Re: CHAT: t-shirt

At 10:24 am -0400 24/9/00, The Gray Wizard wrote:
>> From: Raymond Brown
[...]
>> There seem to me two possibilities:
>> (A) We quickly agree on which 'conlang classics' to include
>> besides our own
>> conlangs, close that list (i.e. no more argument) and politely tell any
>> whinging auxlanger that this is a CONLANG T-SHIRT, *not* an
>> auxlang T-Shirt
>> - which, of course, they are quite free to design themselves.
>> (B) We avoid the who damn auxlang issue by having only the conlangs
>> devised/invented/modelled by members of this list.
>
>
>Is there no room for a third possibility (an extension of your (B)) that
>would admit artlang classics like Quenya and Sindarin?
..which could be viewed as a diminution of my (A)   :)

I'm not happy with trying to classify conlangs as auxlangs, artlangs,
loglangs etc as tho they are hard & fast categories (I'm sure we can all
think of some that seem to cross boundaries).  I think the approach should
be that we include a language solely because it is a conlang.
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At 5:20 pm +0000 24/9/00, Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:
>> Date:         Sun, 24 Sep 2000 11:02:48 -0400
>> From:         Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...>
[....]
>> If more venerable and wiser list-members were amenable, I like David's
>> B-extension suggestion.  It seems almost shameful to exclude Tolkien (and
>> others of whom I probably haven't heard, being fairly new to this)
>> because of auxlang issues.
AMEN!!!

>Would an auxlanger by offended by Tolkien?
>
>I think some are,
My own sad experience in Auxland leads to me be certain that you are correct.

[...]
>
>On the other hand, we offend people of that persuasion just by being
>here; including Tolkien won't make any difference in their opinion of
>the T-shirt.
Exactly - my own feeling is that we ignore the quarelsome pettiness of
auxlangers.  Let them design their own T-Shirt (if they can ;)

>My personal opinion, in the view of what happened last, is that an
>official CONLANG project should officially exclude _all_ IAL projects,
>whether succesful in the modern timeframe or not.
But here I unwillingly part company with Lars.  ConIALs are conlangs (as
opposed to natIALs like Akkadian & English).  To exclude any conIAL seems
to me to be allowing ranting auxlangers to determine what we do.  To hell
with them, I say!

My own opinion is that we include a conlang because it is a _conlang_ and
meets the criteria by which we judge any conlang, irrespective of any
classificatory label, to be worthy of inclusion.

>No Lingua Ignota, no
>SolReSol, no volap¸k, no Esperanto, no Glosa. No Novial, Speedwords
I agree on no Glosa, no Novial & no Speedwords.  Their inventors are not on
this list and these languages are little known outside of the
conlang/auxlang worlds.

Esperanto is one of the few conlangs that many a "person in the street" has
actually heard about.  Whatever one thinks of it, it is a 'conlang
classic'.  IMHO omitting Esperanto is to let the auxlang bigots win.

Now I state my own _personal_ position:  I do not rate E-o highly as an
IAL; as an IAL, I think Novial was a better product.  I stress these are my
own personal opinions - I do *not* state them here to start any flame-war &
I do not think this is the correct list to argue about the merits of this
or that conIAL as an IAL.

I state my view to show as clearly as I can that my own consideration is
simply this: "What are the conlangs that non-conlangers may have come
across or heard about?" As I see it, they are: Esperanto, Quenya, Sindarin
& Klingon.

I admit the "person in the street" is unlikely to have heard of SolReSol -
but it does seem to me a loss not to see a language written solely in
musical notation  :)

>or
>NGL either, even though some list members may be working on them.
Again I disagree.  I in no way agree with the main aim of NGL, but it is a
conlang that some members of this list helped to create and, therefore, IMO
ought to be included.

[....]
>
>Lojban is a special case --- I don't see it as an IAL project myself
Nor was it - and as some members of this list worked on the creation of
lojban, it should IMNSHO be included.

[...]
>
>The alternative is that someone takes the financial risk of offending
>too many conlangers, and simply includes a list of well known IALs on
>the shirt without telling anyone else until it is printed.
I don't think any true conlangers would be offended.  But we ought to make
as sure as we can that the languages of those actually on this list are
included.

Darn it - still haven't got 'briefscript' into a developed enough state  :=(

Ray.




=========================================
A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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