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

(Yes, this is BTW my first post to the list. Hi folks. :))

> PART III:  NON-CELTIC CONLANGERS:
> 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?
Too western, definitely. Too much of it can limit one's vast perception.
:) I don't know much about Celtic languages, but some (non-L1) aspects
might be quite interesting to implement in a conlang.

> What is your name and what do you call your conlang?
My name is vaksje* /"vak.sjE/ and I call my conlang Daðeima /"daDEima/
(or /"da.DE?i.ma/ when I get caught off guard). In actuality, it doesn't
have a name for itself, this is just how I refer to it.

* I try hard to distance myself from my biological name; I'd never
permit others to assign a name to me. ;))))

> So what is unappealing about the Indo-European model for conlanging?
> Or Tolkien's Elvish?
My mother languages are IE and so are most neighbor languages and
personally I think it's fun to avoid them. As for Elvish, I wouldn't
want to design a conlang with mainly features I'm already acquainted
with (Quenya for example). I've certainly had that phase, but now I'm
looking beyond that IE-model.

> How did you start conlanging?  What was your initial inspiration?
On my own initiative, for a RPG story based in a fantasy world. I worked
on some minimal grammar, but didn't really consider it conlanging yet.
Eventually, it took off and I left fantasy storywriting behind to make
place for my new hobby: conlanging. ;))

> Did you know about Tolkien's inventions?  Read the books, the
> appendices? etc.  Or not?
Not until much later, actually. Hadn't read the books, watched the movie
or even known about the story. My first encounter with professor
Tolkien['s linguistic work] was during the summer vacation last year on
the net. ;)

> What language types have you modeled your language(s) after?
I based the orthography on Finnic languages (to properly present vowel
length, gemination). The main model I used was an earlier version of my
conlang. I did however borrow a few small things from several sources. A
concrete example would be the phoneme /7/ which comes from Estonian's õ.
The large amount of non-grammatical (mainly local) cases are to
compensate the lack of pre- and postpositions., but the Finno-Ugrian
case system surely influenced it.

> What features of these languages or language types appeal to you?
As for Finno-Ugrian languages, they're non-IE. :)

> 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?
No, but my earlier inventions were certainly full of mellifluousness.
Nowadays, I think my conlang has already grown in a particular way that
I really can't call it mellifluous, harsh... or whatever.

> For how many of you, though, is beauty and/or efficiency a factor in
> your language?  Or elegance?  How would you define these terms?
Beauty or elegance (or their counterparts) simply don't apply, since I'm
used to the language in a way that doesn't make me think about these
things.

> For how many of you is the "exotic" a desired feature of your invented
> language?
Exotic languages are ones that I'm not acquainted with. My main project
simply isn't exotic anymore, since I've been working with it so
long/intensively.

> How many of you invent a non-human language?  And if so, how alien are
> its sounds and constructions?
Not me, but I can imagine a variant of my language being used on a
multi-layered psychedelic level on the non-existent neural-net. ;)

> 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. When I discover coincidental cognates with other languages in
my lexicon, the entry often changes completely. An example of this is
the -n 1st person singular suffix added to verbs. Waaaay too many
languages had it, so I changed it. Fortunately, after a short time, I
changed it back because it just seemed right to me. ;))


> How many of you invent a language based on a particular type
> (Ergative, Accusative, Trigger, etc.)?
Daðeima was originally NOM-ACC, then it remained but both were unmarked.
Now it depends on which arguments a particular verb allows.

> 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?
I'm not entirely against irregularity, but my conlang doesn't have (much
of) it. In a way, Daðeima is a language without an ancestor, so there's
no historical change. Keep in mind though, that I -- for example --
treat an affix which has two forms, one that's added to a stem ending in
a vowel and the other added to a stem ending in a consonant, as
irregularity in this language even if it's described by a grammatical
rule. Of course I don't have this irregularity, but still. ;)


> To what degree is accessibility, efficiency, and regularity important
> to your conlang?  What natural language "faults" are you correcting?
Absence of idioms, expressions, etc.

> How many of you invent logical languages?
Not really, although I can imagine Daðeima written in a more complicated
variant of its native script (ideologic) may be treated as an loglang.

> How many of you have invented non-Tolkienesque or non European
> concultures and what are they like?
Yes, I have. :) Although I'm not sure if I'd call it a conculture (apart
from the fact that they appear in a story of mine). If not, then I'm
part of the language's inherent culture too (even though the language
isn't finalized yet ;p).

> 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.)
Oh yes, I used to. But when I started to work on a finalized version of
the language (not even close to finishing yet), I started with carefully
defining the phonemic inventory (with constraints based on the few words
I already had). Then I thought up the grammar and then the continuous
process of creating words.

> PART IV:  THE LUNATIC SURVEY REVISITED
> Why do you conlang?  Who will speak it?  Read it?  What's the point?
> What's the beauty?  what's the intellectual draw?
It's my primary hobby (it even took over gaming and general computing).
The speakers will be me and everyone else I assimilate. One friend
already spoke at least one word, but he mispronounced it
(*cursecurse!!*). At least he can correctly pronounce |daðeima|, apart
from the stress (actually I demonstrated it to him incorrectly). :P

I bet some of you folks are going to read it, as am I. This language has
a guest appearance in a story I'm writing (it's not inherent to the
story itself), so folks who read it will become exposed too. ;)


> 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?
It depends. I have conlang sketches which I merely perceive as a conlang
and the result of me exercising my hobby. Some of them are art. Daðeima
is an exception, in that I treat it as a natural language for myself. As
for obsession, that applies to all of my conlangs. ^_^


> If it is a communicable language, to whom do you speak it?
To myself, at least. I jot down some text, walk away, come back and am
able to read it. I often apply my language's phonetic constraints to my
pet names and talk to them.

> 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?

Areas of my language that I haven't worked out yet seem like this, but
the more effort I put into it to finish it, this effect wears off.

> 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).
Sometimes I have lexicon entries that certainly *DON'T* sound right... I
haven't gone through the process of changing them to words that sound
right to me yet, since at the moment I'm focusing on the grammar. I'm
pretty confident, that some of the current entries will eventually sound
right if I spend time with them.

> 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.)
>
Yes, I've done most of those for a RPG world (with its own set of
languages), but none of them pertain to my current language.

> How many of you have a special script in your conlang?
Yes, a somewhat complicated ideologic writing system. (Even though there
are no phonemic cognate pairs.) Unfortunately I haven't worked on it
much and I only have worked out 2 ideograms. :(((

> If you use Roman script, how recognizably "phonetic" is your writing
> system? In other words, do you use unconventional letters to represent
> sounds? Why?
It's probably 95% phonetic (apart from differences between individual
speakers). There's one letter that represents two sounds, but they can't
appear at the same place.

> This is a question Heather asked, but I also asked it four years ago:
> how many of you write in your language?  What do you write?
Yes, I do write in Daðeima, but I'm about to make some new grammatical
implementations, so I'll have to wait before writing anything too
extensive.

> How many of you sing in your language and have invented songs for that
> purpose?
I probably won't. I reckon my language isn't suitable for that purpose.

> How many of you started conlanging when you were a teenager and have
> stuck
> to the same language over many years?   Why?
I'm still a teenager, but I will probably stick to this. :))

> How many of you change conlangs regularly, developing structures for
> many languages but not sticking with any one for very long?  Why?
I had other languages I was working on (probably never meant to become
fully finalized), but Daðeima caused all of them to become dormant.

> 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?
Sure. My language is part of a spiritual warrior mindset. Esoteric and
occult elements surely have their place.

> For how many of you was your language at least at one stage of its
> making meant to fool others, or to write secret diaries? (Me, waving
> my hand).
Never, although I can safely write my private journals. Anyone capable
of reading it, is probably worthy enough to read it. ^_^

> How many of you can speak your language, at least to yourself and your
> pet? child?  spouse?  <G>  To what extent?
When my parents are gone, I often speak it (often citing) to see if it
still sounds good. ;)) Now, I can just imagine the sound of the language
in my head since I have the phonetic inventory finalized.

> How many of you have put up websites where your language can be
> showcased? If so, what is the website address?
I used to, and I will when I have some more [finalized] material, but I
won't now. ;)

> How many of you have made soundbytes of your language so the rest of
> us can hear it?  If so, give the site.
Not me. (It's about time I replace my broken mic. ;))

> 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"?
Never! Won't even think about it. IRL, there's only one person I've
talked to about it. Perhaps others would generate a somewhat
non-negative response, but I simply aren't interested in talking to
them. ;)

> 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?)
It's not.

> 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?
I haven't, but my response would be that I infact _am_ (and high-school
is the only thing that's holding me back). ;)

> PART V:  GENERAL DEMOGRAPHICS:
>
> What is your age (optional--and can be general: 30-40, for instance).
16 years. (turning 17 soon, although that won't change a thing)

> 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 am sadly still a high-school student and am forced to survive this
horror in order to go to university. I'm not sure about my intended
major yet, since there's so much to choose. Anyhow, my choice will most
likely pertain to linguistics.

> What is your gender?
I'm male, not that it really matters. I'm asexual (or atleast, try to
be). ;))

> What is your nationality and your native language?
I'm a Dutch citizen. English is my native language, although I get to
speak more Dutch IRL.

> What natural languages do you speak or have studied?
I speak English and Dutch. I'm mixed bi-lingual, I often can't translate
between the two and often know a word in Dutch, but not in English, and
vice versa.

I've looked into some Finno-Ugrian languages, Danish and Japanese, but
haven't studied them extensively (yet).

> How many of you have chosen a profession in linguistics because of
> your interest in inventing languages?  Or plan a profession in
> linguistics?
Yeah, I really plan to do. Although I'll have to pass high-school first
of course. ;|

> What have you learned from conlanging?
How to work efficient. And I'm still trying to perfect this skill.
Another is that it's surely possible to disregard a model and come up
with something that's equally pleasing.

> What texts on language and linguistics have you consulted to
> help invent your language?
A book about the 'Government-Binding' theory, which I'm working through
at a slow pace and trying to understand. Apart from that, the linguistic
terms glossary at SIL.org sure came in handy. :)

> 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).
>
> Can you give me a short sample of your language with
> interlinear description and translation?
I'd like to, but in this non-final state a lot of things are going to
change and I wouldn't want others to see an incorrect sample. ;o)

> 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.
Yes. I surely don't like it when people refer to me in their talk and I
don't get to monitor it. ;)

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