Re: Uusisuom, Unilang, auxlang discussions in CONLANG

At 11:06 am -0400 23/4/01, Oskar Gudlaugsson wrote:
[snip]
>author) or anyone else involved :) As for my opinion on Uusisuom, I
>wholeheartedly agree with most that it would make an excellent beginner's
>artlang, while at best a naive auxlang.
Yet naiveity has an appeal.  One simply cannot IMO tell whether an auxlang
will catch on or not.  The very distinctiveness & naiveity may attract
rather detract.

[snip]
>
>I now realize, however, that my whole auxlang discussion may have entered
>the list at a bad time, when some were getting tired of the subject.
Not at all - all conlanging is to be welcomed, surely.

>I
>noticed iterations of this not being a list for auxlang design.
'tis said from time to time, and likewise from time to time the majority
here seem to say the _design_ or _construction_ of an auxlang is OK, it's
the Auxlang politics we don't welcome.  That, certainly, is how I see it.

>I'm sorry,
>for example, that my threads spurred a brief flame-war between list members
>about Esperanto, which would otherwise not have occurred.
Well, strictly it didn't since no-one attacked Esperanto. In any case, it
certainly wasn't your fault - there were misunderstandings both by David &
myself and we both IMO over-reacted. I have already apologized for that.
You have no need to be sorry.

>Though no-one has openly complained of my writing on the subject, I wish to
>explain why I feel these writings belong here. One big reason is: they
>don't want them in AUXLANG! The difference between CONLANG and AUXLANG
>isn't necessarily, I think, in what can be discussed, but rather _how_ it
>is discussed.
Exactly (tho Auxlang would never discuss artlangs, methinks)

>AUXLANG discusses auxlangs in a completely non-theoretical
>manner; the main subject is the political reality of such languages, and
>not design questions.
'twas not always so. When I was there, the theory of design was discussed,
but usually it finished by people saying "My design is better than your
design" or even more ridiculously: "My design is _really_ what Zamenhof/
Jespersen (or whoever) actually intended [tho he didn't realize it]" and
then, inevitably, the flames were fanned, asbestos suits donned and war
broke out.   Not exectly helpful!

>If we see my auxlang design as design ponderings for
>a futuristic artlang named "Unilang", whose nature is that it is the
>intermedium of all humans in some ideal future, I think it is easier to
>accept its presence here.
Don't worry - there's no problem.

>Again, nobody even criticized, but I felt obliged to explain why I've taken
>up this somewhat flammable subject here. The discussions have generally
>been positive, and I am grateful for the attention the subject has had,
>after all :) May it remain so.
Amen.

Ray.

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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