Re: Coming out & finding-the-community stories?

Sai Emrys wrote:
> Tell us about:
> * how you 'came out' as a conlanger in any context (academic, social,
> parents, ...), their reactions to it, etc
>
> * how you found out that others do this (i.e. all of us weirdos) &
> your reactions to that.
>
> Consider this an open prompt; I just want to hear your stories about
> the social side of this craft.
>
> - Sai
I actually gave a little demonstration of my language (there was only
one back then, Olaetian) to my 8th grade English class. I don't remember
much about it or the reaction to it. I wrote a few words on the blackboard.

I never really considered my conlanging something that I needed to hide,
but I rarely got asked about it. One occasion was when I included
samples of some of my languages in a daily journal I wrote for a class
in my freshman year at college -- my professor had some interest in the
languages and I showed her some of my dictionaries.

And then years later Richard Garriott had the idea for an alphabet for
the Gargoyles in Ultima VI, and I thought it would be cool to develop a
whole language for them.

As far as "all of us weirdos", this list was quite a different place in
the days when I ran across it, before the Auxlang list split off. Most
of the talk was about auxlangs, but there were already a few artlangers
here. I don't think I was especially surprised to find this place; the
Internet as a whole was new to me back then, and I knew there were all
sorts of groups with unusual interests.