Re: the Maligned Art

Sally Caves wrote:
[snipped]
> Well there you have it, Bob.  People say "my language" or "my city," and
> everybody knows that it's a fictional language or a fictional city.
> On   this   listserv.
Fictional cities, yes, but fictional languages? Because languages aren't
physical objects, you can't make a fictional/non-fictional distinction.
All the languages here are just as real as English or French or
Japanese.
You could say they have no or very few speakers, but then some
"real" languages have no or very few speakers either. (How many people
speak Proto-Indo-European?)
You might say they have been invented, but all languages have been
invented. Most people in their life conlang a word or two, and the
only difference between conlangs and "real" languages is that
rather than a large group of people inventing a word or two each,
you have one person inventing a whole language...

I can't see any distinction between conlangs and "real" languages,
they are the same thing.

> Sally
Simon Kissane