Re: USAGE: (Mis)Naming a Language

 --- David Peterson skrzypszy:

> So, my question: Has something similar happened to anyone else?
Well, the primary condition for it to happen has been fulfilled,
because I dó have a conlang that shares its name with a natlang,
albeit an ancient one, namely Hattic. However, the situation you
described has not (yet) occurred to me.

> And, do you think I should change the name of the language?
> Would you, in this situation?
When I started Hattic, I had never heard of the real Hattic either.
It took me a while to discover it. But once I knew, I seriously
considered changing the name as well. Not that I particularly wanted
to: changing the name of a conlang is not a light thing to do, and I
was both used and attached to the name "Hattic". Well, I brought it
up here on Conlang, and after some discussion I decided to keep the
name. The chief argument were the many examples *here* of completely
unrelated natlangs with the same name.

So, do I think you should change the name of "Kele"? Well, it seems
you have already come to a decision, but for what it is worth: no, I
don't think so. If you create a conlang with a name as short as this
one, the odds are that another language or dialect may exist with the
same name. In my opinion, that shouldn't be an argument against
keeping it. It could be recommendable to make it very clear on the
page of the language that it is a constructed language, having
nothing in common with the natlang Kele; just a matter of courtesy.

> Also, what if someone created a language with a name like Teonaht,
> not knowing that one already existed, and (with no disrespect to
> this imaginary person) was far better?
I would probably just point it out to this person, and ask him/her
politely to change the name or otherwise disambiguate (which in the
case of two constructed languages is definitely easier than between
two natlangs). If that doesn't work, well, there's always the option
of hiring a killer...

Jan

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