Re: Average life of a conlang

Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:

> On Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:44:56 +0100, R A Brown wrote:
[snip]

>> Groan - I forgot that one. I cannot imagine that JRRT would've been at
>> all pleased. I remember seeing him interviewed on the TV many years ago
>> and saying how he would not want to meet with fellows and talk High
>> Elven all afternoon. It seems to me that he regarded his languages as
>> part of his literary creation and that they belonged there, and not *here*.
>
> He would certainly been severely displeased by what is going on
> in those fora these days!  I don't know whether his statement
> against real-world usage of his conlangs was meant against fan
> usage, or rather against the possible misunderstanding that any
> of his languages could be used as an IAL,
Fan usage - I don't think it ever occurred to him or anyone else at the
time that they could used as an IAL. Indeed, they obviously could not
because they were not in a complete enough state.

 From what I remember of the interview JRRT was not very keen on fan
groups. He said he did not see that point and asked what they would do.
It was in that context that he gave as an example that he would not want
to spend an afternoon chatting with other fellows in High Elven.

Also I suspect by that time (tho I don't recall the date) he was aware
of interests by New Agers and people of similar outlook which, as a
devout Catholic, he was not at all happy about.

> but what happens in
> the TolkLang and Elfling lists is certainly not at all what he
> wanted to happen.
I think there's no doubt bout that.

[snip]
>> Though I guess it depends to some extent on the language concerned. I
>> suspect most conlangs would simply be left to rest in peace, unless
>> there was something other about it that made people want to continue or
>> resurrect it. In the case of Sindarin & Quenya it was the whole appeal
>> of the LotR and Middle Earth.
>
> Yes.  I once observed that if Tolkien had not written _The Lord
> of the Rings_ but _A Historical Grammar of the Eldarin Languages_
> (the book all the people in TolkLang and Elfling dream of), his
> languages would have been forgotten by now: they would be seen
> as a quirk of an eccentric Oxford linguist and nothing else.
> Only the vast popularity of _The Lord of the Rings_ caused
> thousands of people to take interest in the languages featured
> therein.
Also there's no doubt about that IMO. Similarly, _tlhIngan Hol_ would
not have caught on as it has if it had not been for Star Trek and the
Klingons. It's the conculture these languages were set in that accounts
for their real world use. It shows, of course, that the life of an
artlang can be affected by non-linguistic criteria; and this IMO makes
the exercise of finding an "average" conlang life span fairly meaningless.

> Most conlangs will probably fall into oblivion after the death
> of their authors.  There are, however, a few classics of the
> genre which will likely be studied by future conlangers, such
> as Teonaht or Verdurian.
Yes - and Laadan also comes to mind,

>>       It is just possible that Briefscript/
>> Piashi might be 'finished' if I failed to develop it any more in that
>> (a) some people have ever since Dutton's day shown interest in the idea
>> of an international briefscript, and (b) I have received private emails
>> expressing interest in my project.
>
> While I don't think any kind of briefscript (or any other kind
> of artificial language) will have a chance to attain world
> language status anytime in the foreseeable future (after all,
> even Esperanto is far away from that),
By _international_ I did not mean 'global'. I mean international in the
sense that, say, _tlhIngan Hol might be considered international in that
users of the language do not all come from the same nation and do not
all have the same L1 (I think). If people of different L1s want someday
to use Piashi as a medium of communication, then that's fine. But I have
no interest in promoting it or indeed any other conlang as a global IAL.

> it is as legitiamte an
> intellectual challenge as any other kind of conlanging, and
> I am indeed interested in seeing which way Piashi will develop
> in the future.  It would also be a pity if those 50 years of
> work on it failed to bear fruit ...
It would, I guess. Also I myself am sort of interested in how it will
work itself out. The phonology did not turn out as I had for very many
years expected it to do. Already as I make draft workings on the grammar
and try out sentences, I feel the language taking on forms which I had
not envisaged. The darn thing has a life of its own and is simply not
allowing itself to die. "You conceived me," it says. "I've had far too
long a gestation - now get me born and find out what I _really_ look like!"

>> I have no similar fears about mu experimental loglang. If that's not
>> finished, people can do what they like with it. As for rival camps
>> flaming each other over it - extremely unlikely, I think   ;)
>
> Same to my sister project of it, X-1, which doesn't seem to
> have garned much interest - much less, in any case, than
> Old Albic.
Strange that     ;)

--
Ray
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Frustra fit per plura quod potest
fieri per pauciora.
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