Re: Gothic language

Howdy,

Quoth Ed:

>Latin is a conlang now???  They never told me that when I was studying
>it...
...

>I'd prefer to use existing terms like "dialect" "style," or "idiom"
>to describe cases where someone is writing something which, while it
>may not exactly parallel spoken speech (does writing *ever* exactly
>parallel spoken speech?), is intended to be understood by speakers of
>a natural language, using the hermeneutic resources they have at hand
>as a result of their natural language knowledge.
I agree.  In a very limited sense standard Latin as used by everyone from
the Pope to the family doctor is a "conlang", but only in the sense of being
an ancient language engineered, artificially controlled, to be used in
modern contexts.  Latin is no more a conlang than Modern Hebrew, Standard
Arabic, or the Sanskrit used by the Sanskrit-speaking community of India.  I
would even say that Proto-Indo-European is more a conlang really, though
hardly _a priori_ like Klingon.

I heard the term "controlled languages", or possibly "contlang" for short.
I like that.  Maybe this could spawn a new topic or even list... maybe...

Danny


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