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Fool wrote

I get the feeling that this was a language and culture that was actively and purposefully developed.

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Majrelende wrote (edited )

I get the same feeling about all languages and their cultures, to an extent. I mean to say, I personally believe it is the origin of all language and culture, but many have been taken for granted and strayed from their origins-- maybe this one has done so less.

Languages are a main focus of my anarchy too. I feel that they are so important and yet people think the language we use doesn't matter.

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moonlune wrote

Language is so cool to think about. i need to learn more toki pona!

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Majrelende wrote (edited )

Not to speak against you, but I have a few doubts about toki pona. One, I doubt the wisdom and possibility of making a language that isn't really based in a place/people. For instance, English is creeping towards being universally understood, but that doesn't mean it belongs to us; it belongs, in ways it is hard to explain, to the upper classes, the writers and philosophers, and so on. It turns into a mediation between people, each other, and the land, whereas a language that really is ours, here in this land physically and with its people, like most anarchic indigenous languages, is sort of unmediated; it connects and anchors us to people and place, rather than dividing. Also, while maybe not being too nice-sounding, I think having a defined in-group of people we can trust, connected by a small language, might have benefits for coming out unconquered from the hellish period we are in.

Toki Pona has some dubious terms and synonymy, like "kute", to hear but also to obey, or "mani", which means money, wealth, cattle. The creator tries to be minimalist, to inhabit nothingness, but their cultural background bleeds into it very obviously; they are using human knowledge, rather than the divine knowledge of the land; they are coming at it as a human-being-separate, rather than a human-existing-as-the-land.

So this is why I'm not too excited about it, although I am a non-speaker. My approach on the other hand is toward language as an offshoot of the spiritual-living quality, if that makes any sense: I approach the world, my mind empty, and let the local gods fill it with words and phrases. Sometimes I find remnants of something mediated or foreign to the local gods, tainting it; when I do, I scrub it out and seek again. That all sounds like complete gibberish probably, but it is the best way I can describe it. Ask if you wish about "gods", or not; I won't explain them right now.

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moonlune wrote (edited )

That's a fair criticisms of toki pona. It shouldn't be thought of as much more than a toy language.

Are you describing speaking in tongues ( like the quakers do)?

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Majrelende wrote

No, not really. What I read about described as "glossolalia" or speaking in tongues is essentially what I do when I cry out in pain, which isn't how I make language, and that isn't how it sounds like-- actually, the sounds remind me more of the chattering of the birds than the humans around me. Wikipedia says that the syllables of glossolalia tend to be essentially nonsense as far as anyone can tell for certain, but in familiar, learned patterns and sounds, which is far from what I am describing. I clear my mind, come to some being, and do something along the lines of asking a name. Sometimes no name comes, and sometimes one comes which sounds out harmoniously with the one whose name I am looking for. It is subtle and difficult, like looking for the few grains of rye (right words) in the bag of wheat, and often I have to let go of one because it is not right. The same is true with grammatical structures-- I rummage around until the words come to sound correct being within the world, perceived directly. So I mislead a little bit: it is all very gradual, one painstaking word at a time extracted and examined and reshaped, in the shape of the local landscape. I am especially suspicious of anything that sounds too much like another language, so I scrub at it and often it comes away under that, and the correct word is. Whereas from what I understand, speaking in tongues, people talk all at once, and just take everything that comes their way-- they are taking what is inside of them, and speaking it and putting it outside, where I am taking what is outside, trying to understand it as well as I can, and inhabiting within it.

One weird thing that comes up, which I don't bother scrubbing much, is when certain words, or even whole phrases, sound much like translations or near-translations in languages I don't even know-- these came up for Hebrew and Mandarin so far as I can recall.

I say things like "correct" but I mean to say, within a range of what "correct" might be like. It would be really arrogant to say that I am the only speaker of proper language because I did it this way. The whole point of anarchy is that there is no right way for people in general to live, but that we can instead follow the paths that our hearts know are right. My heart tells me this is my path. So, languages are going extinct all the time; will it hurt to have another one here, another there, that roots itself and grows tall in people and their place? What is another unique anarchic way of knowing in the world?

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moonlune wrote

This is pretty cool, thanks for sharing your language building with us/me :)

do you keep the same words for stuff over time? Write them down? Take mental notes/dictionary?

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Majrelende wrote (edited )

You are welcome.

I used to write them down, and for new words I often write them on a scrap of paper. A recent example is bee balm: I went up to the mountain to harvest some for drying, and found the name too. Then, I wrote it down, and saw it maybe once; when I went back, I could remember it, and now it is there; I can recall it at will.

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moonlune wrote

Thanks for sharing this article. It's hard for me to imagine a nomadic lifestyle without having any words for direction, but that makes it even cooler.

That Berlin studio making a 3D VR app to help language learners... It sounds like" funding bait" more than anything.

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Majrelende wrote (edited )

Why do you need direction words when you can gesture? I suppose the migration routes are also memorised over generations too.

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AnarcheAmor wrote

If they can't see your gesture and you don't have something to reference the direction they should be looking in, direction words work because every person can use themselves as a reference.

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