Re: What is it we are saying in our languages?

Sally Caves, On 02/07/2006 21:09:
[...]
> I've been doing a lot of research on this topic, as some of you know,
> and have concluded that saying something old in invented words is
> different from saying something inventive in old words.  Both can be a
> kind of poetry, though.  Are there any of you who want to say something
> new in new, unheard-of words?  And by "new" I mean a text of some import
> or poetry (since, as Qoholeth has said, "there is nothing new under the
> sun").  Which of you write copiously in your conlangs because you have
> something to say rather than construct?
>
> Maybe the medium is itself the message.  The structure, the efficacy,
> the newness of morphology.  What is it we are *saying* in our invented
> languages? or in inventing language period?  That's another question.
> How is conlanging itself a kind of message about language?
Mainly, I think, the medium is the message, but it's still a very meaningful message:
a language is a kind of diagrammatical map of thought, or a code for expressing
the mind's diagrammatical map of the world.

As for using one's own conlang: there are three main purposes that I have
meditated over the years, none of which are likely to come to fruition.

1. Poetry. I write poetry in English and frequently find the vast lexical
resources of English insufficient to provide exactly the word I need, one with
the right meaning, perhaps in combination with the right sound, and perhaps
with secondary echoes of other meanings through lexical associations. The
ineluctable ambiguities of English are also a frustration. I've often wished
Livagian were in a fit state for me to write in it: the ambiguity problems
would vanish, and I'd be free to invent a word that exactly fits the
requirements of the occasion. But it will be a long long time before Livagian
is usable for this purpose, and I have too little to say in poetry for the
impulse to write in Livagian to wax.

2. Erotica. It would be good to be able to write graphically about sexual acts
without having to deal with the problems of English's sexual vocabularies
(variously too euphemistic, too clinical, too polluted by use as maledicta). A
conlang would solve this problem. But the appetite for such things wanes, I
find, with middle age...

3. Philosophy. I have felt similarly to John Q:
> It has always been my intention to write philosophical poetry in Ithkuil,
> i.e., a poem or poems expressing a philosiphical view.  Because Ithkuil's
> raisons d'etre include (1) semantic exactitude and precision, (2) overt
> expression of actual cognition than natlangs permit, and (3)
> morpho-phonological conciseness, I believe it to be an excellent vehicle for
> expressing "heavy" philosophical thoughts and musings in a way that would
> hinder the speaker/writer from trying to manipulate language metaphorically
> the way most philosophy is written.  [...] The result being a more "pure"
> (pardon the metaphor!) expression of philosophical thought that can be
> judged on its face more objectively than most philosophical writings.
Except that, in my case, I do not have philosophical thoughts of sufficient
profundity and originality that I feel impelled to take pains to verbalize
them. Much as I might labour to smooth the block of marble that is Livagian,
there is no accompaniment of lapidary thoughts to inscribe upon it...

--And.

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