Re: CHAT: fantasy (was: Re: history of conlanging)

On Mon, 22 Nov 1999 13:43:10 -0600, Matt Pearson
<jmpearson@...> wrote:

>Patrick Dunn wrote:
>
>>I, as a child, used to make up artificial languages all the time, but
>>never really got off on Tolkein (as much as I love fantasy), so don't
>>think I was influenced by him.
>
>Funny, my tastes are the opposite:  I love Tolkien, but detest most
>other fantasy literature - with the exception of LeGuin's "Earthsea"
>books, and Susan Cooper's "Dark Is Rising" series, which I adore,
>and maybe a couple others.
>
>I guess the deal is that I like fantasy stories best when the =
'supernatural'
>motifs (magic and monsters) are used extremely sparingly.
I like many different kinds of fantasy and science fiction, as long as =
the
"supernatural" elements seem to have their own internal consistency. The
Elfquest series for instance is one of my favorite stories, partly =
because
of the great characters and its unusual graphic format, and it certainly
has its share of "supernatural" elements.

One of the things that I've been trying to decide is how much "magic" (in
the unexplained supernatural sense) to allow into my Kolagian worlds (or
world, as the case may be). For a while I was tending to want to make
things as "scientific" as possible, although the laws of physics arent
_exactly_ the same in Kolagia as they are here, but some interesting
aspects of the "old" mixed-up Kolagia would be lost.

One of the Elvish languages, Sortal (some of you may remember my previous
mention of the "tal" element as a recurring Kolagian root for =
"language"),
had the interesting property of being a source language for magical =
spells
and incantations. In one story I wrote many years ago, an Elvish wizard
chants the Sortal phrase "kavtar relennevo taxkarnol", which has the =
effect
of transforming a jewel into a dragon.

(ObConlang: is there a name for the case marked by -evo in Sortal, =
meaning
"into" as used with verbs of transformation?)

Now, I think this sort of magic is a little too extreme for the way I'd
like the new Kolagia to develop, but the idea of words having magical =
power
is one that I haven't entirely discarded.
--=20
languages of Kolagia---> =
+---<http://www.io.com/~hmiller/languages.html>---
      Thryomanes        /"If all Printers were determin'd not to print =
any
   (Herman Miller)     / thing till they were sure it would offend no =
body,
   moc.oi @ rellimh <-/  there would be very little printed." -Ben =
Franklin