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Re: CHAT: models and miniatures

From:Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>
Date:Wednesday, August 8, 2001, 16:20
Thomas Wier wrote:
>J Matthew Pearson wrote: > > > Somehow I fail to find the term "model" at all pejorative. A > > model ship is not a toy, or a counterfeit, or a fraud. It's a > > depiction (or "imitation", in the Aristotelean sense) of a real > > ship--just as a painting of a house is a depiction of a house. > > Similarly with model languages. Far from being belittling, I > > find that this point of view ennobles conlanging, placing it > > firmly within the sphere of Art. > >Indeed, I think your reference to Aristotle is quite apt: he saw >imitation (mimesis) as an instinctual ability that sets humans >apart from animals. If that is so (and it is probably disputable >to some extent), conlanging, far from being artificial, as a subset >of the world of art would be one of the most human and natural >features of our existence.
"Artificial" is a many-meaninged word. I usually use it in the sense "man-made", and under that definition not only conlangs, loglangs, programming languages etc, but also all natlangs are "artificial"! Andreas _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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J Matthew Pearson <pearson@...>