Re: "Coming out" about conlanging to people
From: | Bryan Maloney <bjm10@...> |
Date: | Sunday, July 22, 2001, 16:04 |
At 04:38 AM 7/22/01 -0400, you wrote:
> As I told you yesterday, I presented my mother the children's book in
>eight languages (six real, two mine) today, and I received the absolute
>strangest reaction from one person. I could have never imagined it.
> I was talking to someone else, and an aunt of mine (who doesn't see me
>often) was looking at the book and my girlfriend was at hand. This aunt came
>to my first language (Megdevi, with an Arabic-like script) and became very
>confused and said, "What's this one?" My girlfriend said, "Oh, that's a
>language David made." To which she simply replied, "Oh, I see". Totally
>satisfied, not confused or perturbed at all, didn't even raise another
>question in her. She just saw a language she couldn't recognize, and she
>must have thought something like, "Oh, he made it, that's why I don't
>recognize it." I imagined any number of reactions from the apathetic to the
>mildly amused to the outlandishly offended; this I hadn't planned for.
"What's that?"
"It's one of David's whacky art things."
"Oh, I see."
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