Re: ,Language' in language name?

Christophe wrote:
>En réponse à Padraic Brown <agricola@...>:
>
> > >
> > > I think I disagree. Is a piano not really a piano, because that is not
> > what a
> > > piano calls itself?
> >
> > What they call themselves is, of course, unpronounceable by human
> > mouths. [We have rather too few strings and dampers and things to
> > speak that language!]
> >
>
>:))) <Rolling on the floor from laughter, imagining living pianos talking
>to
>each other>
>
> >
> > I agree that all these names are just labels - but to my way of
> > looking at things, the labels given by the people concerned are of a
> > different order than those applied by outsiders. This viewpoint is
> > derived from my philosophy of conlanging: that of discovery, not
> > creation. I can't just sit down and say "these people I shall call
> > 'Dacridations'" on a whim. I have to visualise them, look around,
> > explore and ask them what they call themselves. Just a minor
> > misunderstanding, I think!
> >
>
>It reminds me of a question I read a few years ago in Philosophy class (my
>God,
>it's been 8 years ago!!!): Are Mathematics invented or discovered? I think
>the
>same kind of question could be asked about conlangs. Do you people invent
>your
>conlangs, or do you discover them?
>
>I guess someone like David Peterson would argue that everybody really
>create
>their conlang, while Irina Rempt would be exactly on the opposite side,
>that
>people really discover conlangs. I tend to have a middle view (which
>happens to
>be the same as for maths): IMVHO, people invent the basic principles of
>their
>conlangs (like people invent the foundating hypotheses of mathematical
>theories), but afterwards, the rest comes naturally, springs out of those
>principles, and like any system conlangs nearly build themselves out of
>those
>principles, which means that the rest of the work is more a work of
>discovery
>than of creation (like in mathematics. Theorems are discovered, not
>created,
>because they were already there, even though not written yet, by the simple
>fact that they can be proved by formerly known ideas or theorems, or
>themselves
>derived from formerly known work). Concultures work the same way in my
>opinion.
People who argue that math is discovered often mean that mathematics exists
entirely independently of humans, that it's somehow "built-in" in the
Universe's structure (some extremists would go so far as saying that the
Universe is built OUT OF mathematics). I don't think anybody takes that view
to conlangs (or natlangs) ...

                                                 Andreas

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