Fantasist's Scroll

A whistling language?

Sure, why not! Not too long ago, someone on one of the many conlang e-mail lists I’m on started talking about a whistle-based language. I have to admit, I thought it was quite intriguing. I started to picture a bird-like race that might have developed such a language. In fact, I thought that someone had finally come up with a unique, new idea for a conlang. Nope.
At least, not according to this article on CNN.com. It seems there’s a whistle language that’s existed for quite some time in the Canary Islands. Unfortunately, it’s a language that’s started to die off already. But, on the bright side, the government is working at preserving it. In fact, they’ve gone so far as to require lessons in it in their schools in an attempt to preserve this highly unusual language. The article also mentions the “First International Congress of Whistled Languages” which also brought in experts in whistled languages found in Greece, Turkey, China and Mexico.
Just goes to show, I guess, that nothing we can imagine is so alien that it can’t exist! Let that be a lesson to you aspiring writers out there as you invent languages, and worlds, for your fiction!!

I see a disturbing trend…

I spent a little too much quality time on a conlang BBS this week. Well, it’s not a real BBS, but it’s one of those new-fangled, PHP-based web-BBS things. I hate them. I much, much prefer the old-fashioned e-mail list or newsgroup.
Anyway, I got all wrapped up in a discussion about the virtues, or lack thereof, in automated word generators. It started with someone reccomending my old generator, which is really based on code from Chris Pound. Well, someone complained that it would be nice to be able to specify the phonology of the words to be generated. So I worked for several months at PERL and finally coded up my Conlang Wordmaker, which will look really familiar to people who have used Langmaker. Well, when I posted that, it sparked a number of things, but one person made the comment that they “damn well would never use a word generator” to make their conlang. Well, that sort of irritated me. And, when I get irritated before my morning coffee, I tend to type rather sharp replies.

But, sharp replies aside, what’s wrong with using a word generator? I mean, a piece of beautiful furnature that was assembled with power tools isn’t any less beautiful, is it? Is something done by hand, in the slowest, hardest way possible, inherently more worthy of praise? I don’t think so, but apparently quite a few conlangers do seem to think so. And, as I’ve poked around the web, it seems to be a sentiment that conlang people in general have taken to be a Universal Truth. But, why?

I think it’s because so many of them are, or were, linguists or linguistics students. Academia is anchored to a rigid system of learning that tends to insist people follow certain patterns. I have a college degree, but most of what I know that I truly prize, I learned on my own far, far away from a classroom. I think far outside the box that academia tends to force scholarship into. For instance, in learning things like PERL, I learned that whichever way works, is a good enough way. Sure, there may be other ways, but if it works, it’s good enough way. So, too, in my “day job”. I manage servers in a corporate envrionment, so I often don’t have time to find the “best” way. I have to make it work, usually on a budget, quickly. I apply that maxim everywhere in my life.
So, how does that relate to conlanging? Well, I’m not really too hung up on phonology or morphology. I don’t care to spend hours upon hours making a rigid, highly technical scheme of phonology and morphology. It matters more to me how the language sounds. If I’m looking for something that sounds a little bit like Cantonese as spoken by a Polyneasean, what difference does it make how the words are formed? All that matters is that I get my end result, a conlang that sounds right.

I’m not in favor of form over function. I never have been. For most things, I’d rather it get done quick and dirty than never get done at all. So, I’m in favor of using whatever tools get the job done for a conlang. I don’t care if you steal words from a natural language and “mutate” them into a new conlang. Do whatever it takes to make a language that adds that realism to your fiction! What matters isn’t the process, but the art that you create!

No, really, there’s a scientific study!

Right here on MSN Health they say that dark beer is good for you. Or, at least, better for you than the lighter beers. Something about the “flavonoids” that make it dark help prevent blood clots, which help prevent blood-vessel related problems. (This is also how that whole red wine thing works, too, by the way.) So, what the heck, it’s Friday, go have a nice, dark beer. For your health!

Yep, you can bid on a space mission on eBay.

Seriously. Of course, I’m not sure what the average Joe would want with a satellite, but you never know. It does have a camera, according to this article on Wired News, but is it really worth the price? Well, I guess we’ll see.
Personally, I like it. Sure, I’m not going to bid on it, but I like the idea of privitizing space this way. After all, how else are we going to get out there? What’s more, how else are we going to make it cheap? Cars and planes used to be horribly expensive, until everyone started using them. Now, almost every family owns a car and everyone flies somewhere. Okay, maybe not in their own plane, but still… Combine this with a little space tourism and we might actually start to get out into space!

Ever wonder how MapQuest gets their maps?

Well, apparently, they send out two techs in a car to drive around and record which way they go! No, really, I’m not making that up. Don’t believe me? Then check out this article on TechTV. It’s a brief interview with two of those techs based out of Chicago who do just that. Of course, they rely on GPS and a laptop to record the information, but they still have to get out there and actually drive it. Could be an interesting gig, if you like driving around all day. Anyway, it’s an interesting article.

Okay, this rocks!

According to this article on IGN.com, Farscape is making a comeback. There’ve been rumors, but now the production office “down under” has actually opened up again and work has started. Now, rumor has it that the new project is a mini-series, not a full-blown series, but still, it’s something! I mean I really hated how the series just ended without resolving anything.
Another interesting tidbit is that this will be a project totally independant of the SciFi Channel, who broadcast the original series. That, of course, begs the question: Where will the series run? If it runs on the SciFi Channel, I hope they get gouged on the price. It would be poetic justice if they spent more on the mini-series than it would have cost to finish the last season. In any case, it’ll be cool to see the show again.

This is a variation on last week’s script, but it’s still petty cool.

Last week, I released a script that lets you specify your own phonology This week, I’ve added a variation on that generator. This one not only lets you choose your own phonology, but it lets you automatically translate a short list of words into your new conlang! I’ve listed enough words for a short naming language, but you can change those for ones that you’d prefer. Whew! That’s four conlang scripts in four weeks!! That’s enough for a bit, I think. And, it should be enough to get you folks started on your own language, so, go have fun!

Not real practical, but fun!

Hate those boring, old jewel cases? Always loosing your CD-ROM envelopes? Just looking for a way to carry CDs that’s cheap, easy and sort of cool?
Then the Paper CD Case is for you!

It’s pretty cool, actually. There’s a form that lets you customize your CD case with song tracks and titles and such. There are folding instructions, but they’re listed on a separate page, so you have to read all the instructions before you customize your CD case. Fun stuff for a Friday, though! Enjoy!