Re: Are conlangs fictional? - Brian Aldiss
| From: | Tim May <butsuri@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, March 22, 2002, 23:11 |
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Dirk Elzinga writes:
> At 11:33 PM +0200 03/22/02, M. =?UNKNOWN?B?SSSS?= wrote:
> >On the subject, how about Brian Aldiss, the author of Helliconia books? Does
> >anyone know, whether his languages are fictional or fictional? ;) That is,
> >did he ever actually make languages, or was he just describing something
> >that existed just for the characters of the story?
> >When I first time read the Helliconia Summer, I wanted desperately to learn
> >Sibish, but was sure that it didn't exist in real world.
>
> Aldiss acknowledges the assistance of a philologist (forgot the
> name), but the language snippets don't seem very convincing as being
> part of a whole.
My one-volume copy of _Helliconia_ says
"Anything sound philologically is owed to Professor Tom Shippey; his
lively enthusiasm has been of great help all along."
in the acknowledgements.
I've never read it - I think it'll be the next novel I read.
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