Re: Constructive linguistics

Hallo!

On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 22:23:41 -0800,
Jim Grossmann <jimg4732@...> wrote:

> Hello!
>
> I don't see the artlang becoming the subject of an academic discipline any
> time soon either.
Nor do I; the academic world today is too obsessed with "applicability"
to leave much room for such Castalian pursuits.

> As others have pointed out, conlangs are probably irrelevant to academic
> linguistics.   FWIU (from what I understand), they aren't useful in testing
> the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis.
Few linguists give a damn on that hypothesis today, I think.

> [...]
>
> Personally, I've always thought of conlanging as a craft, like scrimshaw.
> Or model railroad building, as Jeff Henning suggested?
>
> I like the model railroad analogy to a point--but it has one defect.
Well, *all* analogies only capture certain aspects of the matter
described while failing in others.

>       A
> model railroad mimics, as much as possible, that thing that it's a model of.
> The topography can be purely imaginary, and the route unnaturally short, but
> otherwise, the more realistic the model train set, the more esteemed it is.
>
> There isn't any tradition that constrains conlanging in this way.
There is.  It is called the "naturalist school", as epitomized by
the languages of J.R.R. Tolkien or, closer to the present, the
Ill Bethisad and League of Lost Languages shared-world projects.
It is only less dominant than its counterpart in model railroading.

> If model railroad building were more like conlanging, the signs could be
> replaced with scary idols, the station could look like a psychedelic
> seashell, the ties on the tracks could be colorful little things with runes
> painted on them, and the trains could be wheeled ovoids and/or polyhedrons
> adorned with feathers, fur, scales, or miniature roofing shingles, along
> with the occasional eyes and antennae.   Or the set could look more
> realistic, but that would be up to the model builder.
Yes.  Some conlangs are built to resemble human natlangs, others not.
And while there are rather few model railroaders who build psychedelic
fantasy model railroads like the one you describe, there is a sizeable
faction of "techy" model railroaders who are interested solely in the
mechanics and electronics and don't care about crafting a realistic
landscape for their model railroad.  These could be compared to
people like And Rosta or Henrik Theiling.

Greetings,

Jörg.