Re: "Coming out" about conlanging to people in Academia [was Re: Caryatic]

    Several of my friends know, as well as my girlfriend and parents (many
more people will know tomorrow at my mother's sixth and final baby shower
[she's forty-one, and this child will be her second], when I'll present to
her a children's book in English, Spanish, French, German, Russian,
Esperanto, Megdevi and Wivoys [the latter two my languages, of course :)]).
One of my good friends helped me make burn a CD with some spoken samples of
some of languages.  That was the time when I noticed, of all odd things (and
I swear to you, this is true), he pronounced the word "okay" as [N=.'q_he]
(in case I'm getting the IPA wrong, that's a syllabic uvular nasal, a
voiceless, aspirated uvular plosive and a close-mid, tense, unrounded front
vowel).  He's a native speaker of English, and both of his parents are, as
well, and there parents before them, and so on.  He's never had exposure to
uvular plosives, to my knowledge.  It's so weird!  Anyway, none of us (my
friends and I) were ever nerds, nor are we now.  I've probably gotten an odd
response or two, but it's usually from parents of other people who don't like
to mess with me if they don't have to.
    Oddly enough, I had an "experience" with language creation before I ever
studied any language other than Spanish, or had created any language.  My
friends and I have always liked to film comedy sketches, a la The State and
Kids in the Hall, just for our own enjoyment, and I wrote one in which some
government official was stating to the masses that the English language had
become too difficult, and therefore a new language was to take its place.  He
then opened up a book and started to read from it.  "The new word for 'apple'
will be:  Snj&:!"  (Said in a high-pitched, squealing voice.)  "The new word
for 'book' will be: xluksfugukli!"  It went on like this for a little bit.
    Oh, and has anyone ever heard of the band Magma?  Gens qui vivent en
France?

-David

Replies