Conlangs: a window on the mind?
From: | R. Skrintha <srik@...> |
Date: | Sunday, October 4, 1998, 15:24 |
Hi,
>Matt Pearson <mpearson@...> wrote in re: Survey (a new one):
> >In "A Secret Vice", Tolkien remarked that the
> >correspondence "vru" = "ever" had crept its way
> >into every one of his languages, and I find the same
> >thing happening with mine. For example, in each of
> >my major conlang projects, the word for "in" or
> >"inside" has consisted of a fricative followed by
> >/i/ or a diphthong containing /i/:
> >
> > Messyen: thui
> > Tadheka: zui
> > Kosan: hi
> > Tokana: hi, fi (earlier versions)
> > Tokana: him (most recent version)
> >
> >Do other people find the same sort of thing happening
> >in their conlangs?
>
In an early (unwittingly) relex project of mine, the con-word "ensser"
kept popping up in my mind as a suitable word to mean 'between' for no
reason apparent to me then. Only much later did it strike me that I had
subconsciously taken French "entre", given it the US-like -re->-er
end-flip and included the Modern High German feature of having an -ss-
instead of English/Scandinavian intervocalic -t-. It did give me the
feeling of taking a peek into my own subconscious mind!
Have others detected such Freudian/Jungian patterns in their
conlanging?
Regards,
skrintha