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Re: the Maligned Art

From:Logical Language Group <lojbab@...>
Date:Thursday, November 12, 1998, 1:35
Nik Taylor:
>Simon Kissane wrote: >> This distinction that you are making implies that (at least to me, >> and probably to others, though I know you will deny this) that >> conlangs are somehow "less than real" languages, only >> half-languages. > >Not quite, I do think that conlangs are "real" (altho that is a tricky >word in English, since it can also mean "actually used") languages, I >just don't think that they're "the same" as natlangs. I do think that >they can be equally complex (in the hands of a competent conlanger), but >that there's something missing. Natlangs have a rich history, with >various associations between words, and so on, that are impossible to >replicate.
Indeed, I think it IS impossible forany conlanger, no matter how competent, to create a langauge of the complexity of a natlang, and I don't think the history is the limit. No one knows everything about their own native language, nor about any other natlang they study. To create a conlang as an individual, you would have to create rules that are beyond your capability to understand fully. Now in a sense one can do this - make up rules that have unknown synergies. But with natlangs we do not know (cannot identify) all the rules even. I think a group working together can achieve that kind of complexity. Others have introduced rules into Lojban that I do not understand, and certainly some things I have introduced, others do not seem to understand. lojbab