Re: CHAT: The Conlang Instinct
| From: | Grandsire, C.A. <grandsir@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, December 2, 1999, 8:48 |
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J. Barefoot wrote:
>
> That is so interesting! I have thought for a while that my perception of
> English may be "non-standard but fully functional." Perhaps we should ask a
> new "lefthand/righthand/goatee/hair color/sexual orientation" question: What
> is your personal writing style like in your native language? Does it ever
> get you into trouble, i.e., do pedantic proofreaders ever give you grief
> about perfectly grammatical sentences that run to five clauses or more?
> Obviously, as a group we must be very "verbal" people, independent of
> "right-brain/left-brain dominance". So I guess we should ask: Do you
> consistently and spontaneously do quirky things with your native lang? Did
> you do this before you were consciously a conlanger?
>
I used to write sentences that seemed to never finish yes, but I
changed my style years ago and now it's more readable. Yet my written
language is different enough from my spoken language, and I even have
many different writing styles depending on what kind of subject I write
about. My short stories have a rather literary style, except for the
dialogues which are written in spoken French :), my series on the web
have a freer style, nearer to my spoken French, but still different. I
like it because dialogues seem more active and living when surrounded by
a text from a different style. As for quirky things, I think that my
French is far from a standard, even far from the dialect where I was
raised in! I tend to have a rather personal version of French with lots
of neologisms I invent ad hoc and other constructions, not incorrect but
strangely used. Sorry I can't give you examples but right now I'm
switched to written English and Dutch, and it seems that as for written
language, I have only two slots available (I think three in spoken
language :) ).
> On a related but far-fetched subject: At a very early stage of deveplopment
> of Asiteya, I had created a verb "yasan" - to dwell. Months later, having
> forgotten about its existence, I needed a word for house. Rolling sounds
> around on my tongue for a while, I found "yasi" tasted just right.
> Unrelated events of creation, related words. It makes me think, perhaps
> these languages are already fully formed, deep in the subconscious, waiting
> for the intellect to discover them. Has anyone else had expereinces like
> this?
>
Not to my knowlegde. Maybe because when I need a new word, I always
have my lexicon next to me to see if I already invented it or if I can
find a related word I invented.
> Jennifer
> making a renewed effort to consciously develop her idiolect away from
> standard English
>
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