Re: new relay

On Wed, 30 May 2001, Sally Caves wrote:

> In fact, I don't understand the bias against poetry that some of you
> have been expressing.  Neither Irina nor Nicole offered a poem
> that was too complicated or that required rhyming or embellishment.  In
> fact, all the translations have been "prose-poems."  While written out
> in lines of poetry, like Nicole's fairy poem, the effect has been lined
> prose.  Cultural biases can lurk in prose texts just as well as poetic
> texts.
I suppose my reservations aren't about poetry as such, since you
are absolutely right; prose texts can be as culturally laden as
poetry. I guess I'm reacting to the cultural assumptions
embedded in many conlangs on this list. Tepa seems to be unique
around here in being the language of a small-scale society
(hunter-gatherer), and as such, many of the common ideas
embedded in your languages just aren't available to Tepa. I've
tried twice to participate in a Relay, but both times I was
stymied by the lack of cultural congruity, and I eventually had
to pass.

Of course, since Tepa is "in the shop", I'll be using Shemspreg,
which may be more amenable to cultural tweaking.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga                          dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu

"The strong craving for a simple formula
has been the undoing of linguists."               - Edward Sapir

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