Re: CHAT: facing your own mortality (as a conlanger)

On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 12:39 AM, Rick Harrison <rick@...> wrote:

> Tuesday night I fell into a pond and nearly drowned. Since it was warm
> stagnant water, there is a remote chance that I may have been infected
> by Naegleria fowleri amoeba; if so, I could be dead within a couple of
> weeks.

I sincerely hope it's not the case.

Obviously that's a personal problem of no importance to anyone else,


Except for 'sym-pathy', indeed...


> but it brings to mind the question of preparing for death as a
> conlanger, because the human body is very vulnerable and you never
> know when your number will come up in the lottery.

; )

If you have a personal language that you've never revealed to
> anyone else, for example: would you want to write a description of
> the language ahead of time, and make arrangements to have it
> published after passing away? How would you make such arrangements?

Hm, a good question. I'm for three...? years writing a description to
myself, and maybe will publish later. I guess the importance of a language
as a language is not that great, no matter how exquisite or unique or
perfect, whatever I mean by perfect ; ). Linguists are few, and most people
listen to what indeed we say... and I guess that if the matter written in
any conlang is good enough, people will want to learn that. I just thought
of that, feel free to beat me at will ; ). But how people would know what
you wrote, without knowing the language already? Hm... I read my Plato a
decade ago, in translation, and just now i'm barely able to read _him_
indeed. So we are bound to translations... or to we few linguists. Perhaps
it might be good, after all...

If you have web pages that you want to stay online after you can
> no longer pay the hosting bill, what options are available? The
> Wayback Machine at archive.org doesn't catch everything and it might
> not be around forever.

That sounds like a good reason for creating a foundation to save our works.


> Is it arrogant to want some of your ideas to live on after you die?

Hm, I guess most people would say 'yes' to that. But if so, it's ok to be
arrogant, if our ideas are worthy the trouble ; ). And still about death, my
grandmother died not long ago... and I became slightly calm only after
reading this article:

http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/olivelle/articles/1997a.pdf

amRtA: Women and Indian Technologies of Immortality," *Journal of Indian
Philosophy*. 25: 427–49.


Edgard.