Case 8: Meet the Conlangers, right

(top left) Sai Emrys

Unstoppable Conlanging Force

California

Sai Emrys was the driving force behind the establishment of the Language Creation Society and the Language Creation Conferences, the teacher of two classes on language creation at the University of California, Berkeley, and the founder of the LiveJournal Conlangs community. Sai is very active in other online conlanging communities as well, with his first post to CONLANG-L in October 2004 and 805 posts to the Zompist Bulletin Board since March 2005. Sai received his B.A. in Cognitive Science from UC Berkeley in 2006, and can converse in English, Russian, Spanish, French, American Sign Language, and Japanese. His own long-term conlanging project (the creation of a new kind of nonlinear, fully 2- or 3-dimensional writing system) can be found online at saizai.livejournal.com/657391.html. Former jobs have included database design, systems administration, tutoring, programming, and massage therapy. He is interested in such things as “wordplay, massage, empathy, music, good food, computers, neuroscience, linguistics, meditation, hiking, energy work, and (of course) in seeing how far the boundaries of language creation can be pushed - with an eye towards effecting cognitive change and empowerment.” His current goal is to obtain a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience and to do research to understand empathy and mirror neurons. He is currently the President of the Language Creation Society (www.conlang.org), and the photo shows him presiding over the 2007 Language Creation

Conference, UC Berkeley, CA. He is currently working on two books — A Hacker's Guide to Meditation: A dogma-free recipe book and Language Creation 101, a textbook that uses conlanging to teach linguistics — and one research project, motostudy.com, a longitudinal study of motorcyclist behavior and outcomes.

 

(Top right) John Quijada

Creator of Ithkuil and Ilaksh

California

John Quijada was born in 1959 in Los Angeles, CA. An encounter with a Russian language book at age 11 kick-started his lifelong interest in languages, and exposure to both Tolkien and the Kobaian language of Christian Vander's avant-garde group Magma got him started on conlanging around age 14. While studying linguistics at university, the grammar of non-Indo-European languages started him off on constructing a language that would "combine the best and most efficient features" of the world's languages into one. Over time, this language evolved into a philosophical language that attempts to convey complex levels of cognition heretofore unexpressed in any human language, while at the same time being as concise as possible in the physical length of sentences (à la Robert Heinlein's conception of "Speedtalk" but in an actually workable manner). John's work is influenced by the writings of the cognitive linguists George Lakoff, Len Talmy, Ron Langacker, and Gilles Fauconnier. In 2004, after 25 years of work, John introduced Ithkuil to the world via the Internet. Ithkuil has proven to be one of the more frequently discussed (if not spoken!) conlangs on the web. The language was soon featured in a Russian-language science magazine which unexpectedly garnered legions of fans asking for an easier-to-pronounce version to try to learn. A new variant of the language, Ilaksh, was introduced in 2007 for the benefit of these fans. At present, John is working on expanding the Ithkuil/Ilaksh lexicon. Information on Ithkuil and Ilaksh can be found at home.inreach.com/sl2120/Ithkuil.

 

Besides linguistics and conlanging, John's many hobbies and interests include European travel, music (especially classical and world music), science, philosophy, amateur astronomy, amateur protozoology, eclectic literature, "art-house" cinema, sci-fi, art, camping, hiking, Portuguese cooking, and wine tasting. He has written a novel (currently being revised) with his identical twin brother Paul that explores the philosophical implications of quantum physics and cognitve science. John lives in Northern California with his wife Carol and cat Stormy. He speaks five languages (none of which are his conlangs!)

 

(Photo and biography courtesy of John Quijada exclusively for this exhibit.)

(The Babel Text in Ithkuil accompanies the photo and bio)

 

(Middle right) Douglas Ball

Creator of Skerre

California

Doug Ball is currently a Ph.D. student in Linguistics at Stanford University, but his involvement in creating languages dates back to his teenage years. Inspired by a three-week intensive course in Latin, Doug was bitten by the conlanging bug at age 13. His creation, Skerre, is a teenager itself now, being around 14 years old, and has gone through a number of variations: the original Latin-like form, a Turkish-like variety, a Polynesian-like version, and its present verb-initial form akin to languages of the Polynesian Rim. Doug, while a freshman at the University of Rochester, was also part of an independent study taught by Dr. Sarah Higley (a.k.a. Sally Caves) where he wrote a grammar and text for Skerre. Returning to Doug's younger days, his place in the conlanger's pantheon is assured by a project he undertook while at Isaac Newton Middle School in Littleton, Colorado. He was part of a group that wrote a play which was then translated by Doug into Skerre. In Doug's own words, "the play told the story of the power struggle and transfer of an amulet, the Kâthor Välenî. It was performed for the entire eighth grade and most of the seventh grade in three separate performances on May 19, 1995. 'Subtitles' were provided in the form of a written version of the script projected on overheads to the side of the stage."

 

(Photo courtesy of Doug Ball. Quotes taken from an email to Don Boozer.)

 

The Babel Text in Skerre

1.Ta tari tar, e’ik a yat i sires ta yiket i tahin.

2.Kiyes kaquaqueyi-ti so kiyen, eyetin-ti a yotar ques to ekesise a Sinar ya tir ir enahir-ti sata.

3.Eyik-ti ya kari-te, “Katik saa kihanin-wo a hok i tsesi-sikenat.” Ir eresa-ti.

4.Eyan, eyik-ti, “Katik saa kikenatin-wo a aran ni tates to sik tsiquos ena sakir kat rokerinsa a sise-we sas kikehaana-wo ya yiket i hasin i tahin.”

5.Enowor a Tsan-Taran wisor ki’ok ya aran ni tates to ekenatin tsa saasakar i tanko-riyos.

6.Eyik a Tsan-Taran, “Ok, ik ta teken a yat i sires ir sik-ti ak a tir, ir waha, koni-ti ronati ta koser to royok-ti ya tar.

7.Ronotsaa-ha sata ir rohiran-ha a sires-te wisor koni-ti kisik aket a kari-te.”

8.Eyan, ehaanaasa tsa Tsan-Taran ya yiket i hasin i tahin ir eriitowetiite ta sikenat i aran ni tates.

9.So sores tir, ekesise a Wawel ya wisa, wisor ehiran sata tsa Tsan-Taran a sires i yiket i tahin ir ehaanaasa ya yiket i hasin tahin.

Translated by Doug Ball

(tsketar.tripod.com/skerre/Tower_of_Babel.html)

 

(Middle left) Sonja Elen Kisa

Creator of Toki Pona

Canada

Especially for this exhibit, Sonja Elen Kisa described herself as "a 29-year-old Queer Acadian (French-Canadian) woman currently living in Toronto, Canada. She designed the minimal language Toki Pona in 2001 after a period of depression, as she sought to simplify her life and find the true meaning behind things. She is currently studying to become a speech-language pathologist." Kisa was the subject of an article in The Globe and Mail, a major Toronto newspaper, in July 2007. According to that source, around 100 people speak Toki Pona fluently, mostly in chat rooms and blogs. Even more interesting are the facts that a "Colorado programmer is developing an apocalyptic computer game with Toki Pona as the spoken language [and an] Israeli-German singer and member of the Stuttgart Chamber Choir is including it in a concert of musical pieces composed in constructed languages, alongside Esperanto and Star Trek's Klingon." An example of the language is the proverb "Nasin ante li pona tawa jan ante: Different ways are good for different people (i.e. different strokes for different folks)."

 

The Babel Text in Toki Pona

1.ma ali li jo e toki wan en sama.

2.jan ali li kama tan nasin pi kama suno, li kama lon ma Sinale, li awen lon ni.

3.jan li toki e ni: "o kama! mi mute o pali e kiwen tomo, o seli e ona."

4.jan mute li toki e ni: "o kama! mi mute o pali e ma tomo e tomo palisa suli. lawa pi tomo palisa li lon sewi kon.

5.o nimi pi mi mute li kama suli! mi wile ala e ni: mi mute li kan ala. mi mute li lon ma ali."

6.jan sewi Jawe li kama anpa, li lukin e ma tomo e tomo palisa pi jan lili mute.

7.jan sewi Jawe li toki e ni: "jan ni li jo e ma wan, li jo e toki sama, li pali e tomo palisa. tenpo ni la ona mute li ken pali mute ike. mi wile tawa anpa, mi pakala e toki pi jan mute ni. o jan li sona ala e toki pi jan ante."

8.jan sewi Jawe li pali e ni: jan ali li poki ala jan, li lon ma mute, li ken ala pali e ma tomo.

9.nimi pi ma tomo ni li Pape tan ni: jan sewi Jawe li pakala e toki pi jan ali. tan ma tomo Pape la jan sewi Jawe li tawa e jan tawa ma mute.

(www.omniglot.com/babel/tokipona.htm)

 

(Bottom right) Language Creation Conference

The first Language Creation Conference (LCC1) took place April 23, 2006, at the University of California Berkeley. Coordinated by Sai Emrys, this conference was the first of its kind and brought together constructed language enthusiasts from across the United States. LCC2 took place on July 7-8, 2007, also in Berkeley. That conference drew speakers from as far away as Florida, Ohio, and Canada, and an audience even larger than LCC I. The Language Creation Conferences are a major activity of the Language Creation Society based in California. LCC3 is tentatively scheduled for October 2008 at Brown University, Providence, RI. For information (including videos of presentations from LCC I), check out the Language Creation Society's web site at www.conlang.org.

 

The photo was taken on July 8, 2007, during LCC2 and, unfortunately, does not include a dozen or so people who could only attend the first day. Those pictured include: Back row: Arika Okrent, Lila Sadkin, [unknown], Richard Futrell, Greg Shuflin, Sai Emrys (holding the Conlang Flag); 2nd row: Doug Ball, James Gang, Cindy Morris, Alex Fink, Kelly Drinkwater, Sylvia Sotomayor; Standing: George Baker, [unknown], John Quijada, Don Boozer, Jeff Burke, Clint Hutchison, John Clifford, [unknown], Vladimir Vysotsky; Kneeling: David Peterson, Peter Ara Guekguezian, Jim Henry.

 

(Photo courtesy of Don Boozer. Those attendees mentioned elsewhere in this exhibit have been highlighted in blue.)

 

(Bottom left) CONLANG-L

The oldest and most active online listserv devoted to conlanging is the CONLANG-L (usually simply referred to as CONLANG). The list had its beginnings in informal email conversations among a group of language enthusiasts initiated by John Ross of Boston University (BU) in the early 1990s. The first listserv was set up subsequently at BU, moving to a server at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1993. Increased traffic necessitated another move and CONLANG found its current home at Brown University (Providence, RI) in 1997. You can subscribe to CONLANG or read the archived messages by going to the official site at listserv.brown.edu/archives/conlang.html. CONLANG is a very active list with 6,610 messages posted in 2007 with topics covering critiques of each other's conlangs, construction of Unicode fonts for neographies, strategies for expanding awareness of the art/craft of conlanging, and much more.

Done