Re: the Maligned Art

On Sun, 8 Nov 1998, Logical Language Group wrote:

> Sally to Simon:
> >Simon... it doesn't seem that you have been following this particular
> >thread very well (which started as "Lunatic Again)."  If you had been,
> >then you would take up your gripe here with my opponent, who doesn't think
> >that applying the word "language" to an invented language is allowable in
> >all cases.  I DO.
>
> I'm not sure that you do .  I repeat your words of a few messages back:
> >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.
I think that where you are being tricky, Bob, ;-) and I will not succumb
to it if I can at all help it, is in denying me, each time you challenge
me, the full context of my argument.  In THIS context, the one you just
quoted from, I have objected to your plaint that people on this listserv
are using the term "language" incorrectly.  My reply was that the listserv
is NOT the outside world where this kind of distinction needs to be made.
(I don't actually think it needs to be made to the local yokel, either;
this notion that a fictional language is just a code, or not really a
language is actually subtle and sophisticated and not usually arrived at
by Joe Schmoe, whose usual answer is going to be: "wow, neat, but what's
the point?"--but I know that your anxiety is the reception of
linguists--but that's an issue that isn't as crucial to me). But then, you
and I don't agree on the meaning of language. And this brings us to your
other assumption, on which you base your suggestion that I'm being
self-contradictory: that the term "language" can only be used to mean REAL
language, or USED language.  Again, you are begging the question, and that
is unfair. Here's my "taxonomy" and I hope this clears things up:

                               LANGUAGE
                             /          \
                natural languages       invented languages
                                           |          \    \       \
                                        auxlangs  loglangs artlangs codes

When I make a distinction (to Simon) between an invented language and a
natural language (and I haven't put any categories under the "natural
languages"  rubric, including the ones that share features with the
"invented languages rubric), I'm not denying that an invented language can
be a language.  But you insist in your remarks above in making it sound as
though I'm distinguishing invented languages from the category of LANGUAGE
when all I am doing is distinguishing them from natural languages. You may
not agree with my taxonomy, but you have to accept that I'm being true to
the parameters I've set up.  Obviously an invented language is different
from a natural language.  But I see both of them as partaking in the
concept of LANGUAGE.  Usually, context clears this up, and the context of
that particular post was that the term "language" ON THIS LIST does not
always have to be so clarified.  When people say "I've added a new feature
to my language," or "I've created a new language," very few people are so
literal-minded as to think they've modified English or French or
Portuguese.  Or even that they assume, by using the term "language," that
they have created something with the depth and history behind it of
English or Portuguese.  They assume, as do I, that the word "language"  is
a perfectly acceptable term to use of either a natural language or an
invented one, no matter how incomplete or nascent their attempt.  You are
not allowing for different contexts to qualify utterances.  That's a
lawyer's trick!  <G>

But now that the concept of LANGUAGE has been called into question, that
is the stand I take on it.  I like this concept of "potentiality"
(potential hammers, potential houses, potential languages) that others
remarking on this topic have raised, and the sense of internal logic that
David has mentioned, and has admitted intrigues him.  Yes, it does depend
on what you privilege as the "core" meaning or function of language in a
definition of it, and I privilege the human capacity to make sounds that
are complexly meaningful, to have signifiers that have signifieds, a
mental structure that orders this play of meaning, and a potential for
this system to be used and understood by others.  I will probably
continue to call Teonaht an invented *language* inside, and probably
outside, of this cozy context.  Nor would I be playing "Humpty Dumpty" to
anybody except those who think along the lines that you do.

> "On this listserv" is not "in all cases".
I never said it was.  But you HAVE objected to the use of "language" on
even the conlang list, although you have very gallantly qualified that in
your extremely nice remarks to me on the other thread.  Thank you!

> If we are talking about a jargon of convenience to be used solely within the
> conlang community, well, we are entitled to play Humpty Dumpty as long as
> we all understand what is meant.  But if we reach out to  the outside
> world (which in effect we do when we post Web pages and have a public
> archive) we are not merely talking to people on this list.
As I said, it's not so much the term "language" that the outside world
might object to as it is the validity of the pursuit.  But so far, in all
the nearing seven hundred hits or so I've had with my website, no
hair-splitting "stumbled-on-your-page-by-accident"  non-conlanger has
challenged me about my endeavor.  A little disappointing.  Undoubtedly
because only conlangers are looking at it.  But I've had the "this is
total bullshit; why are you wasting your time like this" response before,
including from my immediate family, so I fully expect it.  My answer: it's
not hurting you, so why should you care?

> I don't disagree with much of anything you've written in the last few days
> IN PRINCIPLE, but it is in pragmatics and the integrated sociology of the
> conlang world with the "Real world" that I get hung up.
Yes, I see, Lojbab.

> And if you want to label this then my "hang up", then I concede.
No, I wouldn't put it in such terms.  I would say that this was your
opinion, and that you're entitled to it.

I don't
> successfully cut out the real world when I get into conlanging, perhaps
> because conlanging is so much a part of my everyday real world.
Well, it's very much a part of mine too, Lojbab, but I'm not out to
convince the world, or even just linguists, of its importance to them.
Now philosophers... that's a different thing.  But that's for another
post.  Gads, I don't think I can keep this up!  Duty calls...

Cheers, Sally

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Sally Caves
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html

Li fetil'aiba, dam hoja-le uen.
volwin ly, vul inua aiba bronib.

This leaf, the wind takes her.
She's old, and born this year.
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