started inventing
> a language in isolation from the list?
I sure did.
> 1a) If so, how old were you?
Must've been about 19 or 20. I'm 24 now.
> 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?
I don't know why I started really. I think I just wanted to see
what would come out if I put together a language. I'm not so
precocious as the rest of this list seems to be. I did invent
secret alphabets and create games when I was about 11-12 though,
with my best friend.
> 2) How many of you newcomers heard of the list first and thought--
> Wow! I think I'll try my hand at conlanging!
I'm not a newcomer, but as I said above, I made conlangs before
I subscribed to this list. My conlangs have become WAY better
afterwards though. :)
> 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.
Not exactly sure what you mean, so I guess my answer is "no".
I remember making up possible clusters and then making words
out of them, which I then made sentences of. The grammar and
the clusters looked like some kind of pseudo-Swedish. (And keep
in mind I was 19!)
> 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?
Very! The first attempts came put as total failures though.
I'm still not happy with Rinya. :(
I never autogenerate words. I always "feel" what would be
an appropriate word for a particular concept. Unless, of
course, it's an a posteriori language.
> 5) How many of you invented words to express concepts that
> could not be expressed in your native language?
Not consciously, though I suspect I had that thought in the
back of my mind. I do think of it now, otoh.
> 6) How many of you used it for prayer? For secrecy?
Nope, not me.
> 7) For how many of you was it an intellectual exercise?
Oh, definitely me! This was also the reason I started taking
linguistics at uni, (and I'm very happy that my uni specializes
in language typology).
> 8) A language for a conculture?
No. Though lately I've tried that too, but the culture always
comes in second place (or rather fifth).
> 10) What is your definition of a mystical language? Would any
> of you characterize your conlang as such?
Hmm... I'm not very aquainted with mystical languages. My
definition would be that of a magical language, or used
for magical or religious purposes (I've tried making a few
for RPGs.)
> Yry poy poy firrimby, talk to you soon!
> Sally Caves
Leajaidh seivza mis donn ullujei eilo!
May your sheep always be wooly!
||| daniel
--
<> Qheil rynenya alandea! <> daniel.andreasson@telia.com <>
<> Rinya lawea! <> www.geocities.com/conlangus <>