Re: What criteria do you have for your own or others' languages?
| From: | Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, December 6, 2006, 10:51 |
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Hallo!
Sai Emrys wrote:
> This is in prep for an essay I'm writing - to revise my /On the design
> of an ideal language/ essay into something more clearly meta and
> complete. (And also address the question of 'conlanging "schools"',
> etc.)
>
>
> Please list, in your own words (preferably detailed) what criteria you
> apply to conlangs to judge them to be (in your opinion / for your
> purposes) "better" or "worse", or more or less "likable" or
> "impressive" etc etc. They can be subjective, objective, or both.
>
> Please don't get into whether some criteria are better or worse than
> *other* criteria; that is definitely not what I am asking. I'm ONLY
> asking about how YOU evaluate languages; i.e. what YOU like in them
> (when choosing which you want to learn, how you want to make
> something, or what other conlangs you think are really cool and 'well
> done').
I have already commented on this over at the ZBB, but I'll do again here.
First of all, I think that any conlang ought to be measured against the
purpose or design goals set by the creator.
If it is, for instance, an IAL, it ought to be easy to learn and culturally
neutral, but by the same time sufficiently expressive to write scientific
treatises and legal documents in it (these two are very important facets
of international communication).
A fictional ethnic language, on the other hand, should *not* be overly
regular and simplistic, but resemble a natlang, and obey well-established
linguistic universals.
What unsettles me is any claim made by a conlanger that his language
was "ideal" or "optimal". One should be very, very careful with such
absolutes.
Concerning my own personal taste, I appreciate naturalistic artlangs most.
I consider myself a member of the "naturalist school". But that's just my
personal taste.
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