Classical languages: was: Re: Gothic language

On Wed, 25 Aug 1999, Danny Wier wrote:

>
> I agree.  In a very limited sense standard Latin as used by everyone from
> the Pope to the family doctor is a "conlang", but only in the sense of being
> an ancient language engineered, artificially controlled, to be used in
> modern contexts.  Latin is no more a conlang than Modern Hebrew, Standard
> Arabic, or the Sanskrit used by the Sanskrit-speaking community of India.  I
> would even say that Proto-Indo-European is more a conlang really, though
> hardly _a priori_ like Klingon.
>
I've objected before to the tendency of classifying all classical
languages as 'conlangs' - even though prescriptive grammars abounded,
and some even had a measure of authority, not even Panini could arrest
the development of Sanskrit. I'd say all these languages, from Latin
to Sanskrit, from Nahuatl to Classical Chinese are just perfectly natural
natlangs - nobody has has ever tried and succeeded in consciously controlling
them.

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://denden.conlang.org/~bsarempt