Re: the Maligned Art

Simon Kissane wrote:
> All the languages here are just as real as English or French or
> Japanese.
I wouldn't say that.  I would certainly not call Watya'iya`isa a "real"
language, it's artificial, constructed, imaginary.  I'd call it a
language, but not a "real" language.

> 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?)
PROTO-IE is a constructed language, since we've theorized about what it
was like.  But, the actual ancestreal language(s) was/were spoken by
people, who knows how many.

> 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.
Well, I'd say that outside of people like us, very few people do more
than add and slightly modify their lang, we *create* langs, there's a
huge difference.  Just because I can replace a light bulb in my house
doesn't make me a housebuilder!  Besides, real langs are a democratic
affair, if I were to suddenly start saying "thou" and "thee", it
probably wouldn't cause other people to start using "thou" and "thee".
Even the prescriptivists are somewhat subject to these democratic
qualities.  If all of them were to start demanding that people use
"thou" and "thee", it probably wouldn't cause that to become a real part
of English.  Conlangs, on the other hand, are autocratic affairs, what I
declare to be Correct in my lang *is* correct, who can go against me?
Group conlangs like NGL are a little more democratic, of course, but
they're still more mutable than natlangs.

--
"It has occured to me more than once that holy boredom is good and
sufficient reason for the invention of free will." - "Lord Leto II"
(Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert)
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