Worlds Collide
I had the oddest experience today. I work at a large metropolitan library and was walking down the hall today when a patron saw me and said, “Saluton! I was reading about you in a book today.” This particular patron was vaguely familiar, but I hadn’t really had the opportunity to speak with him for a couple years. Not since I worked in a different department. Well, my brain started spinning, and I finally asked, “Do you mean Arika Okrent’s In the Land of Invented Languages? He said, “Yeah. Can you say hello in your chipmunk language?” Unfortunately, I’ve been away from Drytok for a while, so I couldn’t oblige him…the shock of being asked to speak it out-of-the-blue notwithstanding. We talked for a while; I told him about Arika’s new book I heard she was working on, and I encouraged him to check out the posting at the Language Creation Society page of the actual LCC presentation of Drytok’s first public appearance. All in all, a great way to brighten up a Monday! 🙂
Catching up…
It’s been awhile since anything new has been posted to the blog (or the library). Mea culpa. I’ve had some enhancements and improvements planned for The Conlanger’s Library and have slowly been working on them, but they’re still not ready for prime-time. Stay tuned. Some of the proposed additions include new navigation, some back-end coding, and a Contact page. As anyone can see, these have not been implemented…yet. I had intended on doing those and making announcements here on the blog, but “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley”. Those things are still in-the-works, but I wanted to post something to keep the blog and the Library at least marginally up-to-date.
First, several new postings have been made to the Library. Check out the “Most Recent Updates” box at the home page of the Library. These include a new paperback edition of Arika Okrent’s book and two Dothraki postings to the Scientific American online Guest Blog (one by Sai Emrys and David J. Peterson (Mr. Dothraki himself!)).
For those who haven’t followed the blog closely, we’ve had a very interesting conversation between David J. Peterson, myself, and several other posters on the topic of “Fantasy” literature, its past and present.
The Conlanging Librarian is also the official “twitterer” (or is that “tweeter”?) of the Language Creation Society (LCS) at Fiat Lingua, also the title of the upcoming journal the LCS.
So, enjoy the Library, and look forward to a few enhancements in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future.
Fiat lingua!!
Recent Additions
The Conlanging Librarian has been busy adding new items to the Library:
- A new book has been added to Books (Science Fiction): Years in the Making: The Time-Travel Stories of L. Sprague de Camp.
- Several new articles and a video (from Arika’s appearance at Geeking Out) have been added to the Press Coverage of Arika Okrent and her popular book.
- And, finally, a new article by Arika Okrent herself that appeared at Slate.com about Paul Frommer’s Na’vi. Find this one in the Press Coverage of Dr. Frommer and his language of Pandora.
Enjoy!
Great New York Times Column
A March 10, 2010, column from the New York Times has been posted to the Newspaper Articles in TCL. Arika Okrent and Paul Frommer have responded to readers’ questions about “invented languages” and provided some very in-depth answers. Enjoy!