Re: JABBERWOCKY (was: Universal Translation Language)

Basically... our dear Lewis Carroll was "conlanging!"  Ray's right!
More below, at end:

> >Actually, all those words are portmanteau-words (like "smog" from "smoke"
> >and "fog"), and so if you know the vocabularly, it's not ambiguous at all. He
> >just coined a lot of them all at once, that's all.
>
> Oh?
>
> The only obvious portmanteau words I can see is "slithy" (<- lithe +
> slimey) and "mimsy" (<- miserable + flimsy); and those are also the only
> two words that Humpty Dumpty says are portmanteau words.
>
> HD relates "brillig" with 'boiling' and "gimble" with 'gimlet' but doesn't
> give any portmanteau explanation.  I suppose "gimble" _might_ be 'gimlet' +
> 'gambol', but what is "brillig"?
>
> And one might accept "mome" as a sort of portmanteau of "(fro)m 'ome" (from
> home) - but I think that stretching the meaning of portmanteau a bit.
>
> In what way are these portmanteau words? (The explanations are HD's)
>
> "tove" - something like badgers - something like lizards - something like
> corkscrews.
>
> "borogove" - thin, shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all
> round - something like a live mop.
>
> "wabe" - the grass plot around a sun-dial.
>
> "rath" - a sort of green pig.
>
> "to outgribe" - to make a noise something between bellowing and whistling,
> with a kind of sneeze in the middle.
>
> Of the words that HD does not explain, I see only one obvious portmanteau:
> "gallumphing" <- galloping + triumph.
>
> But what is meant by the adjectives: "vorpal", "manxome", "uffish",
> "tulgey" & "frabjous"?
>
> No, sorry, I do not see all the words as portmanteaux. To me, at any rate,
> it remains ambiguous.  I agree whole-heartedly with Gary on this: 'since
> the whole piece is _meant_ to be ambiguous, and would lose all its
> "meaning" if it were disambiguated.'
>
> Now, for those who like translation exercises for their conlangs, how about
> the Jabberwocky?   :)
Yes, it would fit in with the Conlang translation exercise that some of
us have
been doing with our own languages, but would be immensely harder...
because
in translating it into Teonaht or Draseleq or Valdyan you'd lose what
makes
it unique to English... unless you want to make up a bunch of "made-up"
or
"portmanteau" words in your own Conlang that you contrast with your
"regular"
words!  The mind reels!  Invention within invention!!!!!  And then...
how could anybody tell?  Everybody's conlang seems totally foreign to
me, and so does even Teonaht... a bit!  The trick with Jabberwocky
is that some of it seems foreign and the rest of it doesn't!


Sally
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/contents.html