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

At 3:10 PM -0500 1/5/03, Sally Caves wrote:
>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?
No.

>What is your name and what do you call your conlang(s)?
>
>When did you start it/them?
>
>Are you still working with it/them or have you abandoned it or them?
>
>What Celtic features have you borrowed?  What is the structure of your
>language?  Be specific.
>
>What innovations did you introduce?  (new constructions, perhaps a new
>script, etc.)
>
>What features of Celtic languages (or a particular Celtic language)
>initially inspired or intrigued you?  For example, Tolkien, as he described
>it in "Welsh and English" was impressed by the beauty of a Welsh inscription
>he saw on a building: Adeiladwyd 1887 ('built 1887').  He loved words like
>wybren, so much more "mellifluous" than our borrowed word "sky."  He was
>likewise enthralled by Finnish and Hebrew.  So he deliberately set out to
>make his Elvish languages beautiful.   Was this a draw for you as well in
>choosing Celtic as a model? (I understand that T's Elvish languages are not
>exclusively "Celtic."  He has described them, however, as being
>"European-like.")
>
>On the other hand, perhaps the Celtic structures, their VSO, their
>paraphrastics, their initial mutations, their spelling conventions, their
>general strangeness caught your fancy, not necessarily their "beauty" or
>"romance."  Comment?
>
>How many of you are also scholars of Celtic languages?   Scholars of other
>languages?
>
>How were you introduced to them?
>
>
>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?
Although the languages I create don't look or sound anything like Tolkien's, the idea
that one could create a language was due to my reading Tolkien at an
impressionable age.

>How many of you based your conlang on one of Tolkien's languages, or your
>conculture in Middle Earth?
>
>How many of you have a constructed world, and, if so, does it include some
>of the races we associate with Celtic or Scandinavian mythology? (Elves,
>Dwarves, medieval societies of humans, Faeries or Fays?  Selkies?  Wizards?)
>
>How many of you were inspired to examine Welsh, Hebrew, or Finnish because
>of your examination of Tolkien?
Welsh, yes. My interest in Hebrew is due to my religious upbringing. My interest in
Finnish is due partly to Tolkien, but mostly to a Finnish foreign exchange
student I was sweet on in high school </sigh>.

>How many of you were inspired to invent a conlang or a conculture because of
>some influence OTHER than Tolkien?
More concrete influences for my conlangs are non-Tolkien, and are described below.

>How many of you were inspired to invent a language because you engage in
>Roll-Playing Games?
>
>How many of you were inspired to invent a language because you heard of this
>listserv?
>
>How many of you are members of the Mythopoeic Society, or the Society for
>Creative Anachronism, or other High Fantasy Groups?
>
>
>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?
Dirk Elzinga. I have three projects:
1)  Miapimoquitch
2)  Shemspreg
3)  Ustekkli

>So what is unappealing about the Indo-European model for conlanging?  Or
>Tolkien's Elvish?
I don't find Indo-European unappealing at all; I just wanted to do something
different. In fact, Shemspreg is based on Proto-Indo-European, and Ustekkli
phonology is inspired by Germanic.

>How did you start conlanging?  What was your initial inspiration?
I read LotR as a teenager, but that showed me that such a thing as inventing
one's own language was possible; it didn't provide me with concrete examples to
emulate or mimic.

>Did you know about Tolkien's inventions?  Read the books, the appendices?
>etc.  Or not?
Yes. I am an avid reader of appendices and footnotes.

>What language types have you modeled your language(s) after?
Miapimoquitch was initially inspired by several American Indian languages (Sierra Miwok,
Yokuts, Algonkian, Yuman, Numic) as well as Austronesian. It has since acquired
Estonian and Salish features.

Shemspreg was based on Proto-Indo-European. I stripped down the grammar and reimagined
the phonology; the idea was to create a mock-IAL, but it grew beyond that into
a serious project (I can't sustain parody for any length of time).

Ustekkli is inspired by Germanic phonology and Uto-Aztecan morpho-syntax. I'll probably
toss in some more Estonian for good measure (gotta love Estonian prosody!).

>What features of these languages or language types appeal to you?
Sierra Miwok and Yokuts have interesting prosodic systems which interact with
morphology, as does Estonian. I like the minimalist nature of Numic consonant
inventories (and the vowel [1]!), so I combined them in Miapimoquitch.
Algonkian and Yuman aren't as present in Miapimoquitch, but I was intrigued by
the idea of a person hierarchy which determines grammatical relations. I took
phase from Rotuman, but it's implementation in Miapimoquitch has veered away
from the original idea. Switch reference is from Numic, but again, its
implementation in Miapimoquitch has departed from that model. (Numic switch
reference is rooted in the tense/aspect system, while Miapimoquitch switch
reference looks more like case marking -- even though it isn't!)

I liked the Proto-Indo-European stem gradation. That's about it; not much to
hang a language on, which is why I ultimately abandoned Shemspreg (it was also
too frustrating coming up with vocabulary).

Ustekkli was inspired by two things: Germanic syllable structure and vowel quantity
alternations, and Uto-Aztecan morpho-syntax -- specifically the absolutive (not
a case) and second position auxiliaries. I'm sure more things will find their
way into the language as I progress.

>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 find the Numic languages very soothing to listen to, and I have tried to
emulate this quality in Miapimoquitch (others have commented that Numic sounds
like the mumblings of toothless old drunks). I'm not sure to what extent I've
succeeded, since I haven't been able to put together enough prose to read aloud
for comparison. The sentences I use for examples do seem to be a rough image of
Numic prosody, though.

>For how many of you, though, is beauty and/or efficiency a factor in your
>language?  Or elegance?  How would you define these terms?
While I've tried to engineer the sounds to fit my taste, I'm more concerned with the
"elegance" of Miapimoquitch grammar. The picture I have in mind of syntax is
something like Le Corbusier's modular architecture (if I understood Le
Corbusier correctly); that is, the repetition on different scales of the same
structures and proportions. The Miapimoquitch "modulor" is the clause (don't
push this analogy too hard; I only came up with it a little while ago).

>For how many of you is the "exotic" a desired feature of your invented
>language?
Exoticism for its own sake does nothing for me. I like it when it shows up in the
interaction of carefully thought-out systems, but I don't consciously strive
for it.

>How many of you invent a non-human language?  And if so, how alien are its
>sounds and constructions?
>
>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.)
I draw inspiration from natural languages and borrow features from them, but I
try to blend them into a new whole. With Miapimoquitch I started with two
germs: prosodic morphology, and Rotuman phase. It grew from there. Ustekkli
also started with two germs: Germanic phonology (specifically, Norwegian
syllable structure and Frisian vowel breaking), and Uto-Aztecan morpho-syntax.
I'm sure I'll toss more things in as it gets going (*if* it gets going; all of
my conlanging time seems to get swallowed up by Miapimoquitch).

>How many of you invent a language based on a particular type (Ergative,
>Accusative, Trigger, etc.)?
I haven't invented enough languages to detect a pattern, but so far Shemspreg
and Ustekkli are nominative-accusative, and Miapimoquitch is hierarchical.

>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 don't consciously strive to create difficult or irregular structures. The
"irregularities" which show up in Miapimoquitch come about as the result of the
close interaction of phonology and morphology. For example, unbound phase is
marked by an initial heavy syllable. This is most often accomplished by
geminating the medial consonant.

tukana 'thrush' -> tukkana 'a thrush'

However, the consonants /s,h,w,y/ are immune from gemination. So when a stem has one of
these consonants medially, the vowel lengthens instead.

kusuta 'piñon pine' -> kuusuta 'a piñon pine'

Sometimes stems already have a heavy initial syllable. In these cases, the suffix -ka is
used to indicate unbound phase.

tampaa 'potato' -> tampaka 'a potato'

When the stem has only two syllables, the suffix is added in unbound phase, even if
the medial consonant can be geminated:

lupi 'muskrat' -> luppika 'a muskrat'

The reason for this apparent irregularity is phonological and not morphological.
After the initial heavy syllable, what remains should be able to fill a
prosodic foot (single heavy syllable, two light syllables). If it can't, the
-ka is added to fill out the foot. The resolution of the irregularity isn't in
the same grammatical domain as its cause; that is, suffixing -ka is a
morphological solution to a phonlogical problem.

>To what degree is accessibility, efficiency, and regularity important to
>your conlang?  What natural language "faults" are you correcting?
I like regular systems, even if (or especially when) their regularity bridges
grammatical domains, but I am not trying to correct any natural language
defects. Deep down, I believe that instances of irregularity are just
regularities that remains hidden.

>How many of you invent logical languages?
>
>How many of you invent IALs?
>
>How many of you have invented non-Tolkienesque or non European concultures
>and what are they like?
I'm working on a pre-contact puebloan culture for Miapimoquitch, but I don't have
a lot of specifics yet.

>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 still pull words out of the air, but I have computer-generated a list of
eligible forms that I can hold onto (eligible forms are forms which satisfy the
phonotactics of the language). I am slowly developing morphological mechanisms
for deriving new words. But for my own satisfaction, I figure that I will need
at least 10,000 simple roots before I start relying on derivational strategies
for new words.

What little vocabulary I've developed for Ustekkli has been pulled out of the air.

>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 conlang to receive the accolades of my fellow conlangers :-).

I suppose its a way for me to combat the "fieldwork blues": i.e., can't get
funding for field research, can't get people to talk to me when I have funding,
can't make sense of the data I gather when they agree to talk to me. I get
control over data by making it up. And it's just fun.

>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's a window. When the glass is clear, you can see through to the Other Side.

>If it is a communicable language, to whom do you speak it?
>
>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 tend to obsess over details of Miapimoquitch, so I haven't been struck by its
foreignness very often. I don't often stop to look at the lay of the land; I
pick up rocks and polish them instead.

>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).
In my drive to recreate a Numic quality to the sound of Miapimoquitch, I will
often "borrow" stems from Shoshoni or Southern Paiute. But even then, they tend
to get altered before being put to use. I'm not sure what makes a word
authentically Miapimoquitch in character ...

>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 was very taken by the idea of calligraphy in high school. I still am, but I don't do much.

>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?
Miapimoquitch is the language of a preliterate society, so I have no fictional conventions
for a native writing system. However, part of the backstory for Miapimoquitch
involves its original transcription into the Deseret Alphabet; I have still to
establish those conventions.

>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?
>
>How many of you sing in your language and have invented songs 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 started conlanging as a teenager, but I abandoned that language fairly
quickly. Miapimoquitch began in 1993, and I've been working on it more or less
constantly since then.

>How many of you change conlangs regularly, developing structures for many
>languages but not sticking with any one for very long?  Why?
>
>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?
>
>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).
The very first language I started was meant as a collection of in jokes between me
and a friend of mine. He withdrew from the project early on, leaving me with
this mass of not-very-funny stuff. I tossed it and moved on.

>How many of you can speak your language, at least to yourself and your pet?
>child?  spouse?  <G>  To what extent?
>
>How many of you have put up websites where your language can be showcased?
>If so, what is the website address?
An earlier version of Miapimoquitch is on www.langmaker.com under the name Tepa.
The vocabulary is still valid, but most of the grammar has changed.

>How many of you have made soundbytes of your language so the rest of us can
>hear it?  If so, give the site.
>
>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"?
The worst I've gotten has been a puzzled stare followed by a quick change of
subject. But then I don't talk about it a lot.

>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?)
>
>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?
It would depend on the person making the remark. My experience is that with
German, Dutch, and Shoshoni, I already know more "real languages' than most
people who would offer that criticism. And while I don't really "know" Shoshoni
(I couldn't carry on a conversation), I usually don't disabuse people of this
notion who are being rude, annoying, or condescending.

>
>PART V:  GENERAL DEMOGRAPHICS:
>
>What is your age (optional--and can be general: 30-40, for instance).
36

>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)?
Professor (linguistics)

>What is your gender?
male

>What is your nationality and your native language?
USA, English.

>What natural languages do you speak or have studied?
speak:
German, Dutch

studied:
French, Hebrew, Classical Greek, Navajo, Old English, Shoshoni

>How many of you have chosen a profession in linguistics because of your
>interest in inventing languages?  Or plan a profession in linguistics?
That's me. I wanted to add some verisimilitude to a project, so I took Introduction
to the Study of Language. (I also enjoyed my German grammar courses immensely,
to the annoyance of almost everyone else in class.) I was hooked.

>What have you learned from conlanging?
My professional life has actually been enhanced by my conlanging. For example, I
would never have picked up an article on Salish syntax if I didn't need some
ideas for Miapimoquitch clause structure. In the process, I learned more about
syntax.

>What texts on language and linguistics have you consulted to help invent
>your language?
I've looked at work on Salish languages (word-formation and syntax), word-based
morphology, switch reference, and Estonian prosody, but I don't usually consult
general texts.

>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 can only muster a single sentence, so let me give you a good one:

wapate lukkehisimpi atipukan  ['waBaD1 'lukk1hiSimbi: a'tSiBuka:~]
wa= pate         lukke   -hisi   -mpi           a=   tipukan
1=  continuously weave:U -string -with the hand DET= sage.hen
'I'm making the "Sage Hen" string figure.'

>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.
Not at all.
--
Dirk Elzinga                                               Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"It is important not to let one's aesthetics interfere with the appreciation of
fact." - Stephen Anderson