Re: Are conlangs fictional?

Jan wrote:
>
>  --- Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> > 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?
>
>How much more fictional could they actually be?
Well, they could, for instance, not exist.

In plenty of SF/F books, the characters are supposedly speaking another
language than that the book is written in. Yet, all that exists of these
languages is very commonly a number of more or less systematically formed
names. This is what I'd call a "fictional language".

A "real" conlang, no matter how fictional it's history, speakers and
development might be, OTOH exists also extrafictionally - you can write
texts or speak in it. Some, like Esperanto, even have native speakers.

                                                     Andreas

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