Re: Are conlangs fictional?

En réponse à Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>:

> In a recurrent thread on the Elfling mailing list, people have argued
> whether Tolkien's languages are fictional in the sense that, say, the
> story
> of the Silmarillion is fictional.
>
> My opinion is that they're obviously not, whereas others have argued
> eloquently and at length that they are. What's the consensus on
> Conlang?
>
Well, I don't know if there is a consensus here, but my opinion would be rather
like yours. But it depends on the meaning you intend to give to the word
fictional. If we take fictional in its common sense (referring to a story that
never really happened, happens or will happen, as far as we know), then a
fictional language should be a language that is referred to in a fiction but is
not used otherwise, and possibly not even made, apart from a few words. In this
sense, Tolkien's languages are far from fictional: they were made far before
the story was ever written, there are extensive notes about them in other
writings then his fictions. They exist as much as any language, even natural.
Their *context* may be fictional, but they definitely exist outside of fiction,
or else explain me what people write in when they do their own little
composition in Quenya? :)).

On the other hand, the word "fictional" used for languages often means: "used
in a fictional setting". In this case, the meaning is rather different. It's
not about the reality of the language, but about its use. And in this sense,
Tolkien's languages are definitely fictional, though this is secondary (since
Tolkien wrote his stories to give a setting to his languages rather than the
contrary, we cannot say that the use in fiction is the primary goal of those
languages. They are first artistic, and then fictional. A better example of a
fictional language used in this sense is Klingon).

I guess the arguments in the Elfling list come from a confusion of those two
meanings. Probably the tenants of the two views are both right, they just
take "fictional" with a different meaning.

So in short, if "fictional" means: to be used in a fictional setting, than
Tolkien's languages are fictional. But if "fictional" means: without any
reality outside of a fiction (the common meaning), then no, Tolkien's languages
are not fictional. They may not be complete, we may lack information on them,
but they can still be used to compose poems and the like, not only by Tolkien
but also by other people, and for this reason are as real as can be.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

Reply