Re: A DISTURBING proposal! (was Re: Personal langs and converse ofaux)

On Tue, 6 Feb 2001, J Matthew Pearson wrote:

> > apparently the first on this list to point it out how monstrous it is,
> > while the rest of the list happily replies giving that monster ideas
> > what kinds of difficult sounds to build into his Mengelean experiment.
> > I am ALARMED by the apparent obliviousness of the conlang community
> > towards such wickedness.  It was people like YOU, fellow conlangers, who
> > made Auschwitz possible!  Sorry to offend you, but this must be said.
> >
> > That guy deserves to be locked away, sedated and securely strapped down.
>
> I think you're misunderstanding his intentions. The author of the email you're
> quoting said *nothing*
> whatsoever about locking up his children and forbidding them from talking to anyone
> outside the family.
> Unless he were to physically isolate his children from their peers, and/or punish
> them for speaking anything
> other than his conlang (which *would* be child abuse), then I don't see how they
> could be adversely affected
> by his 'experiment'. If they are exposed to the language of the larger
> community, they will *inevitably*
> acquire it.  It's completely unavoidable.
I completely agree.

> My opinion as a linguist is that his conlang experiment is doomed to failure:
> His children would probably
> resist speaking his conlang, and learning it would certainly not help them acquire
> other languages (better to
> expose them directly to those other languages instead). But as long as he does not
> propose to raise his
> children in a linguistic vacuum, I would hardly characterise his proposal as sociopathic.
I would add another reason this experiment is doomed to failure. I find it
highly improbable that the conlang will be developed to a high enough
degree to allow for casual, constant conversation. And even if it does get
to that point, the experiment would require that all members of the
household speak the conlang, otherwise it is unlikely that the children
will pick up on much of it. Only a single person using the language will
not be using it naturally, eg, asking and answering questions, using words
other than very basic ones, etc.

Marcus