Re: Uglossia and Utopia

On Wed, 22 Sep 1999, Sally Caves wrote:

>
> Jeffrey Schmidt, however, uses the term "uglossia," and I thought
> I would follow suit.  Utopia of course means "no place"; and a
> uglossia by extension would be a "no language"--meaning that
> it is fictional, made-up, existing in the mind of the creator.
> That was to be my connection.  Is there any way, though, that
> any of you artlangers look upon your creation as "utopic" in the
> way this word has come to be used--as an improvement upon society,
> or upon language and expression?
>
In a certain, very special sense, yes, I think of Denden as improving
this world - I like variety, and another language adds to it, which
is good thing... Same with anything that adds to the world's store of
'art'. What this world needs (amongst other things) is more languages.

But Denden is certainly not meant to make people better people. Andal
isn't even an example to be followed... (Not that there's any chance
of it, when an outsider, Mark Rosenfelder, looked at my 'how to tell
you're a Charyan', I got the impression he was quite glad not to be
living in Charya.)

And while I like the quirks Denden adds to my repertoire of ways to
think about things, express them, it's nothing a few months of
studying, say Burushaski, wouldn't give me too - except that the
Denden quirks are products of my creativity and thus dear to my
heart.

>
> I would also like to start another Translation Relay Game if anybody
> is up for it, and if it hasn't been attempted too recently.  It would
> be a short poem; haven't quite decided on it yet.  Let me know privately
> if you would like to contribute again.  Or for the first time.
>
I'd like to join this time  - if I can tear myself away from Kura.

(Quick Kura update for everyone: I didn't really get the dynamic nature
of Python first time around, and started making lots of different screens
to do essentially the same thing to all the support tables. Now I've
discovered what getattr, setattr and hasattr are for, and I'm going
pretty strong. Expect a 0.01 release within a few weeks! Also, I've
decided upon a splash graphic, which is nice to have, too.)

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://denden.conlang.org/~bsarempt