the owl and the olive tree

I create languages as a hobby unto itself. It's a peculiar hobby, I'll grant, but then, not that peculiar -- the Internet is full of people who do it. A lot of my languages have no actual point, and so I'm always delighted when I can conlang with a purpose, as in the Rhoen project. (Do any of you need a conlang? :D )

I've been working on Rhoen for about four months now; the phonology is done, the very basic grammar is done (though complexities continue to crop up), simple vocabulary, loanwords, repercussions. I know how to address someone within your clan, or not; I know what the different levels of respect one can indicate through use of articles is. I figured out infinitives and dependent clauses and prepositional phrases.

But I think I'm done -- well, except for creating additional vocab as needed -- because I woke up this morning and in the fugue state before waking I could hear Hunith talking in Rhoen, the slow musical sound of the language. I'm not sure what she was saying (I haven't memorized my own vocabulary), though I suspect it was some variant on "Puhmell wy Cyfnerdal tleythi dar maednenir," or "Cyfner, it's time to feed the horses." The words aren't important, though (although the fact that she uses 'dar,' the informal or intimate article, when speaking to Cyfner -- that is important, in that it tells me where in the novel that line would go.) What's important is that I can hear her talking.

I think that's why language is the first thing I do, when creating a new world. A how-to-write book I browsed recently said 'the unconscious communicates in images,' and maybe that's true for her muse. My muse communicates in sounds, always (the heavy tread of Cyfner's mare's hooves, the sound of Hunith's voice, amused and impatient, speaking a language that isn't real and yet that I can hear).

It means that the language is done for now, and it's time to write.