Re: how many conlangs do you know?

H.S. Teoh wrote:
"I'm just curious... how many conlangs do people know here on average,
besides their own?"

     I think, for many folks, the answer will depend upon your definition of
"conlang."
     I myself do not know any of the pet conlangs devised by list members.
Some time ago, a friend of mine devised a genderless Indo-European/Semitic
conlang called "Delason," which I've studied.  However I cannot claim to
speak Delason.
     On the other hand, if we are including constructed auxiliary languages,
I read and write passable Interlingua, and know some Interlingue/Occidental.
  I don't know any other constructed auxiliary languages, although I've
collected some books on Esperanto and Volapu"k, among others.
     Then there are some languages which defy categorization.  Is Modern
Hebrew, for example, a conlang?  I study Tiberian Hebrew (the "ancestor" of
Modern Israeli Hebrew) which has conlang-like characteristics - the
"inventors" of Tiberian Hebrew, the Massoretes, collected several documents
which were written independent of one another, in different dialects of
Hebrew, over a span of roughly 1000 years.  The texts were written with a
consonantal script and very little indication was given to vowels.
Therefore, they devised a system to vocalize the texts uniformly, according
to their own traditions (which differed significantly from the other
communities existing at the time, some of which used their own vocalization
systems).
     This happened some 1000 years after the last of them had been written,
and there is even some indication that Hebrew had died (i.e. ceased to be
spoken as a native language) by this point in time (roughly the 9th c.
C.E.).  The language which resulted from this process seems artificially
monolithic.  However, it is not for me to say whether Tiberian Hebrew is
artificial or not.
     Certain Aramaic dialects, which I study, have conlang-like
characteristics.  For example, the language "Chaldee," which is represented
in several texts within the Biblical corpus, was vocalized at the same time
as the surrounding Hebrew texts.  I'm not entirely sure what the Massoretes
were trying to do with Chaldee - they treat some words as if they were
Hebrew, other words as if they were Aramaic.  The underlying texts
themselves come from two different eras and represent two different dialects
of Aramaic, so the unity which arose as a result of their labors is somewhat
artificial.
     Syriac, another Aramaic dialect, is in use to this very day.  There are
two main traditions of pronouncing Syriac, and these seem to be dependent on
substrate influences as much as innovations - therefore, an Iranian and a
Lebanese christian, reading a text in Syriac, will understand the text
equally but pronounce it in two different ways.  This is highly convenient
and would no doubt be a rallying point for Christians in the Near East were
it not for the fact that most denominations in that area denounce one
another as deviant, theologically and otherwise.
     Politics aside, it would be possible to devise an auxiliary language
based upon Syriac, using modern pronunciation and vocabulary - this is
essentially what the various churches in the Near East have done, ad hoc,
when they compose new texts in Syriac.
     These Semitic languages aren't the only "natural" languages with
constructed aspects - they just happen to be the three that I study.
-Chollie
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