Re: SemiOT: Revealing your conlanger status, personal experiences of reaction...

This thread sounds very much like one of my questions on the several
"Lunatic Surveys" I conducted over the years.  I'm glad this issue is coming
up again.  Read on!  :)

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Leland" <Lelandconlang@...>

> In a message dated 6/16/04 12:23:06 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> joerg_rhiemeier@WEB.DE writes:
>
> << When I mentioned it in his presence, he said that
>  what I am doing was meaningless because Wittgenstein said that
>  "private languages are impossible".  I am not an expert on
>  Wittgenstein's philosophy, but I think my brother has interpreted
>  Wittgenstein's words wrongly.  What Wittgenstein meant was, I think,
>  that a language can never be private in the sense that no-one else
>  can learn it.  Conlangs thus *aren't* "private languages". >>
Here's something I quoted from Wittgenstein:

Could we also imagine a language in which a person could write down or give
vocal expression to his inner experiences -- his feelings, moods, and the
rest -- for his private use? Well, can't we do so in our ordinary
language? -- But that is not what I mean. The individual words of this
language are to refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to
his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the
language. -- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations par. 243

Wittgenstein calls a "private language" that which has no circulation in the
real world, or which cannot be used as a means of communication with another
person, because it is made up of words that refer only to the speaker's
PRIVATE and idiosyncratic experiences and sensations.  Since language is a
public consensus, using words that are agreed upon publically to express
even private feeling, then a private language is an impossibility.  The way
we relate to each other, the way we know red is called "red" or nausea is
called "nausea" is through a common use of language which is an imprecise,
BECAUSE public, symbology of our inner feelings.  Wittgenstein, I believe,
is trying to argue against solipsism, the belief that the self is the only
thing that has reality.  He's popular, because so much contemporary
metaphysics and philosophy of language (Nietzsche, Judith Butler) argue the
opposite, that self is created BY language.  Or that self doesn't exist or
can't be gauged.  A thorny issue.

But we've all had the experience, I'm sure, of having a wonderful dream that
when we tell it to a spouse or a friend suddenly seems banal, indescribable,
because so much of the dream is soaked up in very personal, subjective
feelings and memories that give it a significance, an emotional flavor that
evades words.  If we had an invented word for any of those individual dream
sensations, THAT would constitute a "private language," in the
Wittgensteinian sense, because it would be impossible to transmit them to
another soul.  For instance, I could call the dream streets--excerpted from
my childhood and changed around--that I see again and again in my dreams
"Desveldoriod," and have them have significance for ME.  But not in exactly
the same way for YOU.

Very few conlangs are "private languages" in Wittgenstein's sense of the
term.  The way you put it, that it can be taught to someone else, is
excellent; it means that it can have a public life, that its words can relay
other public uses of ideas.  That doesn't mean that a conlang becomes a
private language in W's sense if it has neologisms, and original concultural
ideas.  If it can be generally taught to and understood by another person,
it is not "private" in that sense.  So, yes, your brother is wrong.

John Leland wrote:
> One of my professional colleagues (without citing W.) made the same
objection
> to
> conlanging in an informal lunchtime discussion, and my response was the
same--
> Rihana-ye is not a private language in the sense that no-one else *could*
> understand it--it is simply a language no one else has yet chosen to
learn, but
> which in principle
> anyone could learn.
How funny!  Years ago, one of my professional colleagues, yes citing W.,
made the same objection to me over lunch.  I think I had used the phrase
"private language" and he corrected me.  I meant it to mean "unknown
language," in the sense that Hildegard used it.  One that was unknown to the
rest of the world.


> For that matter, it has occured to me that if others
> wished to do so, they could take the Rihana-ye basic vocabulary and create
their
> own valid new Rihana-ye words, and I could (in principle at least) have a
fair
> chance of deducing their meaning
> from knowing their Rihana-ye roots. It is in fact true that since I
normally
> write my texts in Rihana-ye before writing the interlinear translation, I
have
> occasionally been interrupted and left a Rihana-ye text without a
translation
> for months or even years, and
> then found it again when I had no conscious memory of its content, and
been
> able to translate it. This seems to me to demonstrate that it functions as
a
> real language
> in that comprehension does not depend on knowing what the text says
already,
> so
> I am in fact deriving the meaning directly from the Rihana-ye words, and
> presumably anyone else who knew enough Rihana-ye could do the same.  I
should add,
> though, that there have been a few instances lately when I have been
> transcribing texts for which apparently I had done the translation some
time after
> writing the Riuhana-ye, and I
> now believe I see errors in the translation. However, since such errors
occur
> in translating real languages, I do not see this as disproving the
> "nonprivate" nature of Rihana-ye.
> John Leland
How lucky you are to have such a handle on your language!  I am still
working on fluency in Teonaht.  I, too, however, have come across old texts
I've written in T. and deciphered them, with difficulty; I'm always
inventing and discarding words.

Sally
http://www.media-culture.org.au/0003/languages.html
(an old essay of mine)

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