Re: conlangs as art (was: Re: Wikipedia:Verifiability - Mailing lists as sources

Re definitions, David is right; as with any axioms, everyone must
agree - or at least agree to disagree and maintain parallel
definitions for compare-and-contrast-ing - to have a productive
conversation.

On the subject, I am inclined to agree with Ray - though my childhood
was half as long ago. Conlangs, or at the least creative works *in*
conlangs, can be completely moving.

For me, conlangs *qua* languages are beautiful in a somewhat different
way than as art per se.

So as not to inflame the discussion, I'll give a nonlinguistic example:

"Operating, as is our aim, on sick people, more often than not things
aren't so pretty inside. Diabetic, or old, or overweight, or with
concomitant diseases affecting various organs, typical surgical
patients rarely retain the born-in beauty and peach-fuzz perfection
with which they came into the world. But sometimes bad things happen
to the well-kept or the young, and, in another of those paradoxical
disconnects of the surgical mind, we are given a moment to find
pleasure despite another's pain. Sometimes it's just all look-at-me
laid out, not hidden in adipose, undistorted; the logic, the
development, the relationships, the purity so bright as to be
stupefying."

- http://surgeonsblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/you-are-so-beautiful.html
(I very highly recommend Dr. Schwab's blog and book, BTW)

I feel something similar about conlangs, though not with any
implication of gruesomeness as above. Essentially, I find joy in the
cleverness of the creation. (It's difficult for me to enunciate this
well enough without sounding as if I am an ID-believing Christian [I'm
not], so just pretend I here made an eloquent-but-secular version
thereof.)

I don't know that I can honestly call that _art_ as such, but I *can*
call it _beauty_, and I'm willing to gloss that more-or-less well as
_craft_.

- Sai