Re: The Great Sundering (was Re: basic morphemes of a loglang)

On Thursday, November 27, 2003, at 08:58 PM, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:

> Hallo!
>
> On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 19:35:39 -0800,
> Costentin Cornomorus <elemtilas@...> wrote:
[snip]
>>       Throwing your hat
>> into that ring is tantamount to saying aloud and
>> very clearly "My language is better than yours
>> and the following Manifesto will elucidate the 96
>> Critical Points upon which your pitiful 'project'
>> will be crucified." There are simply certain
>> fundamentals that auxlangers subscribe to by
>> definition.
>
> It's what I call the "Highlander condition":
> there can be only one.  The goal of all auxlanging is to
> set up ONE language to be used by everyone in the world;
> this inevitably means that ONE proposal will eventually
> be chosen to be that one, and all others be rejected.
No, no, no!

Don't tar all auxlangers with the same brush.  When I was on that
list there were still a few auxlangers who proposed their schemes
or supported another's an _an_ IAL, i.e. a language which could
as an interlanguage among interested groups - not as _the_
interlanguage.

One of the sanest people I came across was an advocate of Interlingua.
But he most certainly didn't propose it as _the_ interlanguage - but
as _an_ interlanguage which could serve essentially among those of
occidental background.  And indeed Interlingua has been so used.

It may be that sadly such people have been squeezed out of Auxlang -
but I hope not.  But even if they have, I'm sure they still exist.

There are auxlang moderates.

[snip]

> On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 19:18:46 +0000,
> Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:
>>
[snip]
>> or even Novial vs. Novial!  That's when I finally quit.
>
> Novial vs. Novial... a really sad thing.  IMHO, Novial is the most
> elegant of the a posteriori auxlangs I have yet studied.
I agree - I've known Novial since I got "Novial Lexike" for Christmas
in 1953.

> That's just childish, as I have written above.  Shame on them.
Absolutely - as I said, it was the last straw.  I quit.

[snip]
>> heresies to be exterminated at all costs.  Of course, each side would
>> claim
>> to know the mind of JRRT.  If you think I exaggerated - look at the
>> archives
>> of the Novial civil wars where certain parties claimed to know the mind
>> of
>> Jespersen!
>>
>> No, no! Please save JRRT and Quenya from such a fate - both deserve
>> better.
>
> It is bad enough how Quenya and Sindarin are treated by those scholars
> at places like Elfling.  Many of them have turned blind for the beauty
> of the languages and bicker about reconstructions of words and
> grammatical forms that are not attested in what has been published
> so far of Tolkien's writings.
I had got wind of this, which has, sadly, made me wary of getting involved
on any Elfling or similar groups.  As far as I'm concerned, Quenya and
Sindarin are as we find them in JRRT's work.

> There are a number of "grailkeepers"
> who see themselves as defenders of the true Tolkienian traditon and
> violently reject any such "fill-in" attempts.
Sadly, I feel this is bound to be the fate of any attempted fill-ins.

> The word _vinyacárië_
> (`new creation') has developed negative connotations on Elfling,
> which is a sad thing as it denotes something very much in style
> for the Elves!  Tolkien and his language haven't deserved that.
No, they do not.  Let's at least preserves them from the flames of
Auxland.  (Here in SE England, Orcsland and Auxland are synonyms  :)

Ray
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