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Re: what is a loglang?

From:Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
Date:Saturday, May 8, 2004, 14:17
Hallo!

On Thu, 6 May 2004 18:16:14 +0100,
Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

> On Thursday, May 6, 2004, at 03:43 AM, And Rosta wrote: > > > Mark Line: > >> Some things that popped up in a few recent posts made me squirm uneasily > >> and wonder what it is exactly that we all think a loglang *is*. > > > > _Loglang_ is polysemous. > > In one sense, it is an obsolete synonym for 'engelang'. > > In another less redundant sense, it is strictly a 'logic(al) language', > > & I interpret that as being a language whose grammatical rules specify > > an explicit mapping from surface (phonological) forms to logical > > forms (propositions), with 'logic' understood as propositional > > and predicate logic or some analogue of it. > > In fact, I've always understood 'loglang' in the 2nd of And's definition.
So have I.
> But it's been apparent that some have used it in a wider, vaguer sense > which IMO has not been helpful. Many over the centuries have claimed their > creations are "logical"; I've been told this many a time, e.g. by > Esperanto fundamentalists.
Or worse, such claims are sometimes made about *natlangs*, such as Latin or Aymara.
> But - and I mean this in a strictly objective > sense - Esperanto is by no stretch of the imagination a loglang in sense > (1) above.
Esperanto is certainly not a loglang.
> Indeed, whether it could even be classified as an engelang is > questionable for, altho its author certainly engineered it over many years > to meet certain criteria, some of those criteria are IMO not _objectively_ > certifiable.
I don't think it is meaningful to distinguish engelangs (or whatever) by the amount of time the author spent on his invention. See below.
> Engelang IMO is a wider & vaguer term, but is useful in distinguishing one > set of conlangs; altho, e.g. Tolkien worked on Quenya & Sindarin over many > decades, we would not, I think, class them as engelangs but rather as > artlangs.
They are certainly artlangs. I wouldn't even classify a language like Brithenig, which, in its design, is guided by a well-defined programme (in this example, a Romance language that has undergone Welsh-like changes), as an engelang, as the whole project is rather artistic in nature. Greetings, Jörg.

Reply

Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>Of artlangs & engelangs (was: what is a loglang?)