Re: meeting of minds prior to conlang?

BP/Philip:
> [snip]
> > > some kind of meeting of minds before "conlang."  Anybody form their own
> > > small clatch of "inklings" prior to electronic communication?
> >
> > A 2-member one from since I was 13/14, with the progenitor of
> > Namyuan, which I occasionally mention on this list.
>
> Were you both conlangers before you met, or did one of you "convert" the
> other?
It's curious how there is a kind of metaphorical relation between
conlanging on the one hand and masturbation and bi/homosexuality on the
other (The Secret Vice, The Love that Dare Not Speak its Name). When
some months ago there were several people posting to the list declaring
themselves to be bisexual teenage conlangers, and I never got round to
observing that bisexuality and conlanging are, like religiosity, phases
that many teenagers go through but few adults remain in.

Anyway, the answer to your question is that we had both begun to
conlang before we met, but my own conlanging and nascent (or rather,
crescent) interests in linguistics in general were nurtured by our
(intellectual) intercourse.

I actually did try to convert another friend. We were inventing
imaginary lands, and drawing maps, and I invented the rudiments of a
language to name places with. My pal seemed to enter into the
enterprise with gusto, but after a while I realized that all
the names he had created were, although conformant with the invented
language, of the form _dogipu_, _mamafuk_, etc., and I realized that
here was not someone profoundly imbued with the conlanging spirit.

> I remember _reading_ about another conlanger (like myself overfed
> on Tolkien, but unlike me at that point he had also perpetrated an auxlang
> :) in a Swedish youth magazine.  While it was not a personal meeting, but
> at least I knew I was not the only one.  The funny thing is that before I
> didn't know that JRRT had invented his langs himself; my first inspiration
> was the ape lang in the Tarzan comic books!  Later I had a Latin teacher
> who was also a prominent Esperantist.  He had the good sense to encourage
> my interest in constructed languages in general rather than trying to
> convert me to Esperanto.
>
> > AFAIK, Tolkien himself
> > did not know any artlangers: the Secret Vice essay makes it clear that he
> > was aware that other people indulged, but I don't think any of the
> > inklings had conlanging proclivities. Anyway, the actual Inklings
> > were probably good company in the pub, but I don't think they were on
> > the same wavelength as T.
>
> In fact it seems that the basis for the friendschip between JRRT and CSL
> were sufficiently _unlike_ each other to mutually admire and alternatly
> despise each other, while both were at odds with the established attitudes
> at Oxford.
I suppose then that it was in microcosm like the way nowadays a
camaraderie of smokers forms outside office buildings; certainly
huddling outside in the cold Lancashire mizzle is where I socialize
with my similarily narcotic students.
And certainly in my eyes there is everything to admire and nothing
to despise in JRRT, whereas for CSL pretty much the reverse is the case.

--And.