Re: Uglossia and Utopia

On Wed, 22 Sep 1999 12:32:28 -0700, Sally Caves <scaves@...>
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?
Well, most of my languages are just for fun, either directly as an
interesting end in itself, or indirectly as a component of a conworld =
with
its own conpeoples and concultures. I think one of my goals for Tirelat, =
as
I piece together the English-Tirelat dictionary, will be to clear up some
of the confusion surrounding many common English words, with the eventual
goal of writing the vocabulary definitions for my other languages in
Tirelat. For instance, Tirelat distinguishes 3 meanings for "short": =
pirki
(short in physical length), teri (short in height), and pyari (short in
duration). Tirelat has separate words for "rock/stone" as a material
(kem'ar) and as a countable object (tzic), rather than the arbitrary
distinctions made in English (e.g., why do we collect "rocks" but throw
"stones"?). I guess that could be seen as an improvement on English, in a
limited way.

>And while I'm at it, I would like Irina's permission and that
>of those who contributed to the Starling Song Translation Relay
>Game to refer to, perhaps to reproduce, that amazing contest for my
>San Antonio audience.  I can withhold names if need be.  It would
>be an ideal introduction to the conlang interaction that I'm praising.
You have my permission to use my belated translation, along with the =
audio
versions if you wish to use them.

>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.
Well maybe next time. My creativity is at a relatively low point right =
now
with all the long hours and stress from work (not to mention my spare =
time
is very limited).

--=20
languages of Kolagia---> =
+---<http://www.io.com/~hmiller/languages.html>---
      Thryomanes        /"If all Printers were determin'd not to print =
any
   (Herman Miller)     / thing till they were sure it would offend no =
body,
   moc.oi @ rellimh <-/  there would be very little printed." -Ben =
Franklin