Re: Are conlangs fictional?

In a message dated 03/22/02 12:55:57 AM, ijzeren_jan@YAHOO.CO.UK writes:

<< Literature can be divided into fiction and

non-fiction. The latter tells stories that have really

happened and discusses their background, while fiction

is made up by the author. >>

    I was actually going to bring up this point, but someone already did.  I
wanted to bring up, because the definition of "non-fiction" you gave is
inaccurate: Non-fiction is *not*, of necessity, true, by any means.  It's
more of a marketing gimmick: If you label something as fiction, it will draw
a certain crowd; if you label it as non-fiction, it will draw another type.
For example, take the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  It's
marked as non-fiction, but all the events in the book did not happen as they
were written, or at all--it even says so in the beginning.  The book wasn't
meant to be a factual account of any such events.  The reason the book is
marked as non-fiction is because the narrator should not be thought of as a
fictional character, but as the author himself, who is expressing views which
he actually believes, whereas it would be folly to attribute the virtues
expressed by a first person, fictional narrator necessarily to the author.
Often times, it's political, too.  I've seen some bookstores where the Bible
is listed under fiction.  Cleary, this was no accident, and not so much a
reflection of the content, but a reflection of the views of the person who
put it there.  And, of course, this is all independent of whether or not the
Bible is actually true or not--it's just dealing with opinions.
    Now, to bring this back to languages.  Take Esperanto, a language people
actually do speak, some as an L1, and, say, a language I create, which no one
speaks.  Regardless of the relative completeness of either language, both
exist on Earth, and can be spoken, which is far different from a painting of
a dragon with thirteen wings, which cannot exist, even if you can paint it.
This, however, I think you shouldn't attribute to fiction
ality/nonfictionality.  After all, whether a book is fiction or nonfiction,
no one will debate that it exists, if you can hold in your hands.  Back to
the languages, both were created, but this is nothing spectacular.  All
languages, whether con or nat, had to be created some time--the only
difference is that created languages can generally be attributed to one
person or maybe a group who actually sat down and, well, created it, while
communicating fluently in another language, whereas natural languages were
created by a large speaking community, either by fumbling blindly in the dark
(as with the first language or languages ever), or by taking a language they
already spoke and speaking it until it slowly changed, or by a couple of
languages coming into contact with one another and changing to form a new
one.  While one method of creation seems more natural to us than the other,
based on what we know and believe about science and change which occurs over
time, they're both created.  The main difference to me seems the creation of
the semantics of words, and their ability to change over time.  Our words
came about slowly, their meanings changing subtly over the years, whereas
created languages have set meanings from the outset.  You can simulate change
over time, but it will be simulated.  Further, one is a community effort,
another an individual effort.  By these standards, I would call most conlangs
created by most people real, fictional languages.  However, if a language is
used by a growing community over time, and any member of this community has
the ability to change the semantics of words and expressions and make new
coinages, and have these innovations tested by the larger community, not to
an individual or specialized group, to determine whether they're going to
last or not, then I say that it's a real, nonfictional language.  Thus, with
Esperanto (and I'm not sure about this, but I'm guessing), speakers can
create new words, and see whether they thrive or die out (one example I've
seen is the word "tristeco" for "sadness" rather than "malfelicxeco"), based
on the usage by the community, not a committee determing usage, whereas, say,
with Klingon, I doubt there are Klingon speakers creating new words and
seeing whether the speaking community accepts them or not.  And, of course, I
know that this isn't happening for any of my languages, which I'd classify as
real, fictional languages.  This is the way I think of it.

-David

"fawiT, Gug&g, tSagZil-a-Gariz, waj min DidZejsat wazid..."
"Soft, driven, slow and mad, like some new language..."
                    -Jim Morrison