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VARKUZAN:
A CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGE:
(conlang, loglang, artlang, auxlang)
THE INTRODUCTION TO THE INTRODUCTION

It's not about whether you engage in circular logic, but how you engage in circular logic: yr system must not have too much or too little have symmetry in the right places at the right times, and aside from perhaps some really sophisticated holography (i.e. applied integral calculus) the ultimate and perhaps only arbit...er of one's success in this game is the human ability to identify beauty

COLOR KEY:

white: English Titles, English Translations and Conversions, Charts
orange: Varkuzan Titles
red: general English text
yellow: highlights/examples to general English text, Varkuzan vocabulary
grey: Varkuzan general text
forest green: highlights/examples to Varkuzan general text, Varkuzan vocabulary
violet: general text alternate: English, Varkuzan, mixed
teal: highlights/examples to general text alternative: English, Varkuzan, mixed
light violet: parallel Varkuzan timeline material
fusha: other, miscellaneous text: possibly unorganized or there to remind me to fix or add something later


Varkuzan is a constructed language. It has been and will continue to be constructed by Paul Varkuza, who named himself after his language and not the other way around because he himself and his work is only an extension of the greater idea(s) that Varkuzan represents.

The intention of Varkuzan is, like other constructed languages of the more utopian variety, to alleviate difficulties in human communication, thought, and expression. This is accomplished through an attempt at complete objectivity. The beauty of this of course is that WHAT objectivity means is relative to the individual. Moreover, this duality between subjectivity and objectivity, between the part and the whole, the individual and the group, is what, together with its innate subtleties and dynamics, dominates Varkuzan's reality. Many rational and human forces have gone into detailing Varkuzan's silhouette, but nothing is more essential more primal than the metaphysical topology created by pure logic's attempt to comprehend itself in an existential universe. In other words, the philosophy which sculpts Varkuzan is the philosophy of the dialectic, the belief that within the conflict of opposing points of view is created the structure for the most objective truth. If he who seeks to understand Varkuzan can understand this basic idea-paradigm and why one COULD choose to give it primacy in their metaphysical conception of reality, then they will stand an vastly improved chance of understanding the motivation behind how Varkuzan is constructed, and this idea-paradigm will be referenced by me, Paul Varkuza, repeatedly often simply as "the dialectic" in order to keep things clean. Furthermore, just to clear up any confusion, when I say "dialectic" I do not mean this in any pejorative or Marxist sense, regardless of how I feel about collectivist economics one way or another, dialectic for me is pure logic taken to its farthest extreme for the sake of understanding truth motivated by the pure and deep human desire to understand.

For the remainder of this introduction, I will elaborate upon this dialectical Varkuzan and expound upon certain key aspects thereof, as well as; outline what the most key aspects of Varkuzan are and their relationships with the dialectic.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

WHAT DOES VARKUZA(N) MEAN?
What does Varkuza(n) mean in Varkuzan? I, Paul Varkuza, will not tell you directly, but I will tell you indirectly, and if you come to understand what it means, you will in turn instantly and completely understand why I do not tell directly. This policy, no matter how juvenile it might seem, is at the heart of understanding and representing the metaphysics that belie Varkuzan.

A POET AND A CONLANGER
I am a poet as much as a conlanger. Each is intensely enriched by the activities of the other, and each is really just an attempt to fulfill the goals of classical philosophy through modified means, where Mauthner and Wittgenstein ceased I continue. I use metaphor often esoteric metaphor at that just as readily as technical or exact language to describe or explain many aspects of Varkuzan or the reasoning behind aspects of Varkuzan. I do this not in spite of my commitment to logic and objectivity but because of my commitment. Without the strategic use of the right brain the left brain is left to slaughter like an army of tanks without gasoline or a beautiful and powerful mind without a soul. And in the end, Varkuzan seeks to be as ideal to the poet as it is to the philosopher, politican, or scientist.

All constructed languages are belied by philosophies whether they are declared or deliberate philosophies or not, they still are there. For he who seeks to learn about Varkuzan, I think it is most advantageous to learn the most basic and elemental qualities of this philosophy in order to assist the motivation of aspects of the language seem something other than arbitrary or inane. Like other conlangers of the serious and profound disposition, I am motivated by the desire to solve problems in human communication and expression to aid philosophy and in turn to ameliorate social and political problems around the world. I am at heart an idealist who nonetheless harbors a deep cynicism about humanity, which I view as ideal for creating a balanced language. The poet and the conlanger have the same goal, to say the un-say-able, attacking the same problem from difference extremes of the brain. I am a poet also, and in turn this is about balance. The philosophy of balance and of the intricacies of the relationship of the part to the whole, the individual to the group, the dialectic for lack of a better term, dominates all aspects of Varkuzan, more than anything else. My language is meant to be completely objective, but this in turn innately presupposes certain metaphysical interpretations of reality by the creator of the language. Moreover, it is my opinion and belief that objective reality by definition contains a certain amount of subjectivity just as subjectivity contains a certain amount objectivity. Objectivity and subjectivity are part of a continuum, which we could call the omnijective continuum. I believe this truth to be an objective truth, which in turn makes it automatically a bit of a subjective truth too. A Partial Elaboration of the Philosophy Particularily Relative to Glorified Individuality
Comparisons with Esperanto and Lojban

VARKUZAN IN MULTIPLE TIME
Varkuzan has been primarily written from 2002-9 but it was also written from 1930-7. Confused? Paul Varkuzan has developed much of his language not on an empty blackboard and in his mind's eye while walking or sitting beside the sea, but instead much of Varkuzan has been developed within a alternative timeline also written by Paul Varkuza initially for unrelated reasons. In this timeline Paul Varkuza exists with his same name and in that timeline he also creates and promotes his language. Before you decide that I'm crazy or pedantic for allowing such a structure, here me out, I think there are very strong practical wisdom to developmenting a language within an alternative timeline, I would like to relate these reasons succinctly and explain this in greater detail.
One aspect alttime conlanging provides is the psychology strength of narrative. Think of many of the great works of literature and the often simple didactic messages they have e.g. 1984, Crime and Punishment, Macbeth, etcetera. If you were to just inform someone of the message in a sentence or two and then send them on there way it doesn't nearly have the same effect as reading the story. Because the story puts the message into three-dimensions, it educates the emotions not just the mind, you can identify with the message through your ability to relate to the characters, their situations, and the experiences they experience. Humans, by nature, respond strongly to stories simply because they make information more real and stimulate the mind to explore the significance of the meaning to much greater detail. And it is no different for conlanging, Varkuzan just isn't a static thing, but it is also part of a story that has the potential to inspire the human soul way more than a static language ever could.
Extending on that, we all know that the most commerically successful conlangs are ones related to compelling works of fiction, perhaps the way to bridge the gap for the more progressive conlangs is to have them be part of a compelling work of fiction that features them as a part and not just arbitrarily but the goal of the language's perfection being relevant to the plot. This is also part of the idea.
But more important than either of those reasons, is that I geniunely believe that all forms of intellectual speculation, at least for me, are given a creative boost if they are developed through the measn of a person speculated in an alternative timeline. Take economics for example, if I want to write some theories or possible systems of economics that diverge from what currently exist, I don't just imagine a hypothetical Country X with generic statistics, oh no, I will do it in a historical context in an actual place say Argentina in the 1950's and even if I'm engaged in wild speculation, because a timeline like a language is never actually fininshed, I always keep in the back of my mind that in the end it will be part of the bigger story. I will use actual people from history, real information about the place, and try to forcast accurately given the new situation how it will play out. If I want some economic experiment to succeed, I learn from my playing out paradigms, and I might play the same thing out dozens of times, what is going to cause it to fail or be less than perfect first, and then I run it again changed. Only using real situations can one do this with optimium success, a generic pedagogy doesn't respond to your suggestions like a well-researched historical one would. The best example of this is a phenomena, where trial-and-error leads me to conclude a bizarre strategy to make something work and then I later learn a person sympathetic to similar causes in real history actually entairtained the same ideas. A good example is I was playing with how the Nazis could best pursue their goals in the Balkans and I came to the conclusion that the Bulgarian king should best be assassinated and that assassination should be blamed on someone else. This is ironic because the Germans didn't know he'd die of natural causes in '43 only a few years later. But the joke's on me, because I recently learned there's a conspiracy theory that he was assassinated by the Germans covertly (poisioning) for more or less the same reasons and they if they did they deflected blame just as I imagined them doing. Hindsight is 20-20 and with that 20-20 you have an giant holodeck to use to your advantage. I could elaborate about this for a long time, the bottom line is narrative especially historically fictional narrative is power for the reader and writer. Conlanging in history has the same qualities, what difficulities does Varkuzan encounter as a language in real time real place, how does the intellectual community greet it including specific people at specific points in their lives, how does Varkuzan diplomatically approach fear by natural languages of being marginalized, etcetra, and thinking in this way has allowed me I think if nothing else at a faster rate to potentially adjust to Varkuzan and anticipate how I will market Varkuzan to the world.
Although this alternative timeline is fantasy, for Paul Varkuza it is more than fantasy, to borrow from Poincare it is imaginal, a kind of mystical neutral ground between objective and subjective between tangible reality and dream or spiritual reality. Setting the mystical and trandscendential aspects aside, I think there is a vast amount of merit to this format of development aside from the fact that is my natural inclination and you should always allow your creativity to happen where it chooses to be most comfortable.

Living Document
To borrow an term of art from constitutional law, Varkuzan is a living document, never to be completely finished and before and definitely after Paul Varkuza succumbs to biological inevitability, it is hope that Varkuzan will be governed by an institution of sorts.

Latin Default (letter-word-sentence, LWS)

For the time being Varkuzan essentially uses the Latin script and also references the IPA. Paul Varkuza does not see this a compromise relative towards total objectivity. Latin script is simply a practical means to deliver a language and the language could be translated out of Latin script without the essense of the language being altered in any way. Likewise, the letter-word-sentence paradigm is maintained, but if you wanted to change Varkuzan to have a system more like Chinese characters or another system, you could and it would still be Varkuzan just under a very different system of delivery. It is because the essense remains the same that the adoption of the most prevalent system is not seen as problematic. Parallel versions can always be developed in the future. Varkuzan is not about minimalism exclusively. It is about celebrating everything true which is minimalism and everything else too.

VARKUZAN DICTIONARIES AND DEFITIONS

Paul Varkuza once believed that one definition per word was the only prudent option for a objective rational conlang. He still believes that each word should only mean one thing, but the number of ways to rationally express that meaning are often more than one. One needs to look no farther than mathematics, the purest form of objectivity, to find that in higher mathematics especially many possible proofs exist to prove only one thing. And, in 1963, Paul Cohen of Berkeley proved that whether there existed a medium Cantor infinity was dependent on the opinion of the prover because he proved it both true and false. Moreover, red could be defined based on light wavelengths or as the pigmental opposite of green all the same. Moreover, in Varkuzan, as many defintions for a word exist as can be given as long as they are all objective and an express of a unique perspective. So, while 11 may be defined as the number after 10 it may not be defined as 7+4 because there is no objective necessity for the latter definition even though it's true. There are also different types of defintions. Defining something by its opposite for example or defining the symbolic tendencies of darkness in poetry based on the fact of evolutionary biology that a lessened ability to see increases danger and the liklihood of survival...those are both objective (the latter will only exist under a system where all the components aspects have to survival some objective test or scrutiny)
The most important definition is the headliner, which is the most technical definition or the definition given in a context-devoid situation, or the definition that all the other definitions have to be proved to be equivalent to.
Defintions are an opportunity to demonstrate congruency or even near-congruency, which in turn can be used to develop axiomatic structures in other cases.
The quality and technical consistency of the dictionary is of utmost importance. The most important thing is to insure that it is friendly formal logic and therefore legal scrutiny. A world free of lawsuits and legal manipulation based on the vague never-to-be-exactly-defined quality of words would be a much better world, especially in the case of English which could be the most sloppy language in the first world.

Standard Utopian Ideals and Vaguery
Hard and Soft

12-Base Number System

Varkuzan uses a duodecimal or base-12 number system, whereas base-12 is objectively the most superior for human use. However, the predominance of base-10 is obvious. Moreover, either system can be used in Varkuzan and even mix-matched due to simple differences in vocabulary and a simple spoken and written system of marking when necessary.

Consonant Numbering
Inflection
Multiple-Point Inflection Using Math and Consonant Numbering


Varkuzan Vocabulary Generation: Rule Systems Much of general Varkuzan vocabulary is generated using Varkuzan Vocabulary Generation Rule Systems. These systems usually use the consonant-integer system and then for a certain subsection of vocablary rules are set up that enable vocabulary to be created simply based off of the function of the consonant-integer system, the rules, and the objective state of affairs of the vocabulary. The pre-eminent example of this is chemistry, where the chemical composition of a substance and other chemical information are contained within its name. The implications of this are obvious, and aesthetic consequences are carefully considered. For those further interested in this technique, I suggest review of the chemistry system (link just below) and other vocabulary systems within varkuzan
Varkuzan Chemistry

Imports

Circular Logic

Varkuzan does not fight the inevitability of circular logic, but rather attempts to find an (the) objective mechanism to determine how some situations of circular logic may be superior to others, how ciruclar logic can be a feather in the cap and not an albatross around the neck.
The nature of the process of varkuzan conlanging necessarily means that cracking the folcrum of the circular logic problem in detail is no less than the same exact thing as systematizing the inner most metaphysically sensative semantic taxonomy of varkuzan itself.
"It's not about whether you engage in circular logic, but how you engage in circular logic: yr system must not have too much or too little have symmetry in the right places at the right times, and aside from perhaps some really sophisticated holography (i.e. applied integral calculus) the ultimate and perhaps only arbit...er of one's success in this game is the human ability to identify beauty." -Paul Varkuza Dec. 5, 2009

Goal Points in the Varkuzan Conlanging Process

First, I must acknowledge that there is a certain belief I have that the constant revising of critical aspects of Varkuzan will cease rather quickly allowing the filling out of the language to occur rather quickly. The more critical, and in my case more intellectually-pertinent aspects invariably precede the everyday speech most people expect to come first when creating a language, and albeit that the case for some I'm sure, but in my case what's the point of, for example, stressing about vocabulary and preferred verbage for cooking situations until I've prefected the entire system of prepositions. Otherwise, you run the risk of having to

Self-fluency
Translating, Writing, and Recording My Own Poetry into/in Varkuzan
Thinking Thoughts Unthinkable in English, and to the same effect, working on philosophy of logic through the medium of varkuzan
Everything for me reduces to the attempt to learn and apply what I've learned. Though I believe it to be an observation of wisdom, for me it is probably more importantly a function of personality; I believe that everything is connected to everything else, and have always operated as such. I started writing poetry to help my philosophy, my political essays became increasingly autobiographical, my fictional stories are all metafictional, and I even make my own life imitate my projects just as my projects imitate my life. Everything is forming a hollow sphere around the unspeakable "truth" that lies inside...god by silhouette. Moreover, conlanging for me, even a language project, as varkuzan is, that is supposed to be objective for objective's sake, must be autobiographical and to that end, self-psychoanalytical. In simplest terms, this means Varkuzan is self-aware, but more importantly, this means the follow consequences of my own self-analysis. That I have, my whole life, constantly worked and reworked systems of all sorts trying to improve and understand them, connect them to each other, and also, understand the nature of how systems themselves work and can altered...conlanging for me is a natural consequence, perhaps the most natural consequence, of all my micro-macro information system tinkering, but next most important is probably my alternative timeline project, which is really a living labratory where I constantly, and I would say, compulsively rework history and the way events effect each other, how people learn and their beliefs change, and how their emotions and spiritual evolution is altered by both the tangible and intangible aspects of experience. As different as this seems from the stationary unnarrative world of conlanging, I have increasingly seen the symmetry and even symbiosis between them, especially in my day to day machinations. I first saw the efficacy of putting Varkuzan into the alternative timeline project, and then the reverse became reasonable as most conlang projects seem to flourish when accompanied by a fictional dimension, which is an interesting thing in-and-of-itself, and finally, the boundry between them should be pared down until I no longer can draw any benefit from it. The keystone to this paradigm is understanding that language is about possibility, anything could possibly be said, and if so, this is the domain of possible roads it can rationally take in a given language. History, and historical determinism, are the same, many things could possibly happen, and if they did, they would have to follow certain paths of reason that multiply into and infinite number as you move forward. Both projects are about managing the means of possibility, and in this way, they can help each other.

Relations to Godel, Wittgenstein, Kant, etc.
Psychoaccoustics
Final Philosophy Redo
About Me Link

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