Re: Artlangers vs. auxlangers (was Re: Tell your conlang story!)

Hallo!

Henrik Theiling wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> writes:
>
> > [observations about auxlangers]
>
> Please!  You have prejudices against auxlangers, ok, but this does not
> mean we want to risk a flamewar here.  Prejudices are prejudices --
> there are many auxlangers and auxlangophiles on this list who are very
> well aware of what they are talking about linguistically.
Yes.

> Only because we don't want auxlang advocacy on this list does not mean
> to be hostile against auxlangers.
I apologize.

> BTW, I personally have seen many naive non-auxlang conlangs, too.
> It's simply that one needs time and energy to get into the matter deep
> enough to create a well-crafted piece of art (in the view of others
> who do have the deep view already).  And I strongly doubt this is
> specific to auxlanging.  It's likely to be inherent in every hobby or
> profession.
True.  There are some brilliantly-designed auxlangs on the market, and
lots of humdrum artlangs.  It's just my impression I got from comparing
the CONLANG and AUXLANG mailing lists to each other, which I admit is
misleading.

Jim Henry wrote:

> This is less true than it used to be.  Most of
> the newer auxlang projects I'm aware of
> have an isolating grammar, and many of them
> have a smaller phoneme inventory and more
> restrictive phonotactics than the old-style
> auxlangs more heavily influenced by western
> Indo-European languages.
True.  Esperanto and Ido may be like what I had in mind when I made my
bold statements, but many newer designs indeed depart from SAE ways.

> >most auxlang descriptions I have seen are linguisticaly naive,
> > for example, describing the language in terms of letters rather than
> > phonemes.
>
> In some cases, this is because the auxlang descriptions
> have (by intention, anyway) a broader target
> audience than the typical artlang description -- they
> are not addressing only their fellow linguistically
> sophisticated conlangers, but, ideally, a broader
> public.  I agree the best auxlang presentation would
> include both levels of description.
Yes, you are of course right.  We here on CONLANG mostly write about
our artlangs towards an audience of fellow conlangers and thus use the
language of linguistic monographs.  Auxlangers, as a rule, write for
the linguistically unsophisticated general public - people who often
don't have the slightest idea what a "phoneme" is, etc.

> > And then the auxlangers are dead serious about their proposals,  and are
> > in a state
> > of constant trench warfare about which proposal is best.  Sigh.
> > Artlangers are sooooo
> > much more humourous and tolerant.
>
> This might be true if you qualified it with
> "most" or "many" as you did the earlier statements.
Sorry.  I should have written "many auxlangers", or "the typical auxlanger".
There is this "Highlander condition" with regards to auxlangs: "there can be
only one".  The world would have to agree on *one* auxlang used by
*everybody*, otherwise no improvement over the current situation is achieved.
However, "all or nothing" thinking is not all that widespread in the auxlang
world.

> A couple of admirable counterexamples are,
> or have been, active in this group as well as AUXLANG:
> Rex May and Larry Sulky.
Yes.  Rex May's Ceqli (now spelt Tceqli) is surely an interesting, well
designed, non-naive auxlang.

Greetings,

Jörg.