Re: Introducing myself, and several questions

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 04:43:40 -0500, Damian Yerrick <tepples@...> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
> Poster:       Damian Yerrick <tepples@...>
> Subject:      Re: Introducing myself, and several questions
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "B. Garcia" wrote:
>
> >Why worry about what offends people? As long as your conlang isn't
> >created with offensive words (such as using natlang offensive words as
> >words in your conlang... like for instance ni**er for "love").
>
> ANADEW. See various pidgins, argots, and cants that borrow swearwords
> as ordinary words. Some English speakers find "pickaninny" nearly as
> offensive as the N word, but Tok Pisin has borrowed it as the
> ordinary word for "child":
>
> http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0006B&L=conlang&P=R13857&D=0&m=16554
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tok_Pisin
But it wasn't consciously borrowed, with the intent to stir the shit,
as would using an racist or offensive word in a conlang. Pickaninny is
most likely due to phonetic development from the Portuguese word for
"small". It was often taken into 19th and turn of the century English
*as* an offensive word, from what I recall. That's the difference.


>
> Worse yet, the Russian argot called Mat:
>
> http://www.kenai-peninsula.org/archives/000023.html
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mat_%28language%29
>
This is an argot, a slang. Russians hardly speak like that _formally_.


> Heck some would argue that if Dutch were a conlang, its word
> |natie| for "nation" would offend anyone who remembers the
> Holocaust because it's pronounced roughly ["na.t_si].
> (Forgive me if I mistranscribed it into X-SAMPA; some details
> of the notation are still new to me.)
>
Yes, and the word for "what" is "ano" in Tagalog, which means "anus" in Spanish.


My point was, since I think you're missing it is, if you're worried
about offense, the only way you could offend really, is to
_intentionally use_ an offensive word in your conlang with the
_intent_ to stir the shit and cause trouble. Most of your examples are
either unintentional, were non-offensive words made to be offensive
words, or slang.

--
You can turn away from me
but there's nothing that'll keep me here you know
And you'll never be the city guy
Any more than I'll be hosting The Scooby Show

Scooby Show - Belle and Sebastian

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