Re: Fakelangs

Garth Wallace:
> And Rosta wrote:
>
> > Danny:
> >
> >>From: "Christian Thalmann" <cinga@...>
> >>
> >>>(Feel free to coin a better word for "fakelangs"...)
> >>
> >>First thing that came to mind was 'altlang', short for 'alternative
> >>history language' or 'alternative Earth language'. Or is that already
> >>taken?
> >
> > I had supposed that Christian was describing not 'altlangs' (or,
> > as David Peterson called them, 'histlangs') but rather languages
> > whose description is part of the greater fiction. So, for example,
> > the description of Kinya is (or at least was) replete with full
> > scholarly apparatus, footnotes, bibliography (whose entries are
> > fictional). The fiction surrounding the description of Miapimoquitch
> > is so convincing that it can and has deceived people into believing
> > it to be real.
> >
> > In the field of Alternate History, a famous exemplar of this sort
> > of thing is Robert Sobel's _For want of a nail_: it reads like an
> > ordinary scholarly work of history.
>
> Sort of like a nihilartikel?
I had to google for this word, which is new to me, (best source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilartikel )
and the answer is "Yes: sort of". But without the mischievous intent
to deceive (or to deceive the unduly credulous). Instead, you might
compare it (the Fake-X) to the film _The Blair Witch Project_: I
haven't seen it, but as I understand it, it is constructed as though
it were authentic documentary footage, rather than an authored film.

--And.

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