Re: Lingustic Experiences (was: Phonation or Register Tones)

Herman Miller wrote:

>Kenji Schwarz wrote:
>
>>It would be sort of interesting -- though probably wouldn't demonstrate
>>anything -- to find out how many people first came into conlanging through
>>the influence of 'artlanging' (Tolkien, RPG stuff, etc) vs. 'auxlanging'
>>(Esperanto, etc.).
>
>Or both at about the same time. My interest in Tolkien only predates my
>interest in Esperanto by about a year or two.
Same here.  I've known about Tolkien for most of my life.  (Tried
unsuccessfully to read the Lord of the Rings when I was 8 or 9; succeeded
eight years later).  I discovered Esperanto through a Mario Pei book
when I was 12, I think.

I don't remember when I first connected up Tolkien with invented languages.
Probably when I discovered the Eldarin vocabulary list at the back of
the Silmarillion.  But it was Esperanto, I think, which first suggested
the viability of conlanging to me - interesting, since I subsequently became
an artlanger, and now have little or no interest in Esperanto or its
cousins...

I started my first ambitious conlang project when I was about 13, I think.
It was, of course, a relexification of English.  Greater sophistication
came later, when I started taking German in school, and began learning
about linguistic diversity from Mario Pei and other 'popular' writers,
and from reading teach yourself grammars.  But it was only after I started
encountering other artlang projects (Klingon, Laadan, Yilane, Kesh) that
the conlanging bug really took off.  It was that wave of enthusiasm that
eventually propelled me into linguistics, where I remain today.  (Did I
tell you guys I'm doing job interviews and guest lectures at MIT next
month?  And me with my dissertation less than half finished.  I'm VERY
nervous...)

Matt.

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Matt Pearson
mpearson@ucla.edu
UCLA Linguistics Department
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543
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