Re: the Maligned Art

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