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Re: OT: What makes a good conlang? (was Re: Super OT: Re: CHAT: JRRT)

From:And Rosta <a.rosta@...>
Date:Tuesday, March 9, 2004, 1:50
Jörg:
> Hallo! > > On Sat, 6 Mar 2004 18:38:58 -0000, > And Rosta <a.rosta@...> wrote: > > > David P: > > [...] > > > > > > I would like to try to convince you, then, but first I need to > > > > know what you think are the criterial properties of being a > > >> good conlanger. > > > Joerg: > > > A good question, and not an easy one.>> > > > > > > Yeah, I think I was assuming too much when I said this. I think > > > I was assuming that Tolkien meant for his languages to be realistic, > > > but now that I'm thinking about it, I have no idea. > > > > Contrary to Mark Reed's reasonable views, I think that the Elvish > > languages were intended to be realistic, and are realistic. > > It can be argued whether the assumption that languages of immortal > Elves change like human languages, only slower (or even that they > are like human languages at all), makes sense or not, but what matters > here is that Tolkien made that assumption (and we cannot falsify it > because there are no immortal Elves in the real world) and that > his conlangs perfectly live up to it.
I meant that the languages taken out of context are realistic. I used to find implausible the idea about the languages of the immortal Elves changing in the way natlangs do, but Tolkien does address this in _The Shibboleth of Feanor_.
> > I think verisimilitude is a major ingredient of what I most value > > in an artlang, too. How do you judge 'realism'? To me, it's mainly > > a matter of complexity, of scale, and of completeness. The more > > complex, the more large-scale, and the more complete it is, the > > more realistic it is. > > Not necessarily. A brief sketch can also capture a small part of > an imagined reality quite well. It may not look like a complete > natlang, but like a brief sketch of a natlang. One should not confuse > quantity and quality, neither in conlanging nor in any other art, as > masterful haikus on one hand and Nazi monumental buildings on the > other hand demonstrate. I'd always prefer a brief sketch which shows > masterful treatment of certain details over a complete conlang which > consists of a humdrum, obviously unreflected SAE grammar and a > randomly generated vocabulary.
In my later reply to David I tried to explain what I meant. But essentially I feel that a conlang is an invented language, not an invented description of a language. So for the conlang to feel real, I need to know that there is more substance to it than a sketchy description. My intent is not to confuse quantity and quality, but to distinguish the blueprint from the building, or a vague sketch from a fully detailed blueprint. I too would prefer a brief sketch, or nothing at all, to a humdrum Euroclone. But I still don't find the brief sketch *realistic*, unless one redefines realism as the art of creating realistic descriptions (-- I do like that too, though: it's something about Tepa and Kinya that particularly appeals to me). --And.