Re: Conlanging evangelism (was: Re: Conlang Books - ASP & CL101)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Benct Philip Jonsson" <bpjonsson@...>


> Sally Caves skrev:
>
> > I suppose I'm a conlang evangelist as well, since I
> > promote it whenever I see it among my students! :)
>
> Do you come across it often? Sad to say I've only ever come
> across only two or three other people interested in non-
> auxlang conlanging outside the online conlanging milieu.
> One of them was my stepson, but he alas soon lost the
> interest again.
Hi, Benct.  Since I have a lot of students, I come across it often enough to
know that many young people are doing this, and that it's just the tip of
the iceberg.  Let's see: there was Doug Ball, a student of mine, and now
famous :), there was a student who had heard of this from me and started her
own language; there was a student in my creative writing class who was
making up his own language and script and writing things down in it; there
was a nice, twenty-something post-doctoral student from a neighboring
university who told me that he was fascinated with finding new words and
attaching meanings to them.  He especially liked -od endings:  "margod,"
"besod," etc.  He was rather shy about it.  Then I did the NPR interview,
and I got a lot of emails from mothers whose children were doing it; then
there was the family in my town who came over to see me-- all three
daughters were inventing languages and worlds.  The mother, a timorous
woman, was fearful that they were "abnormal," and wanted reassurance that
normal people were doing this.  Like the Bronte children, they were socially
withdrawn, and she was hopeful that I could direct them to the list and to
more outgoing pursuits with new friends.  I never saw them again!  When I
taught my History of the English Language course and asked them if they
would like to see a course in "Imaginary Languages" they raised their hands
vigorously.

> OTOH It's a secret vice, so I may have come across some
> interested people without knowing it.
Oh, I'm sure!  It is fast becoming the not-so-secret vice. :)

Sally