Re: CHAT: The Conlang Instinct

J. Barefoot wrote:
>
> >From: Gerald Koenig <jlk@...>
> >Reply-To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
> >To: Multiple recipients of list CONLANG <CONLANG@...>
> >Subject: The Conlang Instinct
> >Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 18:02:46 -0800
>
> [snip stuff on the always-fascinating subject of synesthesia]
>
> >Now, does anyone see the need for a personal gender system here? I
> >wonder how Pat Duffy would like seeing a year as a single long vector,
> >or 12 month-vectors head to tail, as in my vector tense grammar? Can
> >natlang grammar do violence to the mind of a conlanger? Do language
> >universals work for conlangers, or are they a secondary layer as
> >suggested in a way by Ed Heil to me. Are conlangers langesthetes?  Are
> >our internal perceptions of language non-standard yet fully functional?
> >I've always been able to get my A's in English in spite of a tremendous
> >inner dissatisfaction with much of it. Maybe conlangers have an
> >extra or idiosyncratic mapping of language in the brain. That is the
> >direction of research in synesthesis. Synesthetes are finding one
> >another on the web. Perhaps we need a test to exclude anyone who tastes
> >languages that start with a-u-x. I might not be here either.
> >
> >
> >Abnormally yours,
> >
> >----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >Jerry |                                 Without careful communication
> >Gerald Lea Koenig | jlkatnetcomdotcom   There is boundless demonization.
> >----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> That is so interesting!  I have thought for a while that my perception of
> English may be "non-standard but fully functional."  Perhaps we should ask a
> new "lefthand/righthand/goatee/hair color/sexual orientation" question: What
> is your personal writing style like in your native language?  Does it ever
> get you into trouble, i.e., do pedantic proofreaders ever give you grief
> about perfectly grammatical sentences that run to five clauses or more?
> Obviously, as a group we must be very "verbal" people, independent of
> "right-brain/left-brain dominance".  So I guess we should ask: Do you
> consistently and spontaneously do quirky things with your native lang? Did
> you do this before you were consciously a conlanger?
I speak and write such a non-standard variety of English.  It's
infiltrated by almost everything - French, German, and my conlangs!  My
written style is totally grammatically correct, always, but I use a lot
of so-called run-on sentences, and even though they're grammatical,
readable, and make perfect sense English teachers still give me problems
about it.  So do my friends:  "You can't make a sentence seven lines
long!  You just can't do it!"  But in my colloquial spoken English, I
consistently insert foreign grammatical constructions, pause, and
hesitantly ask, "Can you say that in English?"  I do it to my friends
all the time and they think it's the funniest thing.  Sometimes I even
forget English words and start inserting French instead - lately I
haven't been able to come up with "translation" for the life of me and
consistently say "traduction" instead - I really feel stupid about it
too, but it's fun to have a quirky idiolect.  My careful spoken and
written English is so ultra-grammatical people have trouble
understanding it though, a huge contrast to my colloquial speech.


>
> On a related but far-fetched subject: At a very early stage of deveplopment
> of Asiteya, I had created a verb "yasan" - to dwell. Months later, having
> forgotten about its existence, I needed a word for house. Rolling sounds
> around on my tongue for a while, I found "yasi" tasted just right.
> Unrelated events of creation, related words. It makes me think, perhaps
> these languages are already fully formed, deep in the subconscious, waiting
> for the intellect to discover them.  Has anyone else had expereinces like
> this?
No, but I do find words have the right color and texture for particular
meanings.  And I always associate letters and numbers with color - and
the colors haven't changed since I was about five.  I think Nik is right
about this though - I don't think the language is fully formed, but I
think subconsciously you remembered something about "yasan" (something
obvious or something more underlying) and it made you come up with
"yasi," which was correct for the same reasons.

Nicole