Re: CONLANG jargon WAS: How to spell a gesture
| From: | Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Sunday, February 20, 2005, 19:09 |
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On Saturday, February 19, 2005, at 05:44 , Sally Caves wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Paul Bennett" <paul-bennett@...>
[snip]
>> engelang - An engineered language. I'm not sure of the exact shade of
>> meaning implied.
>
> If John and And were still on board (I think And's nomail) they would
> define
> these terms. Here's something I found on the archives from And Rosta on
> May
> 15, 2002, replying to Garrett Jones. The distinction is a subtle one:
>
> AND:
> 'engelang' means an 'engineered language', one with explicit design goals
> such that the degree of success in achieving those goals is objectively
> assessable.
Spot on! It was And, in fact, who first coined the term "engelang", so he
should know :)
And told me that BrSc (as it was called then - now _Bax_) was an engelang
- and so it is. He considers his own Livagian to be an engelang. Another
obvious example is R. Srikanth's Lin.
These languages are _engineered_ to meet specific and objectively
measurable design goals. This distinguishes them from artlangs where the
design goals are not always well defined and tend to include _subjective_
unmeasuable criteria such as "aesthetically pleasing".
It could be claimed - and probably is by some - that auxlangs form a
subset of engelangs. But as anyone knows, who has visited Auxlang for a
few years, there is little agreement among auxlangers on the goals (other
than that everyone should adopt their own auxlang) and such discussions
tend to generate heat & flames. That is why we put auxlangs into a
separate group and there is a separate list for the discussion of such
matters.
> [Then, later:]
>
>
> 'Loglang' was coined to define a hypothetical class of conlangs based on
> very much the same principles as the Loglans, but not restricted to the
> Loglans (Loglans being Loglan and its descendants/versions). In the case
> of
> 'Engelang', I perceived another natural kind (defined by me in previous
> messages in these threads), and
> after much discussion eventually managed to articulate a reasonably
> explicit
> definition. I initially applied the definition to the term 'loglang', but
> found that popular consensus held to the narrower definition of 'loglang'
> that I have given above,
> so this gave rise to 'engelang', which follows the clipping-compound
> pattern
> of the other terms and derives from the obvious and optimal descriptive
> phrase 'engineered language'.
Yes, this is correct. As I said, it was And who coined the term 'engelang'
, and that was his explanation.
Loglangs are, as I see it, a sub-category of engelangs; they are
engineered to construct a language modelled on some form of formal logic.
Loglans are, of course, a sub-category of loglangs :)
> JONES:
>> I guess a better definition would be this:
>>
>> [language term] n. a language with one or more experimental features
>> (optional: that do not occur in natural languages).
>>
>> the reason the strange languages would fit in this category is that they
>> would have features that don't occur in natural languages.
>
> In that case, 'does not occur in natural languages' is an integral
> rather than optional part of the definition.
>
> But the features 'experimental' and 'nonnatural' seem to me not
> to define a natural class. Some naturalistic conlangs enjoy
> typologically interesting experiments with natlang features.
> Some conlangs with nonnatlang features are not in any meaningful
> way engaged in experimentation. And I'm not conscious of any
> marked tendency for the two properties to go hand in hand.
> END
I agree. In any case "does not occur in natural languages" is, as the
old-timers here know, a risky claim to make. More often than not, the
feature is found to occur somewhere ;)
In any case, apparently nonnatural features seem often to occur because of
inexperience of the part of the language constructor and not through any
desire to be experimental. Also one can be experimental with 'natural'
features. I think introducing these terms are confusing the issue.
> See also Jeffrey Henning's definition on Langmaker: "A conlang designed to
> achieve pragmatic rather than artistic goals,"; but I think in And's case,
> Livagian is also deeply invested in artistry as well.
I agree - and I hope Bax will be invested with artistry as well :)
But I think the word "rather" is important in Jeffrey's definition. And
has explicitly said he considers Livagian to be an engelang. It's a
question where you put your emphasis; in And's case (and mine) the
emphasis is on engineering the language to meet specific goals. This does
not, of course, preclude the language from being invested with artistry,
any more than many great works of engineering are devoid of artistry -
like the Forth railway bridge in Scotland, Brunel's suspension bridge over
the Avon Gorge in England etc. etc. - great works of engineering, but
deeply invested in artistry.
Yep - but not in the vague, popular meaning of 'logical'. A loglang is
constructed according to a formalized logic such as Clausal Form Logic.
Ray
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