Re: Has anyone made a real conlang?

"Instead of trying to prove your opponent wrong, try to see in what
sense he might be right."
        --Robert Nozick

Andrew Nowicki scripsit:

> It seems to me that most of the languages discussed
> in this mailing list are not languages at all, but
> names of languages that exist only in the imagination
> of the person who invented the names. I doubt a
> language can be used for simple everyday communication
> unless it has a vocabulary of at least 1000 words.
> Has  anyone in this mailing list made a real conlang?
As other responses have shown, there are plenty of artlangs that are
large enough to use, as well as non-artlangs like Lojban (which is by
no means to be credited to me, just because I wrote the book about it!).

> Making a real language is a huge effort, almost like
> building a pyramid. Team work is a necessity, and yet
> there is not much team work among the conlangers.
Quite right.  For a conlang to function across the full range of uses
requires the existence of a community, just as the development of large
pieces of open-source software requires a community.  That is not to
say that smaller programs or languages are worthless!  There are many
intermediate states between full function and nothing but a name.

Even in the open-source world, though, everything usually begins with
a single person trying to (as esr has it) scratch a personal itch.
Committees don't typically create software from nothing.

> Linux programmers have the opposite mind set - they
> love to work together, and often improve work of
> others instead of reinventing the wheel. Perhaps the
> reason for the difference is that the Linux programs
> are tools, while the languages discussed here are as
> useful as the pyramids. The main purpose of the
> pyramid is to say "My unique pyramid is sky high
> and made of white marble. I do not share it with anyone."
People, I think it's important not to attack Andrew for what he didn't
say or what he doesn't actually misunderstand.  This paragraph tells
me that he clearly understands the differences between language-as-tool
and language-as-artwork, perceives that most (not all!) of the conlangs
we discuss are of the latter type, and shows no evidence of making an
evaluative judgment of one over the other.

Nor does he deny that reinventing the wheel happens in the open-source
community, just that there is a lot more reuse than reinvention (funky
text editors excepted).

--
John Cowan
        jcowan@reutershealth.com
                I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin