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Auxlangs (was Re: T-Shirt)

From:Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg.rhiemeier@...>
Date:Monday, September 25, 2000, 22:16
Nik Taylor wrote:
> > Jörg Rhiemeier wrote: > > Very true; on the other hand, excluding Tolkien would mean cutting off > > our own roots! So put Quenya and Sindarin on the t-shirt, but not > > Esperanto. > > Since Tolkien is our patron saint, so to speak, Quenya and Sindarin I > agree should be there. Other than that, any conlang devised by a person > on this list should be on it, regardless of the purpose of said conlang, > so that would include, for example, NGL.
Personally, I see nothing wrong with Esperanto *as a language*, not even with Esperanto *as a conlang*; my argument against Esperanto was that it could raise too much trouble. There comes an idea to me: anyone willing to design a conculture for Esperanto, i.e. a fictional country where Esperanto is spoken as vernacular? The most plausible candidate would be something in Central Europe in an alternative timeline, perhaps where Hungary is *here*, because this seems to be the most likely place for what Esperanto essentially is, namely a Romance-based creole with lots of Germanic and Slavic elements strewn in.
> > Auxlangs suffer what I like to call the "Highlander syndrome" > > ("There can be only one") > > Hee hee, I like that term. :-) > > > That is of course completely boggledydocks, but it is the way > > auxlangers tend to see things. > > By the very nature of what an auxlang is, that's inevitable. If the > Perfect ConIAL exists, then why would you make another proposal? Why > not support the Perfect One?
Exactly! That's the problem with IALs, and that's why I prefer not to meddle with auxlangers. Some of their languages are nice, but the people bickering about them are not! Jörg.