Re: Linguistic knowledge and conlanging (was Explaining linguistic...)

> > I whole-heartedly agree.  I think the only
> meaningful gauge for
> > a conlang are its own design goals.  For example,
> if one was to
> > present a philosophical language with
> self-segregating morphology
> > and a typologically unlikely phoneme inventory as
> a near-extinct,
> > pre-Indo-European minority language of the
> southeastern Alps,
> > I'd say that he has done a pathetic job of it.
> But that doesn't
> > mean that the language is not excellent from some
> other point of view.
>
> Right. Clearly, Classical Yiklamu is the perfect
> conlang and cannot be
> surpassed (given a suitably narrow standard of
> evaluation)...
>
>
> > Or Old Albic would probably not be a good machine
> translation
> > interlingua, for example.
>
> No, you have to use Aymara for that.
>
>
> -- Mark
>
 Right on!! (To throw in my square root of a cent's
worth) I especially liked the analogy to music theory
(which I unfortunately deleted too soon) Music Theory
is just a generalization of what composers have
*done*--indeed Bach and Mozart frequently bent the
rules of the prevailing theories of their day. Jazz
would be very difficult to accomodate using the theory
Palestrina adhered to. I'm not even sure where
Metallica or Godsmack would fit, but none could claim
that what they do is not music or that their music is
without a system. I would venture to say that the
music of Megadeth or Dream Theater is as sophisticated
as anything in the "Common Practice Era" but gets
neglected by Acadamia because it breaks too many
"rules".
  Similarly, much of the similarities and "universals"
of natlangs owe much to their descendence from a
common ancester or ancesters. Would anyone take
seriously the idea of phonemic clicks if there were no
Khoisan languages? Or the use of epiglottal phonation?
What about nonconfigurational syntax or polysynthesis?
Would the writers of the Tao Te Ching  have believed
that a few millinea later people would speak so
analytically as to be unable to decide just how to
translate their works? It is a wonderful jounrney we
are on, discovering just how fluid the mind is. How
little we know the possibilities. How much we know
that ought to have been impossible.
                                   Travis



		
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