World-building shouldn't be this hard... But it is

3 hours ago...
Time to continue my series' bible now that I unearthed my big blue journal! This huge notebook has a special place in my heart. Bought it from Borders Books back in 2002 when there was still a superstore in the next city.

3 hours ago...
Retyping my feline vocabulary from the language I made for my cat characters and putting them into alphabetical order because I'm crazy like that.

1 hour ago...
So those cat languages I wrote down eons ago were three language systems: runes, pictographs, & hieroglyphs... Am researching to re-tool all over again. *Weeping*

50 minutes ago...
Using up my mom's Epson printer ink. Gotta switch off. And why use HER'S? Oh, that's right, because for some STUPID REASON, my HP Officejet 4630 printer no longer has the capabilities of working via wi-fi! Not cool, Hewlett-Packard. Not cool.

Eureka!
These languages were based on Egyptian hieroglyphs, Phoenician alphabet, and Celtic runes... Thank God I remember the actual systems.

8 minutes ago...
Ok... Tired. Last day of work this week. I've jotted my language notes and will begin to craft (or draft?) these words into their written systems, beginning with the vocabulary I have typed so far from series' bible. And I still need to outline some scenes from same feline story! Kill me now.

"Why do you talk like that?"

A question I've been asked all my life. Ridiculed and teased for the way I speak. It is absolutely and utterly ridiculous that this is constantly brought up, even among adults.
'You talk White'. No, I don't, fool, because there is NO SUCH THING. I'm sick and tired of this idea that only a Brown or Black person speaks in slang and with an accent.

Even among the Deaf who sign have 'accents' because ASL (American Sign Language) is a complete language and what the North American Deaf sign will not be understood in Russian Sign Language. So it is with us Speaking.
Accent is constrained and constructed by environment, culture, social group and geographic region. The only people who no longer speak with an accent are the deceased. But I'm not here to go on a linguistic tangent. What I will say is this: that people who still expect a person to SOUND a certain way BECAUSE of SKIN COLOR in this day and age shows ignorance and we haven't moved past historical antiquity.

I have known White peers who speak as what our society would say 'sound Black' and Blacks who 'sound White'. What do these terms actually mean? Are you saying that as a Brown person, I should be unable to speak without slang, colloquialism, and drop letters from my words? Are you also saying that a White person, who has lived in a particular area, has peers who speak the same, comes from an ethnic background, that the individual should not sound a certain way?

If the folks that approach me can say such things without the historical implications of that statement, then we as a society are even less prepared to deal not only with our own diverse selves, but am unable to relate or show respect towards a greater global community. The world is not cut and dry. Our own neighborhoods, even if it appears as a homogenous demographic, are far more complex and complicated.

Before you ask the question to me or anyone else on the way we speak, remember what day and age we live in. Remember we were never in a cut-and-dry situation. Remember the world was NEVER Black and White.

Earlier Book Log musing

[From an earlier book log - 11/2/08]
(My fake words in italics/Real words in bold)

I just discovered something about myself. While inventing a language for my feline characters, I often discover that whatever language I chose to emulate [...], followed exact real-world syntax!

For instance, 'Mata ga!' in [my] Si'amese [cat language] followed the actual Japanese word 'mata'! Bar'wati is my made-up word for 'storyteller'. In Arabic, 'haka wati' means 'storyteller'. I did not know this!

Also, the word 'Kannashi' or 'cannot succumb' is also an actual Japanese word I had not learned previously. And the Red tabby words 'Nna hubusa' - 'I am very pleased/I feel pleased'. 'Nna' is used in the Igbo/Nigerian word 'Nna ayi' means 'our father'! How did I know? I didn't! I just created these things, and when I read, these exacts come back. Amazing.

A SIDE NOTE: 'chi' in Chinese means a person's spirit or energy.
'chi' in the Igbo language means a personal god.

Ooh!  I just found out some other things! In Dr. Achebe's famous novel "Things Fall Apart", 'Nnadi' (there's that Nna again) is also a word and so is 'osu', which means 'outcast'.
But its deeper definition is what struck me: "Having been dedicated to a god, the osu was taboo and was not allowed to mix with the freeborn in any way."