Re: Aesthetics

Hallo!

On Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:04:21 +0100, R A Brown wrote:

> Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
>
> > [...] Of course, beauty lies in
> > the eye of the beholder ...
>
> Quite so, as well as the ear of the beholder.
Of course.

>       IME people _tend_ to find
> what is similar to their own L1 is pleasing and what is very different
> is unpleasing. I stress I have found this as a tendency, not by any
> means an absolute.
It is definitely not an absolute!  Quenya and Sindarin, undoubtedly
made to appeal to the taste of their creator, aren't that similar
to English, and what concerns me, I don't consider German very
beautiful, and Old Albic has little resemblance of it.  One of
my favourite consonants, for instance, is /T/, which German does
not have (except in a few recent borrowings from English, such
as _Thriller_).  But my predilection for front rounded vowels
may be partly due to the fact that German has them, and one of
them occurs in my first name.

I'd say what one finds beautiful is partly dependent on which
languages he is aware of - L1, L2 or other.  My linguistic taste
is influenced not only by German, English and Latin, but also by
languages such as Welsh, Irish or Georgian.

> That may in part explain why auxlangs so often reflect to a lesser or
> greater extend the phonology of an author's L1.
I'd rather say that this is due to the fact that their authors
aren't all too familiar with other languages.

>       But I'll not go too far
> that road as anything said about auxlangs IME, alas, is liable to
> provoke flames. I've had more than enough of that.
Sure.  We don't want auxlang advocacy here.  There is a place for
that elsewhere.

> > Yes.  For example, I find my own X-1 outright *ugly*.
>
> Oh - I think you're doing yourself an injustice. All unblocked
> syllables, the only consonants being /p t k s l m n/, no consonant
> clusters. That is not what I call ugly. I know some people like he /a/
> sound, and that is lacking. I also know some people don't like the
> languages with just CV syllables like the Polynesian languages; but I
> find them attractive. But, as this thread has made quite clear, such
> things are very much subjective.
True.

> But FWIW I don't find X-1's phonology ugly.
Yes, the phonology is indeed quite attractive, it's the orthography
that I feel to be ugly.  The second thing I find unpleasant about X-1
is its unnaturalness.

> > Perhaps I will
> > ditch the present orthography and pronunciation scheme entirely one day
> > - it is entirely secondary to the structure of the language anyway.
>
> That is true. But I will be very interested to see what you come up
> with. As you know, I've had several attempts at devising a phonology &
> orthography to which a stream of 'nibbles' may map.
Yes.  I think I'll keep the phonology the way it is; it isn't all
that ugly and is derived from the bit quartets in a way that I find
quite interesting and ingenious.  Perhaps I will find a better
orthography, though.

> > Engelangs are guided by objectively testable criteria - and aesthetics
> > is of course not objectively testable!
>
> Indeed not. I suppose and author could state those features s/he thinks
> contributes to a language being aesthetically pleasing and one could
> measure how well those features are implemented. An interesting concept.
Sure.  One can write such a manifesto if one wants to.  But I find
it difficult to say what it is that makes a language beautiful
(other than naturalism - there aren't many ugly natlangs, and most
non-naturalistic conlangs don't appeal much to me).

> >>Maybe, when I've got EAK & Piashi out of the way (not sure about the
> >>"reformed Plan B" one), I will treat myself and design an artlang purely
> >>for my own pleasure    ;)
> >
> > Do so when you find the leisure to do it.
>
> I must at least get EAK & Piashi out of the way.
Sure.  I know all too well what it means to have too many projects
under way in parallel - you get stuck with all of them and achieve
nothing.

>       EAK should not be too
> much of a problem as it is based on a natlang & the vocabulary is, so to
> speak, 'ready made'.
Yes.

>       I'm hoping that by solving some of the problems
> involved with a _flexionless_ language, it may help with Piashi which,
> after some 50 years maturing, really needs to be finished!
Sure.  I sincerely hope that it won't take another 50 years
- otherwise it will be at your grandchildren to finish it :)

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