Re: Defining "Language"

li_sasxsek@NUTTER.NET, On 18/07/2007 20:35:
>> [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf Of David Peterson
>
>> The definition I've heard is as follows:
>>
>> A system of communication used by a community that is creative and
>> recursive.
>
> This may not be a popular thing to say here, but I don't consider most
> conlangs to be "languages".  I consider them to be plans or blueprints
> for languages, and then become languages when they come to life
> through usage.  Until then, they are just concepts.  The "community"
> may only be two people, but there does need to at least be a speaker
> and a listener.
Terminologically, I prefer for "language" to denote the blueprints not the actual human
behaviour (or brain states) that realizes the blueprints. But the key thing is
the grammar--usage distinction, and it doesn't really matter whether we prefer
"language" to mean "grammar" or "usage". ('Grammar' = the language code, the
system of form--meaning correspondences, Saussurean langue.) What's clear is
that conlangers invent grammars.

--And.

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