Re: Internally artificial conlangs (Was: Re: T-Shirt)

On Mon, 2 Oct 2000, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:

>There is a peculiar language floating around in the Brithenig universe,
>which is called Pictw.  The linguists of that alternative timeline are
>still undecided whether it is a conlang or not.  The oldest available
>documents are a reference grammar and a Pictw-Brithenig dictionary
>both written by an 18th-century local clergyman.  That clergyman claimed
>that he recorded a near-extinct language which was already spoken in
>Britain before the Elves came there, but there are no traces whatsoever
>of its former existence besides those two books.
"An unabashed forgery! The so-called 'Pictish' language, purportedly a
very ancient language predating even the Elves, is in fact the work of
an 18th century Kemruis cleric whose feeble attempts at connecting the
fable of Atlantis with the aboriginal British is pure fantasy..."  Or
so says Enrhig ffeil Dewidd in _Myth in lla Ysteir di Gemr_. Of
course, he also says that the White Horse is "...a delightful 19th
century Midlands-Dumnonian co-forgery designed to mislead uninformed
tourists and to bilk the public of the FK out of more than 12.000
pounds per annum..." and that Stonehenge was built in Roman times and
was actually the site of a great windmill designed to power the water
pumps of a great aqueduct! Well, that's Kemrese 3-bob-penny-hapenny
popular scholarship for you; available at the checkstand of the local
greengrocer's with slick full colour cover and enticing subtitles.

[snip]
>Which reminds me:
>
>Why has no-one yet mentioned the two most famous con-conlangs, namely
>Newspeak and Black Speech?
Of course! Sauron the conlanger! Is enough of the BS known? Though I
doubt that a speaker of it would seek to fight language death while
seeking the death of everything else good in Middle Earth!

Padraic.

>Jörg.