Re: CHAT: models and miniatures

David wrote:

><< It's *intended* to be a real language. >>
>
>This should lead to the question: What is a real language?  As in, an
>actually existing language?  Well, if you write it down, it surely does exist
>in this world.
Irina has been able to bridge a gap between "here" and "there" that I
personally can't get across. I can create perfectly grammatical
utterances readily in Géarthnuns, though I am hardly fluent in all
the available vocabulary. But that's me talking or thinking to
myself, and I am able to do that because I have already been a
linguistic creature "here" in existing linguistic environments. If I
were raised by wolves "here", Géarthnuns would have a very different
sound and grammar, if it indeed came into being at all, since I'd
have no one to "talk" to.  I use the traditional definition that
language is a mode of communication between at least *two* people
(though I think there are some other perameters), and by that
criterion, Géarthnuns fails as a "language" "here".  Is it "real"?
Sure it is. It exists. Is it a means of communication? Yep. I
communicate with myself in it all the time.  And "language", in a
relaxed sense, is often used to mean  "(means of) communication" (bee
language, dog language). So, while I call Géarthnuns a "language" in
this relaxed sense, there is no second speaker "here", hence by the
stricter definition, it is wanting. But that's "here".

"There" is a different kettle of fish entirely. "There," Géarthnuns
is the flourishing *language* of a sizeable, but not huge, island
community. It has a literature and an emerging liguisitic and
cultural history that Géarthçins researchers are beginning to pull
out of the hoarfrost. I visit Géarthtörs with great regularity and
have no problem crossing between "here" and "there", but I find it
hard "here" to genuinely call it a "language" without qualifying it
somehow by such terms as "model" or "constructed" (though, certainly,
some constructed languages have obviously gone on to become *real*
languages). If someday a Micronesian country decides to pick
Géarthnuns up as its national tongue, then, by golly, it'll be a real
language. 'Til then...

Pinnocchio, you're a *real* boy!

Kou