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

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.