Re: Lighting Some Flames: Towards conlang artistry

On Wed, 13 Mar 2002 21:01:33 -0000, Michael Poxon <m.poxon@...>
wrote:

>One way we could present our languages better is through websites. I often
>find it difficult, impossible, or just plain frustrating to try and decipher
>interlinears with various phonemic representations through the medium of
>email, and if each conlang had its own site, we could find out more about
>their individuals grammars, histories, phonologies and so on. I know many of
>do this now, but it might be taken as an across-the-board suggestion.
This strikes at what seems to me to be the most important point. The
presentation of conlangs has yet to reach a form that presents itself for
ready appreciation or criticism. Klingon comes close to that goal. But it's
inherently difficult to get a feel for any language, and especially so with
conlang projects that have a tendency to change and grow as time goes on.

A conlang presentation which aims to attract attention and criticism might
read like a novel. It should have a strong opening that attracts the
reader's interest in the first page, in the first sentence. It should have
the equivalent of memorable characters and an interesting plot to keep the
interest going throughout the long, detailed presentation. A "teach
yourself" format, with sample dialogs and exercises with keys, is one
format that could be used as a model.

But this would be a monumental amount of work, with very few examples to
draw on, and a highly limited audience. A more realistic goal would be to
treat *conlang samples*, rather than the conlangs themselves, as the
objects of study and criticism. A single conlang sample might be a poem
with interlinear translation, a translation of a familiar text, a recipe,
or a bit of a story in dual-language side-by-side format. Or it could be a
major work like the restoration of the original Klingon version of Hamlet.
Or a collaborative project in several conlangs, like the translation relays
that frequently pop up on this list.

To put the symphony analogy into a different perspective, a symphony is
like the Klingon Hamlet, and the Klingon language itself corresponds to the
rules of harmony, composition, and orchestration that go into writing the
symphony. A well-written symphony can prove the artistic value of the
musical "language" it is written in.

And there is still much value in conlanging for its own sake, without
regard to the goal of producing objects suitable for commentary. Even if
you have the eventual goal of making an art-worthy end product (which
doesn't necessarily have to be the case), constant sketching is always good
practice for artists.

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