Re: Conlang Dinner in NYC

Roger Mills wrote:


> Assuming Conlang Day was June 10, dissipated.... Evidently getting 100-plus
> conlangers organized is like herding cats ;-))  Perhaps we should call the
> current relay "the 10th Anniversary Memorial Relay"?  Anyway it's good to
> see that a few are going to celebrate; wish I could be there.
>
> Or is the correct date July 10?

I am fairly sure that 18 July is correct.  That is the date of the

first identifiable posting to a clear predecessor of this list
(see below).

There were informal private mails to a small group before
that: the oldest I have is dated 19 June, but it is clearly
not the Very First, since it is a reply.  The original recipients of
this Eldest of Screeds were And Rosta, John Ross, Steve Rice, and
Marcus Brodeur (aka Tempus Fugit).

By 16 July the list had grown to the 48 following persons
(or email addresses if the person is not known):

John Ross, Steve Rice, Roger Kenner, And Rosta, Marcus Brodeur,
REB%UNCVX1.BITNET@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu, Rick Harrison, Doug Merritt,
Ron Hale-Evans, Gary Bisaga, twschie@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu, Jim Hearne,
Rick Morneau, Bob Slaughter, Mick Collins, Mark Acfield, Byron Watts,
Lesley Grant, adams@buphy.bu.edu, Francis Stracke, "Major",
John McKenna, Richard Kennaway, Jonathan Pool,
rblack@shemtaia.weeg.uiowa.edu, Alan Beale, rjm@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz,
Allyn Craig, Jonas Wallgren, Prentiss Riddle, Amanda Lynn Babcock,
William Overington, Steve Shoopak, David Wolff, Don Taylor,
Glenn Gorsuch, Ian Smith, Dean Gahlon, Jay Coskey, John Cowan,
Nick Nicholas, Philippe Berizzi, v092pxca@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu,
Lewis Leavitt, Stephen Tice, Michael Scott Baldwin, Edward Kovach, and
Bruce Gilson.

I think that And and I are the only survivors from that era.

Finally, the First Conlang Posting:


Date: Thu, 18 Jul 91 16:32 EDT
From: Ronald Hale-Evans <cbmvax!uunet!binah.cc.brandeis.edu!EVANS>
Subject: Ding-dong! The list is up!
To: conlang@buphy.bu.edu

Saluton, amikoj!

Glad to see the mailing list is working.

I have a question for y'all: has anyone ever thought that Vladimir Nabokov's
book *Pale Fire* might have been at least partially a satire of the Esperanto
movement and Wm. Auld's poem *La Infana Raso*? I have just started the latter,
and this thought seemed plausible to me for several reasons.

(1) VN was expert with languages; he was a native Russophone, but his
English-language stuff seems more beautiful and liquid stylistically to me than
most stuff written by native Anglophones. VN could be quite elitist; it seems
possible to me he might have scorned those who chose to learn E-o rather than
become as fluent as he in other (European( languages.

(2) A friend of mine suggested that since VN hated Communism, he might have
taken a dislike to the Utopian ideologies of some Esperantists.

(3) *Pale Fire* contains a constructed language (Zemblan), one which was
constructed even within the context of the story, at least from one point of
view. PF is all about mirrors and distortions of reality--could it be intended
to mirror E-o?

(4) A substantial chunk of the book is the poem "Pale Fire" proper, which seems
similar to *La Infana Raso* in a few ways: it is an "epic" poem, it takes a
strongly humanist stance (though not perhaps as strong as IR), and it is
written by someone acclaimed as the greatest poet of an imaginary country
(Zembla = Esperantujo; Shade = Auld ?).

(4) Finally, I saw a chunk of PF (translated as "Pala Fajro") advertised in the
ELNA catalog. Has someone else therefore noticed the similarities besides me?
I'm too new to Esperantujo to know the history of E-o litcrit, and I haven't
read PF recently enough or IR enough at all to be able to more than rough out
the comparison. Can someone help me out?

I hope to post more soon, including a grammar and vocabulary of Nabokov's
Zemblan (such as it is; I've misplaced my notes on it meanwhile), and my notes
on little languages I constructed when I was younger, including my favorite,
Schklorpya (intended to sound somewhat like an English-language tape played
backwards), and Huddr (not really remarkable to me anymore, except for its
strong metaphysical bias). Plus, I believe I can dredge up a file on
Klingonaase (the Klingon battle language) that I found somewhere, and I have
Auld's translation of Lennon's "Imagine" ("Imagu").

Meantime, I'm sketching out a dialect called New English, based on E-Prime and
some other ideas (check out this month's *Magical Blend* if you're curious
about E', or see if your local university library carries the journal *Etc.*)
for my zine *Singularity*'s column "Postique Capta", which usually prints a
bunch of new, mostly futuristic, terms.

AL SINJORO ROSS: Have you spoken with the Planned Language Server folks about
archiving some of this list's stuff?

Hope to hear from y'all soon.

Se oni dezirus, ke mi tradukas miajn mesagxojn al Esperanton, mi gxoje
os.

Ron Hale-Evans

P.S. Can anyone tell me how to get off the damned ESPER-L list? I've done
everything I can from LISTSERV and written to Turgut Kafaoglu (sp?) twice.



--
There is / one art             || John Cowan <jcowan@...>
no more / no less              || http://www.reutershealth.com
to do / all things             || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
with art- / lessness           \\ -- Piet Hein

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