New Old Books Added
Two new science fiction novels have been added to the Books section of The Conlanger’s Library. They are both works from the late 19th century. The works have obviously affinities for the universal language movements of their time as evidenced from this excerpt: I soon found that, unlike any Terrestrial tongue, the language of this people had not grown but been made–constructed deliberately on set principles, with a view to the greatest possible simplicity and the least possible taxation of the memory. Thanks are also due to Jim Henry for suggesting the addition of Across the Zodiac for the Library! Check out Books for these and other “required reading” for conlangers.
Thanks, David P!
~:D Thanks to David J. Peterson for calling my attention to Esperanto quotes in both Thomas Mann’s Der Zauberberg and James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. These selections have been added to the Quotations section of The Library. Check them out! (Mann’s work, published in 1924, may be the first mention of Esperanto in a work of fiction.)
Additions to the Library
Just a quick post today to highlight some new additional to The Conlanger’s Library. A new book on universal grammar in Linguistics – Advanced and a new one on idioms in Popular Nonfiction. We’ve also loaded a new link in the Linguistics Online resources on glossing rules. Check out the sections above for the new as well as the other resources available at the Library.
Tarzan and His “Languages”
This article highlights a new exhibit on Tarzan in the Musée du Quai Branly, the museum near the base of the Eiffel Tower. Our conlang connection comes in with this paragraph:
Tarzan’s first spoken language, in the original novel of 1912, was ape-speak – long before scientists discovered that apes do have a language. The exhibition’s catalogue contains a fascinating linguistic study of the words used by Tarzan’s adoptive ape clan, “the Waziris”. They have 250 words, including several verbs, which are used only in the infinitive, rather like George Orwell’s Newspeak. It is worth noting that Tarzan’s second spoken language in the original novel was French, learned from a French officer rescued from cannibals.
This link gives a nice summary of the languages in Edgar Rice Burrough’s Tarzan series. Here is a nice online glossary of Mangani, the language of the apes.
Yel dan-do, yo!
UPDATE: National Public Radio did a news story on the Tarzan exhibit on Aug. 11, 2009.
Conlanging Calvin
This has always been one of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes cartoon:
For more linguistical humor, check out The Speculative Grammarian (featured in Linguistics Online) as well as some of the entries in the Quotations of the Library.
Kaor!
Recently, I’ve been re-reading the Martian Tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs (or ERB), and I had forgotten about how much fun they were. It’s easily been more than 20 years since I last visited with John Carter, Tars Tarkas, and Dejah Thoris. They’re a quick read, full of adventure, bravado, and, yes, political incorrectness. However, it never ceases to surprise me that the first novel, A Princess of Mars, was serialized in 1912! With that in mind, it becomes easier to overlook ERB’s sometimes overwrought prose and political incorrectness. Just think, in 1912, the First World War hadn’t even been fought yet, less than 50 years had passed since the end of the U.S. Civil War, and Robert Goddard had just begun experimenting with rockets.
True, the Barsoomian language (ERB’s name for Mars was Barsoom) is not well documented in the Martian stories. ERB was no JRRT. He did, however, provide tantalizing glimpses with words here and there and employed an exotic naming language for the Red Planet. An interesting article is posted in the Magazine Articles section of the Conlanger’s Library from ERBzine #1508 on the protolanguage of Barsoom and it’s influence on “current” Barsoomian. The novels are featured in the Books section.
And “Kaor!”? That’s Barsoomian for “Hello!” Check out Jeffrey Henning’s great site at Langmaker.com on Barsoomian as well as this site.
I have spoken.
Pakuni on the Big Screen
With the release of the new Land of the Lost, based (loosely) on the original children’s TV series from the early 1970s, I’ve been reminded of one of my early conlang influences: Pakuni. While I haven’t seen the movie (yet), I was heartened by this article in the San Francisco Chronicle. Here is an excerpt highlighting “Pakuni”:
Sticklers for detail, the Kroftts hired a UCLA linguist to create a language for Chaka and his kin. It’s called Pakuni, and it was spoken on TV. Taccone learned the 300-odd words and speaks them, although the script calls for him to only grunt or jibber.
[Anna] Friel [who plays Holly] translates what he is saying in the movie.
“Based on her translation I would go back to the Pakuni dictionary and make up sentences that go with her translation. What Anna translates is much more eloquent than what I am saying. But I am definitely trying to speak it correctly,” says Taccone, joking that he went to all that trouble for “the five people out there who will notice.”
(Here’s a video interview with Jorma Taccone. The section on Pakuni starts around 2:48)
While recently watching some re-runs of the original series, I was disappointed to see that Chaka simply spoke halting English in the final season. Thank you to Jorma Taccone from the way more than “five people out there who will notice” that Pakuni is back!
Conlangers Extraordinaire: “Zompist”
This post begins a series highlighting conlangers extraordinaire. These will be based on people who were featured in the Esperanto, Elvish, and Beyond exhibit. In keeping with the last post thanking Ketumak, we begin this series with…
Mark Rosenfelder a.k.a. “Zompist†of Illinois (USA) has been creating languages and worlds since he was in grade school. One of Zomp’s major gifts to the conlanging community is his Language Construction Kit (LCK) (featured in the Conlang Reference section of the Library). Often the first stop for beginning conlangers, the LCK has now been translated into Portuguese and Italian. The LCK provides a step-by-step approach to creating one’s own language compiled from resources while Mark was attempting to learn linguistics on his own. Topics as diverse as what sounds to use in a conlang to how to construct language families and dialects are covered. The Zompist Bulletin Board, one of the Internet’s main forums for conlangers and con-worlders, is yet another of Mark’s contributions.
Mark’s monumental online work, Virtual Verduria, began as a Dungeons & Dragons setting in his college days. It is the result of over twenty years of tinkering with concepts as diverse as language, history, chemistry, biology, and mythology. Virtual Verduria provides myriad details of Mark’s fantasy world of Almea (from the creation of its planetary system to the evolution of its indigenous inhabitants) and includes comprehensive maps, native stories, and myths of the various nations. There are a dozen individual languages or language families with grammars, vocabulary, and text samples. Mark has succintly explained how he does all this by saying, “I have no kids and I don’t watch TV.â€
Although Zomp’s day job may be as a programmer, he has assured himself a spot in the Pantheon of Conlangers with his selfless activities in support of the Art.
(Note: Mark supplied two photos for the exhibit. The one displayed here is the one used in the exhibit and one which Mark himself labeled “less serious.”)
Thank You, Ketumak!
Ketumak
If you have suggestions for books, Internet sites, quotes, or other authoritative items, feel free to send them to library at library dot conlang dot org.
Who Is Visiting The Library?
I thought it might be interesting to share who is visiting The Conlanger’s Library. Since statistics began to be collected (April 1, 2009), there have been 418 unique visitors to the Library who’ve had 2,199 page views. These visitors have come from 37 countries/territories including the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Germany, Sweden, South Africa, Canada, Hungary, Romania, and the USA. A little over 67% of traffic came from referring sites. The largest of which (no surprise) is Conlang.org (The Language Creation Society) with over 46% of all traffic coming through there. 27% came directly to the Library, but others have visited from the Zompist Bulletin Board and Realitysandwich.com.
Thank you all for visiting and keep coming back! New stuff is being added to the Library all the time