Re: CHAT: Hello

> From: Tom Tadfor Little
> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 1:48 AM
> To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
> Subject: hello
>
>
> Hello all.
>
> I'm a newcomer here. I was delighted to come across this list, as
> I've been
> playing at language creation since I first read Tolkien 25+ years ago. I
> start lots of them, but seem to always get diverted before I really flesh
> anything out.
Welcome to the list, Tom.

I think you'll find many of us on this list have been influenced by JRRT.
Although I started creating languages in my mid-teens (1950's), I didn't
discover Tolkien until the mid 60's.  Of course when I did, I was excited to
discover that in my pursuit of this strange enterprise I was in such good
company.  His elvish languages have been a consistent influence on my
conlanging work ever since.  My major conlang, amman iar, shows significant
lexical influences from JRRT's elvish tongues as explained by an early
concultural contact between its speakers and some Dunedain sailors escaping
the destruction of Numenor.  I also seem to share a similar sense of
phonetic aesthetics with Tolkien (I often call this my "cellar door"
syndrome).

> I'm currently working on an imaginary world with a small number
> of distinct
> racial/linguistic/cultural traditions that eventually merge and
> synthesize.
> I'm hoping it can be some sort of meaningful mythologization of our own
> eclectic times.
>
> For this project, I need linguistic traditions that are distinctive, but
> not so wildly different from each other to hamper sharing of concepts and
> vocabulary.
Sounds interesting.  I had an early interest in diachronic analysis and once
envisioned a whole family of languages descended from a single
protolanguage. The plan was to distribute to each language a set of
interesting linguistic parameters that would drive the development of that
language from the protolanguage along diverging pathways. I was young and
had no idea what a massive undertaking I had set for myself. Many years
later, only amman iar has any real depth to it.

> I'm just now starting out on characterizing Iltârer (apologies to Mac
> users), the eldest of the language families involved. I envision it as
> phonologically elegant and syntactically sophisticated in its capacity to
> support subtle philosophical and esthetic expression. Today I wrote a
> modest program to generated Iltârer root words, and I have some of the
> grammar established.
I look forward to hearing more of Iltârer. Please share as much as you can
with us.

David

David E. Bell
The Gray Wizard
www.graywizard.net

Wisdom begins in wonder.

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