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

--- Sally Caves skrzypszy:

> PART I.  FOR CELTIC CONLANGERS:
>
> Have you based your conlang(s) wholly or partially on a Celtic language?
> If so, on which?  or combined with which?
Not at all. I'm ashamed to confess that I know terribly little about the Celtic
languages. But I find them extremely beautiful, both the way they look and the
way they sound. I can't say my languages share any particular feature with
them, unless you would consider VSO word order typically Celtic.


> PART II:  INSPIRATION BY TOLKIEN (tangential to the questions on inspiration
> by Celtic languages):
>
> How many of you were inspired to invent a language because of your exposure
> to Tolkien?
No. I was playing with language very very long before I ever heard about
Tolkien's conlangs. I like Tolkien's languages, but they have never been of any
influence to me.

> How many of you were inspired to invent a language because you engage in
> Roll-Playing Games?
Never participated in any of them.

> How many of you were inspired to invent a language because you heard of this
> listserv?
Well, when I became a member of the Conlang List, I already had outlines and
small vocabularies (ca. 500 words) for five languages. So, you cannot say that
I started conlanging because of the list. But I must admit that since I joined
the list, I have taken it much more seriously and spent much more time with it.


My conlang Wenedyk was directly inspired by other romlangs like Brithenig,
Kerno and Breathanach. Without the list (or rather: without the Internet) the
thought of a Slavo-Romance language would probably never have occurred to me.

> How many of you are members of the Mythopoeic Society, or the Society for
> Creative Anachronism, or other High Fantasy Groups?
Never heard of them.


> 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.
This is not the case. The contrary is true: I am fascinated with Indo-European
languages, both natlangs and conlangs, which explains the fact that all my
languages are Indo-European.
As for Tolkien's languages: I like them, but I don't feel any particular
kinship with them.

> What is your name and what do you call your conlang?
Jan van Steenbergen.

My conlangs are:
Hattic, Askaic, and Megza (three closely related languages directly derived
from Proto-Indo-European);
Wenedyk (a Slavo-Romance language: what would Polish have looked like if it had
been a Romance language?);
Vozgian (a North-Slavic language); originally, Vozgian had two sister
languages, but I have decided to throw them away and perhaps later reinvent
them as Vozgian dialects.
Hattic, Askaic, and Vozgian were started back in 1996. Wenedyk and Megza were
started in 2002.

> So what is unappealing about the Indo-European model for conlanging? Or
> Tolkien's Elvish?
On the contrary. As I wrote, I find the Indo-European model model of conlanging
very appealing, and all my conlangs are Indo-European, both in content and in
spirit.

> How did you start conlanging?  What was your initial inspiration?
When I was a child, I enjoyed modifying Dutch words into some kind of different
language. Why? Don't ask me, I can't remember. But I know that I was fascinated
with language long before I could read or write.
In my early teens, I gathered all I could from our local library about other
languages. Just after I had started to learn French and Latin in school (at 12,
I think), I designed grammatical tables for a Romance language. Child's stuff,
of course. Not so long ago, I found some of my old notes about that.
When I was fourteen, I started some sort of conculture on an imaginary island
in the Atlantic Ocean, inhabited by Picts, Goths, Kets (a whole family of
Indo-European languages I wanted to create), speakers of a Romance language,
and (strange enough) Arabs. A lot of maps (including historical maps), drawings
of people, politics, flags, etc. I returned to this "conculture" twice, when I
was sixteen, and when I was nineteen.

My first "real" conlanging took place when I was twenty-five or so. I wanted to
write a story about a fictional Soviet Republic, and came up with Vozgian and
Hattic. The story was of course never written, but I made the language and a
few maps.

> Did you know about Tolkien's inventions?  Read the books, the appendices?
> etc.  Or not?
I don't remember when I found out about Tolkien's conlangs. I rather saw him as
a writer, I think. Anyway, I must shamefully admit that I never read his books;
however, I read the appendices (and I love the movies!).

> What language types have you modeled your language(s) after?
What do you mean by "language types"?
Hattic and its sister languages are based on Proto-Indo-European, Wenedyk is
directly based on Polish and Vulgar Latin, and Vozgian on Common Slavic.
If you mean the main source of inspiration, then I would say: Hattic is
strongly influenced and inspired by Tocharian, Wenedyk by Brithenig,
Breathanach etc., and Vozgian by the Slavic languages in general.

> What features of these languages or language types appeal to you?
Inflection, I think. And their orthography.

> 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?
I think it is very difficult to establish when a language is mellifluous or
not. Let's say, that it is not the first thing I would think of when describing
Hattic. But I definitely want to make it sound beautiful. Which does NOT mean
that every word is supposed to be beautiful; every natural language has
beautiful and ugly words.

> 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 is definitely an important factor. Beauty and style. Hattic comes
closest to my ideal look-and-feel of a conlang; its orthography is something
between Lithuanian and Tocharian.

> For how many of you is the "exotic" a desired feature of your invented
> language?
No, exoticism is not a criterium for me. Unless you consider a language
somewhere between Lithuanian and Tocharian exotic.

> How many of you invent a non-human language?  And if so, how alien are its
> sounds and constructions?
Never tried, and I don't think I will ever try in the near future. But, you
never know… At least I'm a great fan of science-fiction.

> 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.)
Certainly a posteriori. But I know I belong to a minority here.

> How many of you invent a language based on a particular type (Ergative,
> Accusative, Trigger, etc.)?
It's only since I joined the Conlang List that I learnt about other systems.
Until now all my languages have been accusative, but I certainly would like to
play around a bit with ergativity in the future.

> 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?
Well, difficulty and irregularity are two separate things. As for natlangs, I
don't really believe one language is more difficult than the other. Every
language has its own difficulties, and every language can be learned.

Irregularity, on the other hand, is very important to me. Yes, as a matter of
fact, it is the spices that makes a language tasty. A language without
irregularities is a language without a heart.

> To what degree is accessibility, efficiency, and regularity important to
> your conlang?  What natural language "faults" are you correcting?
Accessibility: to whom? My languages are supposed to be accessable to me only!
Others are welcome to come and see, but I am not going to make any compromise
to make them more accessable to others.
Efficiency: depends how you define the term. If you mean that three well-chosen
words should be enough to tell a whole story, then no. If you mean that there
would be little irregularity, then certainly neither. If you mean that there
would be little ambiguity, then neither. But if you mean that everything must
be possible to express without resorting to clumsy constructions, then yes.
Regularity: never! See above.

> How many of you invent logical languages?
Never tried, but the idea attracts me. On the other hand, I would rather start
to study or learn Lojban than start my own logical language.

> How many of you invent IALs?
No, I never did that and I'm sure I never will. I don't believe in the auxlang
philosophy, and in most cases I don't find them aesthetically pleasing. But
there are cases in which I find the concept of a language interesting
(Folkspraak, Slovio).

> How many of you have invented non-Tolkienesque or non European concultures
> and what are they like?
Well, apart from the island mentioned above (which in fact was quite European),
I'm in charge of Russia and the Republic of the Two Crowns (equivalent of
*here*'s Poland and Lithuania) in Ill Bethisad. But Ill Bethisad was not
invented by me, of course. Furthermore, I have the Vozgian and Hattic
Republics, both part of Russia.
Since all these concultures are mostly European, they don't count, I guess.

> 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.)
Depends entirely on the language. In the case of Wenedyk it is quite simple: as
long as a word has existed in Late or Vulgar Latin (I always work on it with a
French, an Italian, and a Romanian dictionary at hand), I feel free to submit
it to my sound changes schedule and adopt it into my language, but not without
checking how Polish deals with the matter. In some cases, when the Polish word
is from non-Slavic origin, I steal it directly, without modifying it, and not
worrying where it actually comes from.
For Hattic (and Askaic and Megza) I use mostly Indo-European roots. I collect
everything that I can gather like a bird, but of course I don't use everything
I find. About 20 % of the vocabulary in these languages is a priori; this
vocabulary is mostly pulled out of the air; sometimes I invent new words by
just remembering them. But I never generate words in an automated way.
In rare cases, I use the following trick: I take a sentence in any language,
remove all spaces, and cut it into new pieces. Sometimes, such a sentence
contains interesting new words. For example, the Polish sentence: "O jak pusty
jest nasz dom bez papug" helped me generate three Hattic words:
oja "swan", dõbespa "temptation", pušer "entire".


> 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?
That is a lot of questions. I conlang because I am a creative person who likes
languages. I have also a more practical reason: I consider writing music my
most important creative activity. But composing takes time, a lot of time, and
a lot of concentration. I need at least six hours ahead of me, in which I can
do anything I want and be sure I will not be disturbed. And several days a week
like that. Otherwise it will be pointless and frustrating. Since I have a
full-time job and a daughter, such days have become rare. Conlanging has at
least the advantage of being a hobby that I can either work on four hours or
five minutes.
Who will speak it? Nobody, perhaps I will.
Read it? Well, I have little illusions about that. But it is nice to see that
certain people on the list are interested.
Point? Beauty? Intellectual draw? Phew, that's difficult. I think it is a
mixture of a mindgame, artistic creativity and the childish pleasure of kicking
a ball in a certain direction and then see where it ends.

> 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?
Basically a model or a tapestry, I think. Madness? Perhaps, I'll leave that for
others to decide, although at least to me it is not an obsession (or one out of
many). I definitely don't try to make a communicable language; I don't even
think I would like the idea.

> If it is a communicable language, to whom do you speak it?
n/a

> 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.)
Not in particular. But I like the idea of something simultaneously being
familiar and alien.

> 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).
That is entirely a matter of intuition, style, and taste.

> 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.)
Maps yes, drawings/cartoons only in the past. Calligraphy just a little. And
flags, of course.

> How many of you have a special script in your conlang?
Yes. Hattic and Askaic share a script, that it is like a fourth leg between
Roman, Cyrillic, and Greek. It is based on a "secret" script my father used;
after his death, I decyphered it, and then modified it to make it suitable for
Hattic.

> If you use Roman script, how recognizably "phonetic" is your writing system?
> In other words, do you use unconventional letters to represent sounds?
> Why?
Almost entirely phonetic, yes. Strange enough, this goes for all my languages.
But there is nothing particularly unconventional about their phonologies.
Wenedyk has both Polish phonology and the Polish alphabet, Hattic and Askaic
use the Roman alphabet with a few haceks and tildes, Vozgian uses a Cyrillic
script.

> 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?
Well, my languages are all *work in progress*, so translations are moment
recordings by definition. What I write are basically sentences to demonstrate a
grammatical feature, short texts like the Pater Noster, the Babel Text, the
North Wind and the Sun, and relay texts.

> How many of you sing in your language and have invented songs for that
> purpose?
No. I sing, I write music, and I create languages, but I have never made the
connection. What I miss is poetry; I am not much of a text-writer, and this has
always withheld me from writing music in my own conlangs: the lack of texts.
But I have written choral works in Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Old High German,
Tocharian, and Ancient Egyptian.

> How many of you started conlanging when you were a teenager and have stuck
> to the same language over many years?   Why?
Yes, I did some primitive conlanging when I was a teenager, but they died along
with my adolescence.

> How many of you change conlangs regularly, developing structures for many
> languages but not sticking with any one for very long?  Why?
I think I'm a bit in the middle here: I don't belong to the category of
conlanger who stick their whole life with one language, but neither do I belong
to those who have over 50 languages with less than fifty words each. Basically,
I have three major projects (I consider the members of a family parts of one
project), and sometimes I switch from one project to another for some reason
(when my interest for my current project fades away for some reason, or when my
interest for something else has grown suddenly). I have found myself unable to
work on several languages simultaneously.

> 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?
Not at all. The fact that the Pater Noster is always the first thing I ever
translate into a new language has nothing to do with religion; I like it
because of its choice of words and because it has been translated into almost
every thinkable language, including most conlangs.

> 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).
No. I don't have to hide anything, and I never fool people. I simply avoid
doing things that I might want to keep secret later. And I don't keep diaries.

> How many of you can speak your language, at least to yourself and your pet?
> child?  spouse?  <G>  To what extent?
Really badly! Usually I need to check the word list and the gramar for every
second word I write. No, that's not true. When I am sitting quite deeply into a
language (Wenedyk at the moment), I can do most things off-hand, but I still
can't call myself fluent in it. Now the point has been raised, I want to say
that I am very strongly opposed to the idea of teaching a conlang to your
children (unless they explicitly want it, of course). To me, conlanging is my
own private thing, and I sincerily detest the idea of forcing it upon my
children. They should be allowed to choose their own hobbies.

> How many of you have put up websites where your language can be showcased?
> If so, what is the website address?
Hattic: http://steen.free.fr/hattic.htm
Wenedyk: http://www.geocities.com/wenedyk/language/index.html
Askaic: not online yet, but a long article about it is waiting to be published
in Christophe's journal "Language Creation".
Megza and Vozgian: nothing yet.

Samples can also be found on langmaker.com (Babel texts), Irina's Starling's
Song site, and Nik Taylor's Sixth Relay site.

> How many of you have made soundbytes of your language so the rest of us can
> hear it?  If so, give the site.
Unfortunately, I don't have the technology to record anything into an MP3 or
even a WAV file (or perhaps I have it, but just don't know how to do it). Would
love to do it, though.

> 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"?
It is absolutetely not a secret, but somehow it occurs rarely as a topic of
conversation. I have told some people about it, but usually, there is no
reaction at all, not even a negative one. It is not my impression that people
have a negative opinion about it; they just cannot place it and thus prefer to
neglect it.
My fiancée does not like it, but only be cause she wants me to spend my time in
a more sociable way. As a matter of fact, she doesn't like any of my activities
that take place in isolation.

> 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?)
Unfortunately, no one has ever asked me that. Otherwise, I could give them a
nice exposé about it. Perhaps they know that and want to avoid it.

> 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?
"Better listen to a Beethoven symphony than write my own symphony? Oh, come
on...". Seriously, this is comparing apples with pears. Learning a language is
undoubtedly a useful, educational and perhaps recreative experience, but
definitely not a very creative one. But then, it is very difficult for the
artist to explain his urge to create to a person who does't feel that urge
himself.


> PART V:  GENERAL DEMOGRAPHICS:
>
> What is your age (optional--and can be general: 30-40, for instance).
32.

> 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 work as an application engineer for a huge bank. But only since two years.
Before that, I was educated as a Sovietologist and worked as a translator
(Polish-Dutch). Artistically, I am primarily a composer.

> What is your gender?
Male.

> What is your nationality and your native language?
The Netherlands, Dutch.

> What natural languages do you speak or have studied?
Fluent: Dutch (native), English, Polish, German.
Able to speak and write: French, Russian.
Able to read: Ukrainian, Greek, Latin (I had Latin and Greek for six resp. five
years at school, and they were the most important part of my education. To give
you an idea: in my fifth year they usurped six hours a week each (on a total of
30 hours), where English was given only two hours a week. However, these lesson
where exclusively aimed at passive knowledge of the languages).
Studied: Tocharian (which does not mean that I could produce one single
sentence in it; all I want to say is that I like to read and reread its grammar
over and over again). Same goes with Gothic, Common Slavic. Done some lessons
in Italian.

> How many of you have chosen a profession in linguistics because of your
> interest in inventing languages?  Or plan a profession in linguistics?
No direct connection at all. I would rather say that my translatorship and my
conlanging are branches of the same tree, i.e. my interest for languages.

> What have you learned from conlanging?
That is a very difficult question. My first reaction would be: "Nothing, my
conlangs have learnt more from me." But thinking a bit harder I must admit that
I learnt a lot. For example, the process of creating Wenedyk has forced me to
gather an enormous amount of information about Polish phonology, the
development of Polish and other languages from Common Slavic, and about Vulgar
Latin, Classical Latin, Rhaeto-Romance, Romanian, Italian... Same goes, to a
lesser extent, with my other languages, too.

> What texts on language and linguistics have you consulted to help invent
> your language?
At home, I have a whole bookcase full of grammars, dictionaries, Teach Yourself
books, and the like. For the rest, I regularly consult online grammars and
dictionaries of various languages, mainly Proto-Indo-European and Tocharian.

> 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).
No. My father liked languages, too, but he was not overly fanatic about it. He
did have his own alphabet, though, and enjoyed playing with secret codes. But
that does not qualify somebody as a conlanger, I guess.

> Can you give me a short sample of your language with interlinear description
> and translation?
Hattic:

"Flãsid nazer ajder hirštever ušik lauz, ta ad Chada Respublika zaržu tkohu; ma
lalãsu jovanu adan lauz, ta ad tkohu zaržu kosmu."

(or, if you have a problem with the special characters):

"Fla~sid nazer ajder hirs^tever us^ik lauz, ta ad Chada Respublika zarz^u
tkohu; ma lala~su jovanu adan lauz, ta ad tkohu zarz^u kosmu."

can:FUT:3s  no:m:NOMs  sensible:m:NOMs  human-like/human:m:NOMs  being:NOMs
say:INF  that  be:PRES:3s  Hattic:f:NOMs  Republic:NOMs  center:NOMs
earth:GENs // but  say:COND:3s  only/solely  duck/idiot:NOMs  say:INF  that
be:PRES:3s  earth:NOMs  center:NOMs  universe:GENs

"No sensible human being will be able to say, that the Hattic Republic is the
center of the earth. But only an idiot would say, that the earth is the center
of the universe."


Askaic:

"Esra mipi zva ade palka, lekeiš en zomud."

when  baby:NOMs  your:f:NOMs  be:PRES:3s  sick/ill:f:NOMs  stay:OPT:3s  in
house:LOCs

"When your baby is ill, you must stay at home."


Wenedyk:

"Czaru doni, pocierzy oczywier wiatr akwy?"

request:PRES:1s  mister/sir:DATs  can:CONJ:1s  receive:INF  glass:ACCs
water:GENs

"Sir, could I please have a glass of water?"


> 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.
Well, if you can find anything usable here, be my guest. Be as indiscreet as
you want, you have my blessing.

Jan

P.S. Maybe a strange question, Sally, but have you filled out the survey
yourself? I would be interested to read it.

=====
"Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones

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