Re: CHAT: t-shirt

On Mon, 25 Sep 2000, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:

>Very true; on the other hand, excluding Tolkien would mean cutting off
>our own roots!
A good point, here!

>I second this opinion.  Keep the auxlangs aside!  (Actually, my personal
>definition of "conlang" explicitly excludes auxlangs, even if this is
>technically incorrect.
Out of curiosity, what _is_ your definition? If you were to draw up a
pictoral scheme, would auxlangers and conlangers be totally separate?

>I think auxlangs are a can of wyrms that is better left unopened.
>Auxlangs suffer what I like to call the "Highlander syndrome"
>("There can be only one") by the essence of their nature:
>an auxlang is intended to be *the* single international language;
>the mere act of designing a new auxlang amounts to claiming that
>all previously existing auxlangs are inappropriate to their purpose.
>That is of course completely boggledydocks, but it is the way auxlangers
>tend to see things.
>
>The best way to deal with auxlangs and auxlangers is to ignore them.
In the end, the matter will probably be solved in just this way by not
including any auxlangs.

Regards,
Padraic.

>Jörg.