Hallo conlangers!

On 31.05.2016 02:04, Padraic Brown wrote:

> On Mon, 30 May 2016 23:27:46 +0200, Jörg Rhiemeier <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>> I have found it interesting that as social technology has evolved and become more commonplace, I have retreated more and more from it. Many
>>> conlangers have large websites and blogs and personal forums and huge wiki presences and so forth. I find that level of public conlanging to be
>>> very discomforting.
>> What do you feel discomforting about people presenting their conlangs in
>> a sophisticated way on the Internet, with a reference grammar, a
>> dictionary, a corpus of texts, information about the language's imagined
>> background etc.? Does it bug you that people go at great length
>> describing their conlangs without ever making use of them?
> Oh! I don't mean I find it discomforting that òther people are so public with their conlangs. I mean that I find myself increasingly less comfortable being so public about mine!

I see. You seem to prefer keeping the inner workings of your conlangs 
"under the hood" and releasing only in-world texts which thus do not 
describe the languages the way modern linguists would. This is 
understandable. It is a matter of style, even if language geeks may be 
diasppointed. But if you feel uncomfortable with "out of world" 
descriptions of your conlang, that's fair. In fact, most of my own 
conlang documentation is also in-world, but as those conlangs are 
lostlangs, I can assume the role of a contemporary linguist describing 
them without going out of the world.

>>> Consider: when Verdi wrote an opera, did he create the concept of opera, or did he create the system of Western art music? No, he simply
>>> worked within an already established medium. Same with painters as different as Michaelangelo, Bosch and Picasso. Their basis is the artful
>>> application of pigments upon surfaces.
>> Fine. Most artists don't revolutionize their art, but either follow an
>> existing style or gradually evolve a new style from one or more existing
>> ones. But there are clearly different styles in conlanging as well.
>> Surely, Klingon is not the same style as Sindarin, or is it?
> There are certainly different styles or schools and your two examples possibly exemplify two of those styles.

Yep. Sindarin is an example of the diachronic-naturalistic school avant 
la lettre (one can hardly speak of a "school" in Tolkien's time; that 
arose only later, but certainly strongly influenced by Tolkien's 
languages!); I don't know what name to assign to the style represented 
by Klingon, but it is IMHO not naturalistic and AFAIK not diachronic, 
either.

>> The relationship between writing and conlanging may perhaps be compared
>> to that between mural painting and architecture, or between choreography
>> and music composition. The conlanger provides a piece of art (a
>> language) that a writer may use as a medium, as the architect provides a
>> piece of art (a building) that a mural painter may use as a medium.
> I like that image!

Thank you!

>>> The equivalent in music to glossopoesy would be the creation of a novel scale and possibly a harmonic system to go with, and also the fabrication of one or more musical instruments capable of playing within this novel musical system. Furthermore, it would also involve the creation of a novel approach to music -- what ìs musical in this new system? What is nòt musical? And all of this before we ever write a single note of actual music on paper!
>> There are people who did just this:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Partch
>>
>> There is indeed one among us here on this list: Herman Miller, who
>> invented the musics (with tuning systems etc.) of the small furry beings
>> for which he created his conlangs.
> I know. I'm another of them!

Me, too, though all I have so far is some basic theory:

http://www.frathwiki.com/Old_Albic_music

> I don't think there is a word in music that is the equivalent of glossopoet; but this is exactly why I chose this particular metaphor! Some of have done both, and the two arts are parallel in the creation of media upon which a later art can be founded.

I have heard the term "conmusic" for the music of fictional cultures. So 
someone making conmusic would be a "conmusician". As "conlang" does not 
necessarily imply fictionality, we can expand the term "conmusic" to 
include edifices like that of Harry Partch, who would thus be a 
conmusician without anchoring his music in a fictional world.

>> Quenya and Sindarin became famous
>> because there are samples of them in a best-selling novel.
> Hm. I won't disagree, but I might say rather that Q&S became "famous"
> because they were used (to great effect) in the movies! ;))

Sure - the movies certainly boosted their famousness, but I they already 
were much discussed here and on dedicated fora such as the TolkLang and 
Elfling mailing lists years before the first movie was released. The 
whole diachronic-naturalistic school is pretty much rooted in Tolkien's 
conlangs!

>> So a conlanger is perhaps not the equivalent of a composer but of a luthier.
> Yes, indeed.
>
> But not just a luthier -- someone who makes violins and guitars -- but a
> luthier that devises and creates new kinds of instruments!

Sure.

>>> I'd actually be curious to learn who in the glossopoetic discipline you'd consider the M., S. and B. -- and also why.
>> An interesting question, and one where we probably won't easily meet
>> agreement.
> Probably about as much agreement as music fans have about composers!

Yes ;)

--
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http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1