Re: the Maligned Art

Simon:
>There also might be an implication in some people's mind that because
>they are "invented" they are not "real" languages. This is similar
>(but not exactly the same as) Lojban Bob's view.
I hope not.  That is precisely what I am trying to change.  However
many linguists and even more of the general public seem to have that attitude.


>There is no difference between an invented and a real language, because
>the final result is indistinguishable.
That is precisely what is in question by those who challenge the legitmacy
of conlangs in any of a variety of arenas - is the final result indistinguishable
from a natural language. In general, the answer is YES they are
distingushable.  Languages recently created have features such as unusual
signal to noise ratio, lack of idiomatic usages, unusual grammatical regularity.
Pidgins, which are essentially one kind of conlang, have certain properties
that "real languages" do not and they ARE distingushed.  That pidgins, when
passed on to a new generation of native speakers end up changing in significant
and apparently patterned ways, seems to show that the "construction" was
NOT compatible with the way "normal language" works. But I don't know the work
onpidgins and creoles myself, so someone else will have to fill in
details or correct my errors %^).

>How do we know the so called
>"natural" languages weren't invented by a conlanger?
We don't have any idea how they were created.  But they are no longer what they
were, whatever they were when they first appeared.  They are almost
certainly more complex than the first languages, since sudden appearance of
complex language from scratch appears to be evolutionarily unlikely.

>You said your so-called "invented"
>languages are languages as well. I agree. 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.
Thiose who care are quite clear on the idea that "real languages" evolve, so
that how they developed is a separate question from what they are now to
be studied in different ways.

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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