Re: the Maligned Art

Nik Taylor wrote:
> Simon Kissane wrote:
[snipped]
> Languages *are* different from each other.  And conlangs are different
> from natural languages.  No one can simulate the centuries of
> interactions that produced natlangs.  It's just like cities, there's
> an observable difference between cities with histories going back
> hundreds or thousands of years, which grew without any central plan,
> and modern cities built according to a plan.  If a conlang were adopted by a
> community of speakers, it would gradually change and become, eventually,
> indistinguishable from natlangs.  Mind you, I agree with you in as far
> as saying that conlangs are "real" languages, if by "real" you don't
> mean "actually used", but I don't agree with you that there's no
> fundamental difference between conlangs and natlangs - they ARE
> fundamentally different.
Are natlangs and conlangs really fundamentally different? I don't
think so. Conlangs can be as complicated in grammar as natlangs.
Conlangs
could easily have as large a vocabulary as natlangs, if their designers
wanted to extert the effort. Conlangs could easily be just like natlangs
if enough work was put into them.

(On the other hand, I suppose most conlangers are more interested in
creating new and interesting languages than putting all their work in
one language, making it as natlangish as possible).

> > But I reject your distinction
> > between "invented" and "natural", because it is pointless, useless and
> > completely unworkable in cases where we don't know anything about how
> > the language was developed.
>
> I may not know whether a certain plant was genetically engineered (and
> soon that may apply to animals as well), but that doesn't mean I can't
> speak of "artificial" and "natural" crops.
Personally, I think that entire distinction of artificial/natural
is stupid.

> To use an even better example, many people on listservs and other
> electronic media I don't know if they're male or female.  Does that
> make the male/female distinction "irrelevant"?  I don't think so.
It doesn't, because in the physical (as opposed to "cyberspace") realm
the male/female distinction does make sense. And due to differences in
psychology, its role in personal identity, etc. it is useful. But if
these factors were not so, it would be irrelevant.

Simon Kissane