Re: ,Language' in language name?

On Tuesday, November 27, 2001, at 03:53 , Padraic Brown wrote:

>> Daniel Andreasson <danielandreasson@...> commented on the issue:
>>> Could there be a correlation like this?
>>>
>>> developed conculture -> does not contain "language",
>>> but rather a toponym or some word that describes
>>> the people, or similar.
>>>
>>> no conculture -> contains "language", since there
>>> is no culture to refer to.
[snippage]

> Especially for those with concultures, it may be a matter of not
> having discovered what the natives call the language. [Irina just
> found out (relatively recently) that Valdyan is, in fact, called
> Ilaini by the natives. (Hope I got the spellings right!)] It took me a
> while to find the old (and, actually, official) name for Kerno
> (Bretadnecca).
Or for those conculturists who don't operate under the "discovery"
paradigm, it gets even more arbitrary.  I think I changed the name of what'
s now Czevraqis two or three times, and it had nothing to do with the
speakers, it was my whim and learning more about phonology and what sounds
I wanted to use.  I'm afraid I create worlds, conlangs and stories in much
the same manner: I change them to fit my dictates and concerns.  (In
writing I fall out of the plot-based and character-based styles
altogether--I have no compunctions about changing the plot or characters
or setting drastically between drafts--into mode-based, which is another
way of saying the same thing.)

Unfortunately, I imagine this makes my conlangs a lot more arbitrary and
unnaturalistic than might otherwise be the case--but since no one speaks
'em, it's no big loss.  :-)

Yoon Ha Lee [requiescat@cityofveils.com]
http://pegasus.cityofveils.com

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