Re: CHAT: Hello

On Tue, 1 May 2001, David Peterson wrote:

>     Is it just me, or does this seem completely ridiculous?
If it seems completely ridiculous to you, that's fine with me, as
long as you don't force me to work the way you do.

> First of all,
> it's just a translation exercize--just to see how the grammar works, et
> cetera.  Second, if you don't want those words to be in there, then simply
> delete them after you're done.
It doesn't work that way. When something is in there, it's in; the
way I think of it it's more like cooking than building with Legos,
when you've put too much salt in the soup there's no way to take it
out. I did take some "wrong" words and concepts out right at the
beginning, and the scratched-out places are still visibly there.

> I mean, contaminate the culture?  You're creating it!
Well, "contaminate" is perhaps a conceit, but not everything I say is
right because I say it. If it doesn't fit, I can't make it fit by
decree. That's not the way it *works* with me. Valdyas, and its
language, is an organic whole, and I have to develop it intuitively
by discovery, not rationally by construction, or it goes flat and
dead on me and I won't enjoy it any more. And if I don't enjoy it,
there's no point in doing it, of course.

> If it's others' opinions of or feelings towards this language and it's
> made up culture, then maybe you have something there, though I personally
> could not care whether or not the words really exist in your language or
> whether the very translation of these concepts would destroy the foundations
> of this faux culture.
Can you please stop being rude? Of course I know it's all made up.
I'm not so stupid or deluded that I think it's real in any real-world
sense, outside of my imagination (though there are theories about
that, but I think I see where you're coming from so I won't go into
debate about it). All the same, it has to seem real and fitting *to
me* or I'll stop enjoying it. If I cook something, it's all up to me
what I put in it, but if I put things in that don't go together it
won't taste right. It's the same with conculturing: if I put the
wrong things together it doesn't look and feel right. I don't care
one bit what it looks like to others; it has to look right to myself.

> Heck, a couple of times when I've translated things
> for this list and I didn't have a word for whatever was being translated yet,
> I just made one up and had it function the same as any other word of that
> type would in whatever language I was doing at the time.
Oh yes, I've done that. Every translation exercise has spawned
several new words and concepts *and extended the culture*. That's why
I don't want to translate something from the Bible; it would extend
the culture with concepts from the Bible, which don't, and never
will, fit the definition of Valdyas. The fact that Valdyas doesn't
"really" exist doesn't mean that it doesn't have to be internally
consistent, and introducing concepts from the Bible (or indeed any
non-compatible culture) would break its internal consistency and its
value for me.

> So I really don't
> see how translating harms these non-real cultures over which one has complete
> control,
I don't have complete control, at least not complete conscious
control. I'm bound (have voluntarily bound myself, if you want it
that way) to constraints of internal consistency of the world.
Breaking those constraints would break that internal consistency, and
make the world and the language less enjoyable.

> or why one would get so defensive about it.
Because I feel you're attacking me; and the message I'm responding to
("faux culture"?!) only serves to reinforce that feeling.

>  If it's the Bible,
> political documents and Kipling you've got issues with, take it up with them.
I don't have issues with those as such; I only used them as examples
of texts used as translation exercises in the past, that I didn't do
because I didn't want to introduce the concepts expressed in them
into Valdyas and its language.

If it's not clear now, please *ask questions* instead of attacking
me or making me out as stupid or deluded.

   Irina

--
           Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
irina@valdyas.org (myself)     http://www.valdyas.org/irina/valdyas

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