User:Culmaer

IUHAN/NA CULMÆRIIA

Birth:	Cape Town, South Africa
Profession:	Student
Natural languages:	Afrikaans / English (N) français Nederlands (B1) ייִדיש Deutsch فارسى Latina / 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌹𐍃𐌺 / isiXhosa
Created conlangs:	Syrunian Culmærian (proto, classical, vulgar)
Other conlangs:	Dothraki Interlingua Carrajina Albic / gjâ-zym-byn / Bâzrâmani
Interests:	Jorge Luis Borges; Art; Typogrophy; Pokémon
More information:	langblr

I. Culmærija (Srn: Yuħanna h-Culmeryya) is a sketchlanger, primarily in the artlang and altlang or Diachronic conlang genres, as well as conscript-enthusiast.
Conlanger code (x): CH/SS|v1.1|!lh|cM:R:N:?|a++|z|n2d:1d|B±|A*|E-|L*|N4@|Is/d|k--|ia+|p+s++|m|o|P----|S?|Culmærian

Conlanging

Projects

1. Culmærÿn : the thankfully-short-lived first attempt at language construction [c.2008]
2. Culmærian : an a priori artlang, an experiment in æsthetics [2008]
3. Syrunian / סירונייא : a Levantine-Romance language which originated in the Roman Province of Syria [2010]
4. Fox Latin : a language game based on Pig latin with Latinate grammar [2012]
5. Literary Culmærian or Classical Culmærian (incl. the Vulgar Culmærian dialects) : artlangs descended from a refined-reconstruction of my old project, which now serves as proto-lang [2015]
   

• Contributed to the Standardisation (or glossopoesis?) of Denglinedlançais

Beginings

I have always been exposed to languages. I was raised bilingually (Afrikaans and English), and at the primary school I attended, “Xhosa as third language” was compulsory from Grades 1 to 7, though I was never really interested. In Grade 5 a few friends and I used Tolkien’s Cirth runes to write notes to each other. Although I did not discover Tolkien's languages, this did spark my interest in codes and conscripts. Manga later introduced me to Japanese, and while my attempts at learning the language bore no fruits, I “caught the language bug.” So in high school, I started studing foreign languages seriously, and developed an interest in comparative/historical linguistics ... Eventually, I started conlanging.

Involvement

• I was a member of the CONLANG mailing list from 2009 to 2013.
• And was active on the Conlang Facebook Group from 2012 to 2014. Although I am a member of the new Facebook group, I am not an active participant or contributor.
  

Relays

Conlang Relay 20 — Ring 1

Juus — skipped → Syrunian — skipped, though I'm not sure why. So many participants were skipped in Ring 1

Thoughts on classification

Conlangs are generally categorised into three broad groups: artlangs, engelangs and auxlangs. This has been termed the "reason" classification as it is based on the reasons for which the language was constructed. But as most conlangs do not adhere to these categorisations entirely and incorporate elements from, perhaps, all three groups, one tends to plot them somewhere within the Conlang or Gnoli Triangle.

ARTLANG

/\
/ \
/  \
ENGELANG ---------- AUXLANG

But, without understanding its history, this triangle is somewhat deceptive. Artlangs (including naturalistic langs, minimalist langs, &c.) are primarily concerned with æsthetics. Engelangs (including philosophical langs, logical langs, &c.) are engineered with a particular set of design goals in mind. Auxlangs, I would argue, do not have this inherent structural 'identifier.' A language simply is or is not an auxlang.

1. If Tolkien had proposed Quenya (the quintessential artlang) as an auxlang, it would still, undeniably be an artistically crafted language.
2. And if Zamenhof had created Esperanto (the quintessential auxlang) exactly as he did, except for a novel, it would no longer be considered an auxlang.
   
3. Engelangs have diverse goals. Thence I would further argue that in the same way that Ithkuil was engineerd to be ultra-concise, and Lojban to be logically unambiguous, Esperanto was engineered to be simple in the European context (which is not true of all auxlangs, of course, but ultimately they are all based on a predetermined set of goals).
   

In August 2012 [1] I proposed a purely Structural classification on the Mailing List, provisionally referred to as the Conlang Continuum.

ARTLANG --------------------------------- ENGELANG
Proposed as auxlang? Yes □ No □

For example:

ARTLANG --Q---------------------E----I--- ENGELANG
Quenya : Auxlang? Yes □ No ■
Ithkuil : Auxlang? Yes □ No ■
Esperanto : Auxlang? Yes ■ No □

It was noted in the thread that the philosophical and even political difference between auxlangs and other conlangs was significant enough; and of course, the Gnoli Triangle has an established history

Ars glossopoetica

• Conlanging is an art-form, and in my personal work (ie. Culmærian), the aesthetic is of primary importance.
  
• I really like well-made Indo-European alt- and lostlangs, especially if the grammar is interesting or somewhat unusual (within reason). I enjoy the "vaguely familiar" flavour of a posteriori conlangs, and hope that my romlang, Syrunian, strikes that balance of realism and originality.
  
• I am also a con-script enthusiast. The perfect writing system has a balance between beauty, legibility and ease of writing (practicality). I have not yet been able to achieve this ideal with my own creations. My absolute favourite writing system is Cursive Hebrew, even though it is not a con-script.