Re: New Survey: Celtic Conlangs (and other lunatic pursuits)

Parts I and II are not strictly speaking relevant to me, so
I'll make comments in Part III where it seems appropriate.

Quoting Sally Caves <scaves@...>:

> PART III:  NON-CELTIC CONLANGERS:
>
> In the discussions I've witnessed on Conlang in almost five years, I've
> observed that many conlangers have deliberately avoided "Tolkienesque"
> languages, and even Indo-European languages as models for conlangs, and
> especially the "Celtic."  Why?  Boring?  Overdone?  Trite?  Too pretty?
> Too Western?  Or none of the above--just more interested in something else?
> <G>  I don't want to give the impression that I think we conlang only
> because of Tolkien, and that anything we invent has to be INSPIRED BY or a
> DEPARTURE from the "Great One"; but in this question I'm eager to see some
> eschewal of or at least indifference towards the Tolkien, the "Celtic,"
> and/or even the Indo-European model.
>
> What is your name and what do you call your conlang?
Thomas Wier.  I've worked on three conlangs:  Degaspregos (starting
around 1995), Phaleran (1999), and C'ali (2001).

> So what is unappealing about the Indo-European model for conlanging?  Or
> Tolkien's Elvish?
I actually started conlanging well before I was exposed to Tolkien
and his wonderful world and languages (indeed, before I knew who he
was).  I never rejected either Indo-European or Tolkien as such.
Indeed, aspects of Greek, Latin and Quenya have been at various
times inspirations to changes in Phaleran and C'ali, especially in
phonological structure.  But I find non-IE languages fascinating,
and so have taken in many ways greater inspiration from them.

> How did you start conlanging?  What was your initial inspiration?
My first influence was Esperanto.  I quickly became disenchanted
with this and began work on Degaspregos, which was originally intended
to be a "logical" language with an agglutinating structure and
lexicon derived from Proto-Indo-European. I have since come to
believe that this is chasing after the wind, and that the nature
of existence cannot be captured by any logical system, much less
human language. Phaleran and C'ali were developed after this break
purely as objects of beauty and as a way to express my view of the
human condition, which many find bleak but I find both refreshing
and ultimately hopeful.

> Did you know about Tolkien's inventions?  Read the books, the appendices?
> etc.  Or not?
It may seem strange to say, but I actually only read the main
corpus last year for the first time! Some of my friends back
in Middle School read them and enjoyed them, but for whatever
reason I never did so.

> What language types have you modeled your language(s) after?
My inspirations have come from just about every language family
I've read about.  Most of my inspirations have come about indirectly:
I'll be sitting down reading a book about linguistic theory or
language typology when something will be mentioned that catches
my fancy, and I start fantasizing about how I might be able to
work that into Phaleran or C'ali. (Most of Phaleran's valence-
changing operations are like this, especially the switch-reference
causatives, the proximative and the mediative.)

> What features of these languages or language types appeal to you?
As probably most of the old-timers on the list know, most of my
languages are highly agglutinating and tend to have left-branching
syntax (SOV word order, AdjN, GenN, RelN), with cross-reference
between verbs and subjects and between nouns and adjectives (if
they exist).  Unlike Degaspregos, which is a strictly accusative
system, both Phaleran and C'ali have very non-IE ways to express
grammatical relations.  Phaleran has split-ergative case morphology:
first and second persons take nom.-acc. marking, third person
distinguishes all three of S, A, and O, and all full nouns are
erg-abs., though imperative subjects always take nom-acc marking.
Phaleran verb-noun agreement is nom.-acc., since verbs agree with
S and A but not O.  C'ali, which isn't nearly so well-developed,
has Split-S case agreement. The interesting thing (to me) about
C'ali is that case does not show up in every circumstance, but
surfaces when the nominal in question is sufficiently high up
either of two hierarchies:  animacy, and definiteness-referentiality.
(Thus, depending on context, "a man" may not take case marking,
but "the Stone of Erlandi" will [the site of a famous meeting between
the C'ali Governor and Cuwannes, leader of the Xosûni rebels])

So, finally to answer your question, what interests me is the
sheer baroque complexity that I try to put into my languages.
(Whether I succeed in that task is another matter.)

> Some of you, and I'm thinking in particular of a conversation I
> had with And Rosta, are not interested in producing a language
> that is "mellifluous"--that "mellifluousness" is a thing to be
> avoided in your conlang and especially as it is associated with
> Tolkien's Elvish or copiers of Elvish.   Is this so?  Why?
[These can best be combined for me]

> For how many of you, though, is beauty and/or efficiency a factor in your
> language?  Or elegance?  How would you define these terms?
"Mellifluousness" is certainly one criterion I'm thinking about,
especially when I am creating new vocabulary, but it's not an
overriding one.  I'm firmly convinced that once you dig down
deep into any human language, you'll find some bits and pieces that
are deeply beautiful, and some that are esthetic abominations.
I want to capture both facets of reality in my languages, since
I see both sides in humanity.

> For how many of you is the "exotic" a desired feature of your invented
> language?
Exoticness is definitely important, I see after the fact, but
I never consciously went about working things into my languages
purely for the sake of being exotic.  Exoticness is all relative,
in any case, and since I want to capture the language of a very
human culture (fictional though it may be), my hope is that it
will seem more ultimately "human" than anything else.

> How many of you invent a non-human language?  And if so, how alien are its
> sounds and constructions?
All sentients known to the Phalerans are humans, and because I've
worked from that perspective, I haven't made any alien ones.

> Do you prefer inventing an a posteriori language or an a priori language?
> In other words, how many of you invent a language wherein you base it
> closely on a natural language (Arabic, Tagalog) or a combination of
> languages, and how many others of you invent a language from, well,
> scratch? (if that can be done.)
A priori languages certainly are more flexible, and now that I'm
an artlanger, I enjoy that trait.  But while Degaspregos was still
a running concern, I was very much occupied with a posteriori
principles.

> How many of you invent a language based on a particular type (Ergative,
> Accusative, Trigger, etc.)?
When working on Phaleran, I never sat down and decided to make
it an ergative language.  However, I did want it to reflect
cross-linguistic generalizations about human language, and
so when I went about working on its morphology, I didn't
start with unlimited options, and so it had to be one system
or another.  Ergativity happened to be the one I liked best
at the time.

> To what degree is difficulty and irregularity of language important to you
> in your conlang?  what natural language eccentricities (or efficiencies) do
> you like and try to reproduce?
> To what degree is accessibility, efficiency, and regularity important to
> your conlang?  What natural language "faults" are you correcting?
I don't see "difficulty" per se as a goal, but given that all
human languages have eccentricities, having difficult patches of
the grammar is a natural side-effect of language creation.  Most
of my "eccentricities" are phonological:  making inflections
fusional rather than agglutinating increases the amount of
memorizing needed by learners, and I've also begun working
on idioms, such as _eoi othâmmi_ "to be unaccustomed to",
lit. something like "to unaccustom oneself [+dat.]".

> How many of you invent logical languages?
> How many of you invent IALs?
Degaspregos was originally envisioned as both.

> How many of you have invented non-Tolkienesque or non European concultures
> and what are they like?
I've commented in the past frequently on this topic, albeit usually
in passing.  Here's one major post about Phaleran history:

<http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0209A&L=conlang&P=R23959&D=0&m=48753>

> How many of you started out by pulling words out of the air, originally?
> How many of you have chosen a more methodic form of vocabulary building?
> I.e., how have you gone about setting up the framework for your words and
> your grammar?
> (I started out pulling words out of the air.)
I followed the same route: pulling word out of the air.  Now I use
lexicon-generators, from which I choose the most impressive. (See
below)

> PART IV:  THE LUNATIC SURVEY REVISITED (because we are all "fous du
> langage," according to Yaguello and other French critics.
>
> Why do you conlang?  Who will speak it?  Read it?  What's the point?
> What's the beauty?  what's the intellectual draw?
I see conlanging as a beautiful activity if time and thought
are put into it.  Why do people write novels or plays? Some
do it for money, and indeed some conlangers do too (like Marc
Okrand).  I think most do it as a method of expression, and
that's how I see my own work.

> To what would you compare a conlang?  Is it a miniature?  Is it a model?
> Is it a tapestry?  Is it an act of obsession and madness? <G>  Or is it a
> communicable language?
"Tapestry". Or, perhaps a piece of chamber music.

> If it is a communicable language, to whom do you speak it?
It is in principle a communicable language (according to Wittgenstein,
a language that is in principle private is impossible), but in practice
it is more like philology, reading and assessing a dead language. And
of course, whole professions are built on that, so I see nothing wrong
with that.

> To what extent is the opacity or "alterity" of your language something that
> pleases you?  In other words, the sounds and the script have, even for you,
> a quality of being foreign, and this delights.
> Comment?  (I know that when I make maps of cities, and imagine myself in
> them, they delight me because they are both familiar and foreign at the
> same time.)
I think "otherness" is valuable mostly in showing what humanity
*is*.  My Phalerans would strike modern Westerners as bizarre in many
ways, but they behave like people in all ages:  they love, they hate,
they're petty, they're grandiose, they're profound, they're loathsome,
they're sublime.  Their otherness, then, serves only as a harmony
for the melody of their similarity.

> This is a difficult question:  how is it that a word sounds "right" to you?
> We recently discussed this.  To what extent are you finding righter, better
> words for the world in your conlang?  (Perhaps unanswerable).
Unlike it seems many others on this, synaesthesia appears
to be entirely lacking in me.  I think most of the words that
I end up choosing when making new vocabulary are echoes of
my entire linguistic experience before.  My words seem to have
sounds in proportion to the amount of time I've studied other
languages:  I've studied German for a very large percentage
of my life, and so the vowel qualities of my languages are
similar to Hochdeutsch, and /x/ is not at all uncommon.  On
the other hand, Phaleran is fairly littered with glottalized
sounds, so who knows?

> How many of you are fictive map-makers, designers of fictive floor plans,
> fictive yachts, fictive star-ships, world-builders, calligraphers,
> cartoonists, etc.?  (These pursuits have been associated with conlanging.
> I 've done most of them.)
I've spent a good deal of time laying the outlines of Phaleran
geography, both the planet and especially the several hundred
miles around Twolyeo.  I like doing this, but it also served
the "practical" purpose of defining dialect boundaries and thus
dialect influences.

> How many of you have a special script in your conlang?
> If you use Roman script, how recognizably "phonetic" is your writing
> system? In other words, do you use unconventional letters to represent
> sounds? Why?
I've developed one inspired by Devanagari and Tengwar, but haven't
put it to much use.  It's syllabic, where each grapheme radical is
modified by elements that suggest vowel features like height and
backness.  (Presumably invented by some C'ali genius.)

> How many of you sing in your language and have invented songs for that
> purpose?
Never have sung in my language, although this inspires me
to develop some musical form for my "Swallow Song":

<http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0108D&L=conlang&P=R5245>

> How many of you started conlanging when you were a teenager and have stuck
> to the same language over many years?   Why?
Started in 10th grade after exposure to Esperanto.

> How many of you change conlangs regularly, developing structures for many
> languages but not sticking with any one for very long?  Why?
With few exceptions, once I develop a feature for any of my
languages, it stays there.  This is especially true if I've
written any posts about it!

> For how many of you does your language function as a spiritual instrument?
> This is a deeply personal question--let me give you an example.  When I
> first started inventing "Tayonian" in my early teens, what I wrote were
> spells and prayers.  They had a talismanic quality.  Does that ring a bell
> for anybody?
Many elites in Phaleran society have a kind of disdain for
spirituality, though they tolerate its presence among the
masses.  As such, I find it hard to be both faithful to the
culture and write such material.

(One should *never* confuse Phalerans' opinions for my opinions.
There are many facets of Phaleran society which I find repugnant,
but they are what they are.)

> How many of you have put up websites where your language can be showcased?
> If so, what is the website address?
I used to have an extensive website for Degaspregos, which I
have since taken down.  I currently have a small summary of some
of my more coherent posts to this list about Phaleran:

<http://home.uchicago.edu/~trwier/phaleran/>

If I ever develop C'ali to the point where I can do the same,
perhaps I might.

> How many of you have made soundbytes of your language so the rest of us can
> hear it?  If so, give the site.
Alas, I haven't.

> How many of you are comfortable talking to your boss, your professors, your
> family members about this pursuit?   How many of you have received
> condescending or other negative responses to your disclosure?  (I have.)
> Or even been called "pathological"?
I've gotten a variety of responses, the plurality of which are something
like "You're odd, but to each his own".  When it's come up my parents have
been supportive, but some of my professors have been quite obviously
disdainful of it. I find that there is a large segment of humanity
that cannot perceive the value of creativity as such of any kind,
much less conlanging; everything must aim towards some further end.

> If this attitude is changing, to what do you attribute the change?  (On New
> Year's Eve, a delightful, elderly gentleman could not understand why I
> would be interested in this pursuit.  What purpose could it serve?)
I don't think the attitude is changing, but at least nowadays
we don't get sent to camps. </cynical comment>

> For how many of you is the damning statement "better to learn real
> languages than invent private ones" a criticism you have encountered?
> What would be your response to such a remark?
Few people have ever actually articulated it in this way, although
I would not be surprised if many thought it.  I know that in linguistics,
there is a discernible bias against "dead" languages, and conlangs for
people who hold this bias would be on some lower rung.  As for its
rebuttal: what constitutes a "real" language? There are *vast* numbers
of natural languages for which no conceivable material gain can be had by
learning them.  One could just as well complain about theoretical science.

> PART V:  GENERAL DEMOGRAPHICS:
>
> What is your age (optional--and can be general: 30-40, for instance).
23, will be 24 in February.

> What is your profession or your station in life (i.e., if you are a
> student, what is your MAJOR; if a middle or high-school student, what
> is your intended major)?
I'm a linguistics gradstudent at the University of Chicago.

> What is your gender?
Male.

> What is your nationality and your native language?
Texan :) ; English.

> What natural languages do you speak or have studied?
In decreasing number of years of study:  German (8), Ancient
Greek (3), Latin (2), Georgian (2), French (1), Akkadian
(Old Babylonian, 1).  Other languages I've studied at various
times include:  Onondaga, Atkan Aleut, Mam, Quiche, Korowai,
Luiseño, Meskwaki.

> How many of you have chosen a profession in linguistics because of your
> interest in inventing languages?  Or plan a profession in linguistics?
I don't think conlanging had that much influence over my choice
to go into academia.  I enjoy studying and learning about languages,
and there is a desperate need for language documentation now worldwide,
and I feel a calling in that area.

> What have you learned from conlanging?
I feel that conlanging has helped me to systematize my thoughts
about languages in general.  When you have to actually construct
a language, you're forced to think about how the whole system
should behave organically, not just its constituent components.

> What texts on language and linguistics have you consulted to help invent
> your language?
I can't do all my influences credit, but here're some of the
most important ones:  _Describing Morphosyntax_ (Payne),
_Ergativity_ (Dixon), _Language Universals and Linguistic
Typology_ (Comrie), _Language Diversity in Space and Time_
(Nichols), _The Languages of North America_ (Mithun)._

> Do you know of anyone who has not connected with the Internet or the List
> who has invented a language? (I'm firmly convinced that "conlanging" has
> been a private pursuit for many people long before the list started, but
> that the list has increased its visibility as an art).
Yes, but only a few.

> Can you give me a short sample of your language with interlinear
> description and translation?
Here's a translation of the Greek lyric poet Arkhilokhos'
_A Poet's Shield_

Thallu Saiouþþa garai polwamisses, ushmarnagwatenti
  fleruo pou hrontaþnugwandi selc|a;
Aima g|engûku twelma snâsyostai; heotli garai
  tyote'er|ilsta! Tþon esa sxoramilta, marty' asyu.

Some Thracian is taking enjoyment from my shield, which I
  unwillingly left unharmed beside a bush.
But I escaped death's grip; to hell with that shield!
  I can get myself another, no worse.

Thallu    Saiouþþa[1]  garai      polwamisses,
3SgAIndef Thracian.ABE shield.ABS enjoy.MID.3SgProgRe.C

ushmarnagwatenti,        fleruo   pou
damage.REL.NEG.3SgPfRe.S bush.DAT beside

hrontaþnugwandi[2]       selc|a;     Aima[3] g|engûku
leave.CAUS.REL.1SgPfRe.S unwillingly however death.DUR

twelma  snâsyostai;                 heotli[4] garai
end.ABS run-away.TR.1SgProgRe.DYN.S that.INV  shield.ABS

tyolt'er|ilsta!          Tþon esa sxoramilta,
be-absent.INTR.3SgProsIr more one get.MID.1SgProsIr

marty'   asyu. [5]
possibly just

[1] lit. "some particular one out of the Thracians"
[2] Note that English has two forms of "leave" which are
homophonous: transitive and intransitive. In Phaleran, the
intransitive one is basic, while the transitive one is derived
by a causative suffix.
[3] _aima_ "but, however" is more strongly asseverative
than _ene_ "but".
[4] The Phaleran demonstrative system has four dimensions:
physical deixis, visibility, time and formality. _heotli_
here specifically denotes "yon-wretched-invisible-one".
It has the same effect, through different means, as Latin
"iste".
[5] To avoid vowel hiatus, _martei_ has a shortened form
_marty'_. In such shortened forms generally, the diphthong
reduces to the semivowel version of the highest vowel in
the diphthong. /i/ is higher than /e/, so the shortform
is /j/.

> Would you object to my mentioning your conlang/and or your name in my talk?
> I will be discreet about some of the more personal questions you answered.
Certainly not, though if you do, I'd like to know! :)

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637