What does Freud say about the symbolism of invented languages?

[oloriel]

Weird dream time!

First thing I remember about this dream is visiting the Niagara Falls, and thinking that now I have seen them in all seasons (meaning that it must have been winter in my dream, because in real life I've been there in March, June and September so far. This also makes sense in the context of the second part of the dream.). Jörg was there, my brother was there, and a bunch of random people who didn't have names I remember; I only remember one of them was a travel journalist who'd organised the whole thing.

There must habe been some kind of cut, as the next thing I remember was being at the sea shore (and it was the sea, not one of the Great Lakes) where we went aboard a decrepit sailing boat and put to sea. After a while, the waves grew higher, and we all had to hang onto the mast to stay onboard because the boat didn't even have a rail. I almost lost my backpack and my camera, but then suddenly the sea grew calm again.
Ahead there was a strange island. That is, it didn't really look like an island; it looked like a gigantic floating market. We anchored and went onto the pontoons that held market stalls and decorated Christmas trees and food and stages on which oriental dancers in colourful costumes were showing their art. The core of the market was an island after all, full of old houses overgrown with vines and ivy, but all around it were the floating stalls, and hundreds of people.
I took a photo of a particularly picturesque street and then went to look at the market stalls; by this time, the others from my group had disappeared. I remember the dancers on one of the stages, and a stall with food, and then I found my stall.
It held a lot of small random things, wooden animals and things made of horns and bones and colourful mobiles and dreamcatchers and shells and the like, and, on a shelf, there were the tins.
They were cubic metal tins in various colours, the kind you use for tea; but their labels didn't bear the names of tea. Next to them hung a sign reading "Unknown languages. £ 2,50." in squiggly letters. The labels, I presume, explained what language was to be found within: Some had animal names, like "insect" or "cat", while others had made-up (as far as I can tell) names like "Smourbt" or "Dyrnaid".

And at that point, before I could buy one and see what a language in a tea tin looks like, I woke up. Bah.

Any interpreters?

- - -

Amusingly enough (I mean, after that dream), zorn sent me a link to this article today...
it doesn't get everything right, and most of the comments below are ridiculous (by people who're outraged that Esperanto is mentioned in an article that also mentions Klingon and Sindarin, and NOT in the "Hotel Esperanto hosted FedCon 2006" sense) but it's nonetheless quite enjoyable. Oh, and in German. >_>

Now for food, now for Heroes, and a warm oven. Or something.

Comments

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

I think it would be quite nice, actually, to be able to buy a language in a tin. I'd take a tin of Japanese, and one of German (as a refresher, of course), and one of Gaelic, and...

From time to time, I dream (in that literal sense of which we are talking) of finding a beautiful small town to settle down in, with a nice riverfront shopping area, and lots of little Victorian houses. Alas, I've never seen it in my waking hours.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

No no no, it only works for unknown languages. And you can only have one that nobody else has (Don't ask me how I know, I just do. It was my dream after all ;)). So if anyone buys Smourbt, or Insect, no other person can get the same language.

Wouldn't it be... I dunno, kind of scary if you found it one day? Nice, of course, but also scary?

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

That's... significantly less useful. 8)

And yes, if I found myself driving through that town in my waking hours, I think I would seriously worry about whether I'd died someplace in the last few miles, and just not noticed it....

[yoodi.livejournal.com]

Vielleicht ist das ein Zeichen, dass du die Sprachen Smourbt und Dyrnaid erfinden solltest.....

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

*lach* Wo ich doch nicht mal mit Lothannon fertig geworden bin.
Na, falls ich mir doch irgendwann mal Gedanken über die Sprache meiner Gnome machen sollte, kann ich sie ja Dyrnaid nennen....

[yoodi.livejournal.com]

Gnome? Ich finde da passt Smourbt besser, aus dem einfachen Grund, weil mich das Wort an die Smurfs erinnert. XD

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Stimmt schon. Aber das Wort finde ich so unästhetisch...

[stephantasy.livejournal.com]

I LOVE your dream.

I think it must mean that those things are important to you. :-)

I'd love to dream something like that.

Also, all dreams in which you can read or see colours are important. Numbers are always important, too.

Play with the letters, maybe they're anagrams?

[fuchs.livejournal.com]

Schöööner Traum! Die See steht immer für das Un(ter)bewusste, aber ansonsten... O.o