Re: CHAT: Hello

Tom Little wrote:
>Come to think of it, I may have done some language invention before reading
>Tolkien, as I got a Latin grammar in 5th grade (two years before finding
>Tolkien) and was fascinated by the whole idea of inflected languages.

That's about my story, but it would have been 6th grade (ahem, mid-1940s)--
my sister was a freshman in HS, taking both Latin and Spanish.  I spent more
time with her texts than she did.

When I finally read LOTR (1975 or so) I certainly admired the linguistic
bits, but found them perplexing, as there was no explanatory material. (I
actually like The Hobbit more-- it doesn't take itself so seriously [yes I
know: Heresy Alert!!]).

>>I also seem to share a similar sense of
>>phonetic aesthetics with Tolkien (I often call this my "cellar door"
>>syndrome).

Probably CDS afflicts us all; for me it took the form of
Latin/Spanish/Italian-- but exposure to Malayo-Polynesian langs. certainly
changed that.  Sometimes the sound of my Kash is off-putting; way too many
palatals-- yayuyukar 'it exists', añoloS 'stars'etc... But too late to
change, and an incessantly "pretty" language would probably be equally
off-putting