Re: basic vocab (long)

On Mon, 18 Sep 2000, Jonathan Chang wrote:

>     I agree... A small, major part of why I am so keen (perhaps overzealous)
> to conlang, is that I find myself wishing to overcome my English-language
> restrictions. I find that concept-words I need do not exist in English or
> that these words are appropriated from languages that do.
>     Also I find that I definitely have a different concept of the world than
> what is expressible in English (or any Western European language)... probably
> due to the fact that I think instinctively in a more "Asiatic" fashion
> (specifically Taoist, Buddhist and - to some degree - primitivist and Hindu).
>     Even the "simple" concept of time can make a huge difference in cultures.
Amen!  I find myself coining terminology in my writing for concepts that
make perfectly good sense but I can't find words in English!  In fact,
not being able to find words in English or Korean for things I want to
say happens very often, especially in math--and while math notation is
powerful, there are often times that it can't express what I see as the
*poetry* of a particular mathematical concept (for lack of a better term).

The *idea* (not the math or physics, alas!) behind general relativity is
one I find extremely poetic.  I can almost *touch* the idea of curvature
<-> gravity.  But I can't seem to find words to express this in a fashion
that satisfies me.  Personally, I think spoken language is hideously
inadequate to discuss mathematical concepts; I find myself *signing*
ideas (not with any particular system, though in high school calculus it
got so my teacher could interpret what I was frantically gesticulating
even though I couldn't verbalize the idea).  And there are
nonmathematical areas where the words just don't do it, whether in French
(well, 5 years' worth of it), English or (semiconversational) Korean.
Conlanging gives me a way to concisely express what I see though I
imagine a complete idioconlang would be awful to translate from Yoon
Ha-ese to English (or language of choice).

>     To me - ever since very little, time is neither linear nor perfectly
> cyclical... it seemed to be more like an everchanging weave of countless
> spirals that expanded and contracted, sometiming faster or slower. This was
> based on my observations of the world around me as a little tyke: wow, things
> happen in simultaneousnesses...
<wry g>  I don't have that particular worldview, but I do find the
concept of "the present" (as opposed to past, or future) extremely
difficult to "get."  Future is fine.  Past is fine.  Present as
boundary-line is just too confusing.

I think in seasons, not years; and also in "subseasons" within the hour,
the day.  Someday I may make a personal artlang to express things like this.

YHL