Re: Fictional auxlangs as artlangs (was Re: Poll)
| From: | <deinx nxtxr> <deinx.nxtxr@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, December 22, 2008, 1:35 |
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> [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf Of Jörg Rhiemeier
> I can understand that someone finds pleasure in tackling the
> intellectual challenge of designing an auxlang which offers a
> good trade-off between the various criteria of quality, but
> like you, I find artlanging much more fun.
The closest I have to an artlang is Deini, my personal language. Except for
its own unique script, it draws heavily from my other linguistic creations
which are mostly auxlangs though unlike a good auxlang it has homophones,
synonyms, irregularities, and some uncommon phonemes.
Lately I find my interests leaning more toward experimental languages where
I can toy with certain ideas like oligosynthetic languuages and
phonosemantically created base lexicon.
> .... ....
> > > > Yes. And English is the current leader, ...
> > >
> > > I doubt it also. People do not easily give up their own languages.
> >
> > I don't necessarily see it becoming the *sole* langauge, at least
> > not that soon. I do see where in the next 200-300 years it will
> > become universally known to almost all humanity, and by 500 years it
> > will be the L1 of most humans though I'd expect some small pockets
> > where local languages will still be in use. I can envision a time
> > further down the road though were the local languages will
> > eventually erode away but 500 years just seems like too short of a
> > period. Meanwhile English will evolve during all of this and will
> > probably not be intelligible with the language we are using here.
>
> I think that's a good prediction. Within 100 or 200 years,
> English will be the universal L2, and while many small
> languages will die out, many others will survive. If the
> world follows a path of sustainable development in which
> the rights of the people are respected and poverty becomes
> history, I see no reason why the universal L2 English
> should kill off the various L1s. And then, English will
> continue to diversify, and eventually break up into daughter
> languages.
Yes, English as a world standard will erode away even the bigger of the
local languages over time as the local languages become less useful. It's
just a matter of how long it will take. I'm betting on Spanish to have the
longest staying power. There will be some diversification of English but
global media and more movement of peoples will also provide a level of
stability that previously couldn't be maintained so I don't expect too
Thanks. Just one of those crazy ideas I had one day.
> > > Very true - and asking other conlangers doesn't always help as advice
> > > from different individuals tend to be contradictory - but that's the
fun
> > > of conlanging. Heck - if it was easy, it would be boring, wouldn't
> > > it!
> >
> > Which is why I like to make auxlangs. There's a challenge to making
> > something that has to fit within the mold of being useful rather
> > than just making up *whatever*. I am on the Auxlang list and do
> > support the concept of using a planned auxlang, but realistically I
> > know it's futile so I have no expectations that any of my auxlangs
> > will ever be used by anyone.
>
> A perfectly legitimate stance on auxlanging - take it as an
> intellectual challenge, but don't be zealous about it. I prefer
> making artlangs, which is in some way easier because you don't
> have criteria such as ease of learning to test your language
> against - but you can set your own challenges in that field,
> and designing a truly naturalistic, believable fictional language
> is also a challenging endeavour.
Well, if an artlang has to mold itself to fit some hypothetical culture
there are still some constraints and the challenges that go with them.
Problem solving is the type of intellectual stimulation I prefer.
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