Re: Let's return to conlanging (was: Li Lingue Modern)

>I have scorned, often not too diplomatically,
>--More--
>> languages that
>> are created in a couple of months by a single individual as not really
>> being
>> languages.>  I am not particularly inclined to withdraw those
>> arguments, but I
>> have come to understand that people interested in that sort of thing
>> do not
>> want to hera that sort of criticism %^).>
>Well, it's no wonder, since saying that a conlang is not a language
>hardly counts as constructive criticism - at least if you leave it at
>that.  When you talk about scorning "languages created in a couple
>of months by a single individual", I hope you mean proposed
>auxlangs.  Such criticism of an artlang would be quite misplaced,
>and I could understand why the target of such criticism would respond
>with hostility.
Which is why I say that I have "come to understand ..."  Earlier in the
lojban development effort, one person quite noted in the Internet conlang
community flamed Lojban, and implicit in his criticism seemed to be the
amount of time we had spent on designing the language.  This person made
a comment to me which struck me as ludicrous at the time:  (I've invented
5 (or some similar plural number) artificial languages in the last year.
At that point, there was no conlang list, and the only conlangs I had heard of
were projects that had taken years, often the invemtor's entire life, to
complete.  Conlangs like Lojban were regularly spurned on sci.lang and in
other fora where linguists commented, because our efforts were "not languages
because there were no speakers" or "no native speakers" even.  Trying to get
a linguistic experimet taken seriously by linguists, I internalized the
attitude of linguists that language was a term failrly restricted in meaning.
The linguists also tended to scorn conlangs because most conlang posts
tunred into auxlang advocacy, which makes assumptions that are politically
incorrect in the linguistics community at large.  In all this discussion,
the only "artlang" I ever heard of was Tolkien's work, which was of course
a lifetime endeavor.

Given all this, I still presume that a conlang that is invented in a couple
of months is still not a "language" - the definitions I have learned just
won't go away.  There are artlangs that people have worked on for years,
long enough to get caught up in the nuances of semantics and idiom
development.  I can believe that these efforts pass over from being
"encoded English" to being languages of a sort in their own right.  (The
code/language distinction is another one I acquired in my online linguistics education %^).
But even here, I cannot but question whether one person can
grasp the entirety of what is involved in language, in "a" language, to
"create" one alone. It seems to me an extreme hubris, when I realize how
little I understand of the nature of language after years of work.

But this is me, and in the early debates on conlang, the artlangers explained
their point of view, their purposes and goals.  I can't say that I understand
artlang creation as a hobby, but I accept artlangers and their urge to create probably
as well as anyone does. The distinction between a "language" and a
"language project" probably helped me the most in coming to this acceptance,
and I simply tend to classify most artlangs as language projects, many of which
(probably most) are not ever going to pass beyond the project stage.

I do not "scorn" an artlang as a language project, nor do I explore
artlang creators for working on such projects.  I evaluate artlangs on totally
different criteria from non-artlangs, because I know that they are not trying
to be languages per se, but to express or communicate some aspect(s) of
language that the author has in mind.  Many works of art focus only on limited
aspects of the real world that they (may) represent while ignoiring others.
So artlangs must be evealuated in terms of their goals (and to some extent
whether those goals are communicated through the 'work').

But artlangs, not being designed for actual usage by a speaking community
(in mostr cases), do not address the issues that concern me most in developing
Lojban and later the Lojban community.  So I have to admit that I usually
ignore artlang discussions, no longer scorning them, but just silently letting
them go by.

>Such criticism of an artlang would be quite misplaced,
>and I could understand why the target of such criticism would respond
>with hostility.
Which is why I usually stay silent.  My criticism is not really hostility,
but I recognize that I have an underdeveloped appreciation of "art for
art's sake", and that I simply have nothing useful to contribute to an
artlanger, and they usually have nothing useful for me.  Not hostility, just
different strokes for different folks.

>> But in avoiding criticism of language projects that are not intended
>> to go
>> beyond that stage, I think that CONLANG is missing discussions of just
>> how a
>--More--
>> language DOES (or should) go beyond that stage.
>
>What you seem to be saying here (correct me if I'm wrong) is that
>artlangers like myself should be required to defend the 'viability'
>of our projects by answering criticisms as to their learnability and
>usefulness in 'real-life' communication.
That is most definitely NOT what I am saying.  If an artlang is not concerned
with expressing or exploring those aspects of language that are functions of
a community of real life speakers, thenlearnability and usefulness are of
course irrelevant to the artlang.  In addition, whether artlang or something
else, if an effort is not intended to go beyond the "language project" stage
then these questions are largely irrelevant (it could be argued that Klingon
was a language project that was never intended to go beyond that stage and
achieve communicative usefulness, butthge author's intent and reality seem
to have diverged).

>I'm sorry, but I think
>that's unreasonable.  I understand that the question of how a
>conlang can/should transition from the design stage to actual
>use is important to you.  But to criticise the rest of us for not
>sharing your concerns is unfair.[snip again]
Which is why I don't criticize you.  Your goals apparently do not include a
plan for such transition.  The question in my mind is whether conlang has
become solely a forum for artlangers by the exile of auxlang advocacy, leaving
NO forum for discussion of the enormous middle ground between artlang "projects"
and"world auxiliary languages" spoken by most of mankind.

You don't need to share my concerns.  But does anyone care about these
concerns other than people who are locked into advocacy mode for thir chosen
language?

(I will admit that I am myself mostly in the latter category, since I have
no particular interest in learning any other conlangs than Lojban.  But this is
in turn because I have great difficultly in learning languages myself -
evidenced by my poor showing after 7 years of motivated study of Russian.
As a result of this, then, I have great interest in discussion of language
learning, not restricted to my own language-of-focus.)

>But the militant anti-AUXLANG attitude of some on the
>> list
>> leads me to feel that they think this kind of discussion doesn't
>> belong
>> here at all - that the moment a conlang ceases to be a theoretical and
>--More--
>>
>> non-utilitarian project, it should be exiled to AUXLANG, or its
>> proponents should form their own list (which most such languages have
>> by that
>> stage of development).
>
>If some auxlangers have been made to feel unwelcome on this list,
>that's a real shame, since Conlang benefits, I think, from the
>interaction
>between people of both 'camps', artlangers and auxlangers.
This I agree with.  But I have seen comments in the last few months that I
have interpreted as "this is discussion of a language whose design is done,
so it shouldn't be here but rather on AUXLANG", which is NOT what AUXLANG's
charter says and is not what I had understood.  Thus I have seen hostility
FROM artlangers, which is why I confessed above my own prejudices in
responding.  People may be justified in taking what I say with a grain of
salt because of my prejudices, but I will admit them %^).  I have learned
that there is a place for artlangs in the conlang constellation, and am hoping
that there can be some amount of mutual respect, and maybe even productive
communication.

But your way of phrasing indeed shows part of the problem.  You seem to divide
the conlang world into artlang and auxlang.  Any language that is NOT an
artlang apparently is to you an auxlang.  Am I reading this correctly in your
identifying two camps?  Or are you merely saying that the two camps have
formed irrespective of the recognized existence of conlangs that are not
intended to be auxlangs, but which have goals beyond what is usually associated
with artlangs.  I would claim that Klingon and Loglan/Lojban both fit in the
non-auxlang category, and suspect that several other languages at least
partially belong there (Solresol, Speedwords, andone of the pictorial languages,
maybe aUi, have seen application as languages other than in the capacity of
international auxiliary language.  La'adan also was intended (hoped) to
develop a speaker community but not necessarily as an international auxiliary
language.

>But it seems
>
>to me that there will always be certain extra-linguistic interests and
>issues
>which are shared by members of one camp, but which members of the
>other camp find completely irrelevant.  It is unreasonable for
>artlangers to
>expect auxlangers to participate in threads dealing with general
>world-building
>issues (e.g. invented calendars, to take a recent example).
Actually, I almost contributed to that thread %^)  Lojban's original
design had a clock/calendar design that was "novel", and it was presented in
our early draft textbook (it used based 12 for times).  But I got voted down
and that is no longer the preferred way of time expression %^).

>And it is
>just as unreasonable for auxlangers to expect artlangers to participate
>in
>threads dealing with issues of auxlang propagation and pedagogy.
I will agree that few artlangers will find this interesting (but make it
"language" propagation and pedagogy, so your comment is not limited to
auxlangs).  The question is whether there are any non-artlangers left on
conlang who want to discuss these things, or did they all feel themselves
exiled to AUXLANG, where such things are also not discussed (and probably
not discussable).

>It's true that some auxlangers have been criticised for discussing
>"real-world use" issues, and have been asked to take their threads
>off-list.
yes.  And, it has seemed that this criticism has erupted when the post in
question was not necessarily one of advocacy, and in particular had no
expressed acrimony towards other conlangs (a hallmark of the typical auxlang
advocacy post).

>But it's also true that some artlangers have been criticised for
>discussing
>world-building, and have been asked to take *their* threads off-list.
I haven't noticed this, but of course do not read artlang threads very often
or very carfully in most cases.

It seems to me that the time to take a discussion off list is when the thread
CONTINUES past some number of posts, and either criticizes one or more
conlangs of any type or focusses narrowly on one language to the exclustion of
others (especially if mention of another language brings forth comments of
irrelevancy or hostility).

>In my opinion, both issues are intrinsic:  Building
>a convincing and internally consistent imaginary world is vital to
>creating a good artlang,
Given what I have said above about my understanding of the nature of art
(often focussing on some aspects while downplaying or ignoring others), I would
not even go this far when talking about  goodness of an artlang.  I admit that
I would find a language well integrated with a fictional world to be more
interesting than other artistic goals, butthis may be because I read a lot
of SF and fantasy where that kind of artlang has an important place.
But I have also come to accept thatthere is a place for And Rosta's Livagian(?)
and Jim Carter's guaspi in the artlang world once I understand they are not
necessarily intended for any particular real world or even imaginary world
audience but rather are carrying some language elements to artistic extremes
to explore the concepts.  Again, not my interest, but I understand these
impulses exist.

>while considering how best to transition from
>the design stage to real-world use is essential to creating a good
>auxlang.
>As such, both issues should be fair game for discussion on Conlang.
At the bottom, I think we agree %^).

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273
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    or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/"
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