Re: Lighting Some Flames: Towards conlang artistry

Grrrr.  I tried to post to the list this morning via Yahoo, since I was
at school, but got bounced for some reason.  Anyway, here's a preliminary
response, based on whatever messages I had read as of 11:30 PST 3/13/2002

***

<<smiles happily>>

Oh, good, people responded, and we've got some good debate going.
This is exactly what I had hoped for.  I deliberately overstated my
case in my original post, hoping to stir up debate and disagreement.
My "real" position is a little more moderate.  Now, responding to
people's criticisms.


The largest objection that people have had to was to my suggestion
that we form differing critical schools for evaluating conlangs.  My
original reason for this was to allow for disagreement between
different styles of conlangs, but still hold up critical standards.
If we make everything relative and judge conlangs only on the
author's nebulous self-expression, then real critique becomes
impossible.  We need to have some criteria by which it's understood
that conlangs are judged, even if we bicker over exactly what the
criteria are.

Still, I agree that the formation of "schools of thought" is probably
more formalization than Conlang needs at the moment.  It could lead
to balkanization and destroy the friendly atmosphere of the list--and
I don't want these things more than anybody else.  And, as Dirk
pointed out, there already *are* different threads and subgroups
within Conlang.  My "manifesto," then, can be read as a simple
declaration of the values that I see as making for good conlangs, and
the values that I'll use for critiquing conlangs.

Now, lots of people objected rather strongly to my third criterion:
difference from native language.  Actually, I agree, and I think that
I mis-stated my original case.  What I was really objecting to is a
linguistic laziness that uses familiar constructions because the
conlanger thinks that others are too hard, or the conlanger doesn't
even know that other options exist.  Everyone agrees that relexes
aren't real conlangs (or are very poor conlangs), and I was just
taking that principle to the next level.

What I think I really meant was that the conlanger should evaluate
every aspect of his/her conlang and consciously choose which features
he wants to include, whether they agree with his native language or
not.  Going along and creating a euroclone is just being lazy, unless
you're really thinking, evaluating, and creating a euroclone that
still shows some creativity.  There's nothing wrong with euroclones
per se, but like boy bands and most fantasy novels, they're often the
product of insufficient imagination.

A couple of people gave some version of what Christophe said: "it's
art, in which case it's incomparable to anything else and depends
only on the eye (or ear, or whatever organ they use) of the beholder
and the intention of the author. There's no such thing as bad
art."  IMHO, this is plain hogwash, the purest example of the
postmodern fallacy.  Just because value judgements differ doesn't
mean that value judgements are meaningless.  See what I said above
about the importance of critique even when critical criteria vary.

And for the posts that were closest to my heart and intent:

David Peterson wrote, "So, what I challenge you, Jesse, to do, is to
start reviewing languages.  Test them by whatever means seem
appropriate to you. Then let us respond."

This is exactly what I intend to do.  I also take up your invitation,
David, to evaluate Kamakawi, though of course it will take me a
little while to get around to it.  The invitation applies
reflexively, as well--I invite everyone to look at
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/ and tell me what you think of
Yivríndil.  Don't bother to be nice--if you don't think I'm living up
to my own standards, tell me.  (The site is not yet complete, but
most of the phonology and morphological material is up, along with a
few texts.)

As I go about studying and critiquing other conlangs, I plan to start
with those that I like, to establish a positive example first.  In
this way, I totally agree with the other Jesse's post ("It would
seem to me that the idea of healthy criticism is to raise the
standard of the art form not diminish those who are not meeting your
standards.")  Eventually, I'll move into negative criticism, but I'll
let the idea of conlang critique grow for a while first.

Thanks to everyone who responded.


Jesse S. Bangs     Pelíran
jaspax@ juno.com
"Skin and tragedy always attract a crowd."
    --Pedro the Lion

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