Re: Sauron's conlang (was: Intergermansk - Three Rings)

On Sunday, January 30, 2005, at 01:01 , Mark J. Reed wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 29, 2005 at 07:35:14PM -0500, Pascal A. Kramm wrote:
>> Well, your response to my suggestion (that he did base his conlang on
>> pre-existing langs) seemed indeed to suggest that yyou meant he did
>> create a
>> 'a priori' lang:
I made no such response.

>>   "It could have been a completely normal and natural
>>   lang before Sauron came and changed Mordor into the Land of Shadows...
>> "
>> So if he did *not* create an 'a priori' lang, this is exactly what
>> happened,
>> he used already spoken lang(s) (most probably the previous lang of
>> Mordor)
>> to create his conlang.
>>
>
> It seems that one of us misunderstands the terms "a priori" and "a
> posteriori".
> And I don't know which one of us Ray agrees with.  But I would say that
> Esperanto is an a posteriori lang, not an a priori one - it's vocabulary
> was not made up out of thin air, but based on various existing languages.
Of course Esperanto is an a_posteriori language. There are, I know, one or
two apparently a_priori features in it it, but a good 99% of it is
a_posteriori_. All the auxlangs I listed in my previous mail are
a_posteriori.

> Even so, there exists no language that you can point to and say "that's
> what Esperanto used to be before it was Esperanto."
Exactly!


> -Marcos
>
>> --
>> Pascal A. Kramm, author of:
>> Intergermansk: http://www.choton.org/ig/
>> Chatiga: http://www.choton.org/chatiga/
>> Choton: http://www.choton.org
>> Ichwara Prana: http://www.choton.org/ichwara/
>> Skälansk: http://www.choton.org/sk/
>> Advanced English: http://www.choton.org/ae/

With respect to the author of all these conlangs, JRRT said only: "It is
said that the Black Speech was devised by Sauron in the Dark Years.."

I made no other claim than that.

There is *nothing* in JRRT's sentence to suggest whether the creation was
a_priori or a_posteriori or, indeed, mixed. I do, however, know the
meaning of "devised" - everything else is idle speculation.

Please could this rather pointless thread be brought to a close.

Ray
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Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]