Re: Men vs Women on Conlang

----- Original Message -----
From: "Camilla Drefvenborg" <elmindreda@...>

> Jan van Steenbergen wrote:
> > It's obviously true that the number of men on Conlang exceeds the
> > number of women by far.
>
> unfortunately, yes.
>
> I wonder if my appearance affected the statistics. oh, well.
Hi, Camilla!  You are new to me, so I value your re-introduction.  Maybe
I'll follow suit, but it seems so... well, I've been on and off CONLANG for
four years.

> > What makes me especially curious, though, is why women seem to be not
> > involved at all into a posteriori conlanging; I don't know even one
> > example an a posteriori conlang created by a woman.
I had suggested Mau's language.

> what exactly is "posteriori conlanging"? *curious*
a priori -- "from the previous" in Latin; i.e., "based on a hypothesis or
theory rather than on experiment of experience, or made before or without
examination, not supported by factual study."  AHD.  What this means in
terms of conlanging is a language that is not based on a natural or
constructed language, but is built from an imaginary source.  Examples:
Pearson's Tokana, Teoh's Ebisedian (presumably!  I yet have to peruse that
strange new language!), my Teonaht, Taylor's Uatakkasi, Lojban, and scores
of others.  A lot of these languages borrow FEATURES from other languages:
Matt admits to being influenced by Malagasy and a number of native American
languages.  I frequently pepper my Teonaht with Latin expressions: Id est,
for instance, and a substantial number of my words have been drawn from IE
sources--I can't say I haven't been influenced a BIT by Welsh and what I
know about Hebrew constructions that share with Celtic constructions, but
T's structure and lexicon are essentially a priori, most of its words and
its grammar drawn from an early age out of thin air.  And it boasts
influence from a completely mysterious source: Nenddeyly. <G>

a posteriori-- "from the subsequent" in Latin; used in Logic to mean
"denoting reasoning from facts or particulars to general principles, or from
effects to causes."  AHD again.  What this means in terms of conlanging is a
language that is based on a natural or a constructed language:  Andrew
Smith's Brithennig (an amalgamation of "romance" and "Brythonic" or P-Celt
languages); Padraig Brown's Kernu, based on a similar model; the languages
Yitzik is interested in constructing that are based on known languages; "New
Old English" that we're trying to construct without much success over on
ENGLISC; Christophe's mysterious "Maggel," which he is tempting me with;
David Bell's Amman-Iar which started out as a modification or expansion upon
Tolkien's Elvish languages wherein he essentially made it ergative and
tremendously complex (he can correct me), and scores of other conlangs.
Such languages are much more heavily indebted to other languages, but modify
them in interesting ways.

> > "Originality is the art of concealing your source."
Heh heh!  I like that! :)


Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/whatsteo.html

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