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

On Sat, 28 Apr 2001, Sally Caves wrote:

> Vyko, Conlangers!
Hanre shen!

> I hope you haven't forgotten Teonaht!
How can I?

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

>         1a)  If so, how old were you?
About nine or so (in the mid-nineteen-sixties, I was born in 1958).

>         1b)  Was it a project with friends or a solitary project?
Solitary; I didn't have any friends at the time who would have
appreciated or even understood it (though I did have some good
friends, and we did other wacky things together).

>         1b)  Did your invented language have some kind of private purpose?
>                 esoteric?  erotic? religious or mystical?
No purpose that I know of now or that I could have put into words at
the time; it was "just" a pretend game (but pretend games were very
important to me). Probably another way to define myself.

>                 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!
I didn't hear of the list until I was working on Valdyan, more than
20 years after I first started conlanging.

> 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 never made a list of concepts I wanted to express (except for
translation exercises and things like recipes); nothing I did was
ever a straight relex or a code. I did draw words out of the air, but
the words always came first, not the meaning. One of the earliest
words I remember is _timni_ "squirrel" which came down in the Valdyan
deity Timoine.

> 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?
That was never a consideration. If words turn out beautiful, that's
an asset, but it's never been a goal.

> 5)  How many of you invented words to express concepts that could not be
> expressed in your native language?
I did, but I don't remember the early ones. In Valdyan, some words
*do* express concepts that can't be expressed in my native language
(or my near-native second language), but I don't think I ever made up
a word *in order to* do that. It's still the case that the words come
first, and I attach a meaning to a word, not a word to a concept.

> 6)  How many of you used it for prayer?  For secrecy?
Neither. Praying to the God I pray to in a language of a world that
doesn't know that God seems either sacrilege or silliness.

> 7)  For how many of you was it an intellectual exercise?
Probably worked that way, but I never intended it.

> 8)  A language for a conculture?
Absolutely.

> 9)  How many of you newcomers (and I see a lot of names I don't
> recognize in the six months I've been away) heard of the list first
> and thought-- Wow! I think I'll try my hand at conlanging!
This is the same as 2, isn't it? Would it be a trick question ("if
you give different answers I'll discard your results")? :-)

> 10)  What is your definition of a mystical language?
A language *intended* to use in a religious context, including (but
not confined to) prayer.

> Would any of you characterize your conlang as such?
Not at all. It's intended to be the everyday language that people
speak. The fact that the people happen to be imaginary doesn't change
that.

   Irina

--
           Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
irina@valdyas.org (myself)     http://www.valdyas.org/irina/valdyas