Re: Aesthetics

 
> > From Jorg Rhiemeier> > Add to this that the race is practically already> > run,
> > and English is the winner.
 
Agreed. All Auxlangs aspire to the international status that English already holds,
due to the dominance of English speakers in world affairs over the last few
centuries. (Brits first, Americans more recently.) Take as a perfect example
this very mailing list, which consists of many international, multilingual
members -- the language of discussion is English.
 
And a very distant second in terms of public recognition is Esperanto. Ask anybody
outside of the linguistic community if they can name one constructed language,
and if they can answer at all, they'll name Esperanto. Not necessarily because
it was the best designed (that's a different debate), but just because it had
good enough timing to establish a bit of name recognition. First-to-market
counts for a lot ... (not to mention, so the legend goes, the fact that
Zamenhof relinquished any copyright to Esperanto, but left it out to common
usage, thereby avoiding one of Dr. Schleyer's biggest mistakes with Volapuk.)
 
And for the even smaller percentage of people who can name two conlangs, the
second one would most likely be either Klingon or Quenya. But neither of those
was ever intended as an auxlang. No other conlang that I'm aware of has any
reach whatosever into popular culture -- which is necessary to get any public
use at all. And public use is the entire point of an auxlang, methings ...
 
All this tells that I'd have no place to be an auxlanger. I don't have enough ego
to think I could even compete with Esperanto, let alone supercede it (and then
overcome the dominance of English, to boot).
 
The next Klingon or Quenya?  Sure.  There's my ideal, then.  :)
 
:Chris
 
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