meeting of minds prior to conlang?

On Fri, 11 Dec 1998, James Campbell wrote:

> Excellent name your cat has, BTW.
Thank you!  And she's an excellent cat.

> >  Teonaht has become increasingly complicated, over the years,
> > but it was greatly gratifying, and weird, to come across a dialog I had
> > written out... oh...nineteen years ago, between a girl and a boy who were
> > courting; and though I hadn't looked at this vocabulary for almost as
> long
> > (it was largely discarded and the grammar drastically altered), the
> > exchange was perfectly clear to me.  As though I was reading Spanish from
> > a textbook.  How strange, and with a language I invented.  It was
> speaking
> > to me across the years.
>
> I've come over all warm and fuzzy... I still find it amazing, over 2 years
> after I initially joined the list, to think that during all the years I was
> working alone on Jameld (since '82), braving the derision, bemusement and
> apathy of others, there were others doing similarly. Were we all isolated,
> or was there a pre-Conlang community in any way?
>
> James
>
It is an amazing thing.  As I've said before, one of the things that most
impresses me about this listserv has been its capacity to unite people
who have been absorbed in an extraordinarily "solipsistic" or "solitary"
artform.  Only through electronic means have we been able to communicate
with each other.  I'd love to hear stories from conlangers who have had
some kind of meeting of minds before "conlang."  Anybody form their own
small clatch of "inklings" prior to electronic communication?

Sally

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


Li fetil'aiba, dam hoja-le uen.
volwin ly, vul inua aiba bronib.

This leaf, the wind takes her.
She's old, and born this year.
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