Category Archives: my novel

Vinylia – The Artificial Language of Dervish

chicks and giralda

Here is a link to Chapter 7 of my book Vinylia.

The chapter is mostly about an artificial language called Dervish and the attempts of a woman called Confucia Wang to bring it under control.  Dervish is invented in order to overcome the unavoidable misunderstandings and ambiguities in drafting treaties and conventions using natural languages and thus improve the quality of the output of international organisations.

It starts out as a very promising instrument but its effectiveness begins to be dulled when the introduction of new mood-tense forms make it over-complicated and the language later attains dizzy heights of baffling complexity when mood-mood combinations are invented, so as to create forms of speech such as the Valedictory Terminal,  the Nugatory Inconsequential, the Absolute Abject, the Pandering Proximate, the Counterfactual Extortionary, the Vacillatory Optative, the Expletive Introspective, the Minatory Merciless,  the Presumptive Hereditary, the Spectral Apparitional, the Bovine Ruminative, the Alcoholic Indeterminate and the Hemorrhoidal Inflammatory.  

 

 

 

Salamshaloms

chicks and giraldaMy novel Vinylia, set in a not-too-distant future, is mostly about new breeds of humans, collectively known as Vinylics. The story starts when some genetic material is spilt on a vinyl record of Il Trovatore in a poultry laboratory and operatic chickens are accidentally produced.

Further research leads to the development of a new variety of humans who eat sound. Later, it is discovered that many interesting new properties can be obtained by soaking vinyl records in various mixtures of material (known as “mulches”) before the genetic material is deposited.

After some time, a company called Transvinylia Ho! is founded in Kampala by a woman called Octavia Absson, which focuses on producing interesting new breeds. Salamshaloms. are the first new group of people the company produces. The goal which they hope Salamshaloms will contribute to is that of removing friction between the monotheistic religions. Most new breeds don’t have the expected effect and Salamshaloms are no exception. Read on for some extracts from Vinylia about Salamshaloms.
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