USAGE: neologisms for neography (was: Defining words and how they are used)

Sally Caves wrote:
> Interestingly, outsiders (read colleagues of mine interested in this who
> haven't heard of conlang) would call this "xenography."  That term,
> however, has connotations of "glossographia," i.e., writing something in
> a script that is foreign to you through some kind of spiritual agent.  :)
Yes, strictly 'xenography' should just mean "foreign writing/ foreign
script", thus Cyrillic is, in the strictest sense, xenographic to us in
western Europe. But in the domain of psychic research the term
'xenoglossia' (literally: foreign language) is used to refer to the
phenomenon of a person knowing a language which they have not learnt. So
I guess that 'xenography' or 'xenographia' is similarly used for the
phenomenon of a person being able to read or write a script they have
never learnt. Whether they are considered to have done so through a
spiritual agent or not is, I guess, depended upon the view of the
psychic researcher(s).
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caeruleancentaur wrote:
 >>Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> wrote:
 >
 >
 >>I've heard both "neography" and "conscript".
 >
 >>There's a Yahoo!Group (neographies) dedicated to them.
 >
 > Not that I have anything against homonyms, but <conscript> is already
 > in use.
 >
 > I would use neography.
 >
 > <conscript> happens to be one of those pairs of verb/noun
 > heterophones: 'conscript / con'script.

Yep - 'conscript' is already in use with a quite different meaning - and
that meaning of 'conscript(us)' (enrolled, registered) is now more than
2000 years old, so I don't think it is likely to change   :)

On this list, we do indeed use 'conscript' or 'con-script' to mean a
'constructed script' on analogy with conlang and conworld. That's
perfectly fine IMO on this list.

But the word 'neography' ("new script") seems to me to have established
itself. It's the term used on Langmaker, where you can find a whole list
of neographies:
http://www.langmaker.com/db/Langmaker:Neographies

It seems to me that the term least likely to be misunderstood by
'outsiders' (i.e. non-conlangers) is 'neography'. But in a context where
it is not going to be misunderstood (i.e. where conlang & conworld are
understood), I see no reason to abandon our 'conscripts'   :)

As Sally says, 'xenography' has psychic or parapsychic connotations -
besides to anyone who knows Greek, it doesn't suggest the right meaning.

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"A mind which thinks at its own expense will always
interfere with language."         J.G. Hamann, 1760
--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"A mind which thinks at its own expense will always
interfere with language."         J.G. Hamann, 1760