Re: Really Intersistemal (was: INTERSYSTEMAL CONLANG)

On Tuesday, July 2, 2002, at 06:07 , Jan van Steenbergen wrote:

>  --- Joe wrote:
>
>> I've always wondered why IALs are mostly Romance clones.  Romance is
>> annoying.
>
> I wouldn't put it that bluntly, but I understand your point. To a certain
> degree I even agree with you.
>
> All I can think of:
> - in the Top 10 of World Languages, at least two are Romance (French and
>   Spanish); two others (Portuguese and Italian) are spoken by a
> substantial
>   amount of people as well, or have played a very important role in
> history;
> - Latin can easily be considered the cradle language of western
> civilization,
>   and don't forget that IALs are predominantly a matter of western
>   civilization;
> - English is just to weird to serve as the basis for an IAL. Besides,
> English
>   is soaked with Romance influences and loans anyway;
> - not only English, but a great number of other languages (including
> Slavic)
>   are full of Latin/Romance loanwords;
The above are surely the main reasons.

> Please note, that not every Romance-based conlang is a Euroclone. There
> are
> very good examples very fine languages. And for what it is worth: yes,
> Euroclones are undoubtedly boring. But bear in mind that they were
> conceived
> for a purpose completely different than being exciting. I agree with Ray,
>  that
> Mr. Mitrovitch should be given the benefit of the doubt.
I agree; and I see the reasons for a Romance-base conIAL.  But my point
was that
the world already has far more of these than demand requires.  Why add to
their
number as for the most part they are just variations of the same theme?

> Now, I realize that IAL discussions are to be avoided, and I definitely
> don't
> want to be expelled to AUXLANG. All I can say, is that I hope this reply
> remained within the boundaries of the acceptable...
I think so - and I don't want to be expelled - certainly not to Auxlang!
(Bin there; dun that; got the scars)

Ray.