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

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