Re: the Maligned Art

>David wrote concerning the "social activity" of a language as being necessary
>in order to classify a conlang as a "real language"
>
>Although I hesitated to join in on this thread (too philosophical for me, a
>non-linguist), I will say this:
>
>If I create a tool that looks like, is capable of acting like, has all the
>properties of, a hammer, can one say that it is NOT a hammer until someone
>actually uses it as such?
>
>In other words, are our hardware stores populated by "hammer-looking" objects
>that have yet to "earn" their "hammerhood" by being bought and used?
This is indeed a philosophicval point.

The counterargument is simople in this case.  We don't know all the properties
of "real languages", and hence cannot be sure something is a "real language"
until it is used successfully in all the ways that "real languages" are.
This is especially hard when people don't even agree as to what the
properties of "real languages" are, even among what is actually known
about them (i.e. which properties are 'necessary' for languagehood as opposed
to things that we have observed in a few or many languages).

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273
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