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

From:Carsten Becker <carbeck@...>
Date:Friday, October 20, 2006, 13:59
Hi,

From: "Jörg Rhiemeier" <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 5:36 PM

> I also feel that at least here in Germany, there is rather > little community sense.
Plus, conlanging is somewhat too excentric for the man on the street, and most Germans generally don't feel well being confronted with excentricity: | The Importance of Being _Ernsthaft_ | | In Germany, life is serious, and so is everything else. | Outside Berlin, even humour is no laughing matter, and if | you want to tell a joke you may want to submit a written | application first. | The Germans strongly disapprove of the irrelevant, the | flippant, the accidental. Serendipity is not a word in their | language. The reason for this is that such things are not | _ernsthaft_, serious. It is hardly conceivable (and | certainly not desirable) that a good idea might arise by | chance or come from somebody lacking the proper | qualifications. On the whole Germans would prefer to forgo a | clever invention rather than admit that creativity is a | random and chaotic process. (Quoted from: Zeidenitz/Barkow: Xenophobe's guide to the Germans) As for my parents, they first found it a bit weird, but then got used to it. My dad even commended me for my stamina regarding Ayeri when he discovered that I even did some serious research for it. My brother has dabbled with Tengwar and Quenya a bit as well since he read LoTR. Both my brother and my sister think as well that conlanging is maybe a little geeky, but generally don't disapprove of it. My sister even asked me to teach one of my scripts to her (you guess which).
> A conlanger I know from this list recently moved > into the city where I live, but he turned down my attempts > to meet him in real life. (He didn't say "No thanks, I > don't want to meet you", but it was obvious to me from his > reactions that he wasn't interested.)
No, in the contrary: It's not that this conlanger* wouldn't be interested in such a meet, but he has just had enough other things to do up to now. He passes your house at least once a week (since his parish is in Karlstraße) and thinks "You must ask Jörg for a meet sometime", but he thought it wouldn't be right to show up at the door just like that. Regards, Carsten *) Assuming you mean the one who's also on the ZBB :-P