Very sad news indeed.  David will be remembered fondly by those of us 
who've been in the Conlanging universe for a long time.  Ná sálä 
dhyáns-táshnenÿ.  (Peace to his spirit).

Thank you for finding, and restoring, David's website so his work will 
live on!


On 09/01/2010 08:02 AM, David Peterson wrote:
> The winner of the 2010 Smiley Award is ámman îar.
>
> Before I post any links, let me give some background. ámman
> îar (uncapitalized by preference, I believe) is the masterwork
> of David Bell, a conlanger who, in the tradition of Tolkien, worked
> from a proto-language to create languages to populate the land
> of ámman, his creation. He was a member of the Conlang List
> for many years in the early days of the list, and had a website with
> a large reference grammar detailing amman iar, among other
> things. It was hosted at graywizard.net.
>
> A couple years ago, I noticed that graywizard.net had lapsed.
> Its pages were still available via archive.org, but as David Bell
> was advanced in age, I wondered if he had taken ill, or worse.
> A whois search on graywizard.net turned up a telephone number
> and an address. I tried the telephone number, but it had been
> disconnected. I also sent a letter to the address using LCS
> letterhead, but I never heard anything from it or its intended
> recipient after sending it.
>
> On a hunch, I went back to the archived version of David's personal
> page to see if any of his family members might have some sort
> of web presence (this is something I'd tried in the past without
> success). This is when I noticed, for the first time (how I missed it
> earlier, I have no idea), a mention of David's brother, John Bell,
> who was a dj at Z100, a New York radio station. I figured someone
> that famous would have to have something on the web.
>
> A search on John Bell turned up something rather interesting. He
> was no longer listed as a dj at Z100, but there were a few news
> stories written about him--and recently. Apparently, he was fired
> without warning and without good reason one day after nearly thirty
> years of service. Once word of this had spread, outraged fans began
> flooding the station with e-mails and phone calls, and even set up a
> Facebook page in protest:
>
> http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/pages/Bring-John-Bell-back-to-z100-or-we-boycott/108116159214086?ref=ts
>
> After e-mailing the author of the news articles, I chanced upon
> John Bell's own Facebook page. I sent him a message via Facebook,
> letting him know I was looking for his brother, and about a week ago,
> I got the bad news: David Bell had died a few years back.
>
> Long-tenured members here will remember David and ámman îar.
> He was a good conlanger, and ámman îar is one of the best and
> most detailed artlangs I've ever seen described on the web. I wish
> I could have given this award, prestigious though it isn't, to ámman
> îar while he was still alive, but things don't always turn out the way
> we plan. ámman îar is well-deserving of the Smiley, and I invite you
> to read my full write-up here:
>
> http://dedalvs.com/smileys/2010.html
>
> In addition, I've been working over the past few days to restore
> David's original site. I've taken what I can find from archive.org
> and moved it to a new location:
>
> graywizard.conlang.org
>
> I'm not finished yet (there are a lot of files to transfer, and some
> editing is required to make sure everything shows up), but I have
> (I'm almost certain) finished restoring all his conlang pages. His
> reference grammar for ámman îar, though unfinished, was a great
> example of how to present a conlang on the web, and I think it's
> important that the effort represented by his website be preserved
> so that future conlangers can benefit by his example and learn
> about ámman îar.
>
> Though it's come too late, congratulations to David, and may he
> rest in peace.
>
> -David
> *******************************************************************
> "A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
> "No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
>
> -Jim Morrison
>
> http://dedalvs.com/
>
> LCS Member Since 2007
> http://conlang.org/