Re: The League of Lost Languages (was Re: Fakelangs)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jörg Rhiemeier" <joerg_rhiemeier@...>

> Hallo!
>
> On Sun, 27 Jun 2004 16:32:11 -0400,
> Sally Caves <scaves@...> wrote:
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Tristan Mc Leay"
> >
> > Sally krespr:
> > > > I have to say I love this idea of a "fake" natlang.  Put me on
board!
[snip]
> > If I hadn't been so enthused about CONLANG, I might have considered
putting
> > Teonaht on-line as a real but somewhat obscure language.  The T. however
> > have too many bizarre properties, though, to convince anyone.  I might
list
> > some reference works, though!  That would be fun.  :D
>
> I see two problems with including Teonaht in the LLL:
I wasn't asking for Teonaht to be included in LLL.  I liked the idea of LLL,
and I thought it was something everybody could contribute to; I got the
impression that some of these languages could be group invented.  However,
since I like faking things, I can easily pretend that T. is a language of a
lost diaspora, which it is in many ways.  Those members who travel and don't
make it back in time for the "melting" are stranded in our world.  They also
have a distorted literature of world events.  That's a very strong feature
of Teonaht literature: what they do with the "Alexander" legend, for
instance, etc.  Are we being so dismissive here?

> 1. It is spoken by an entirely fictional non-human race.
The Teonaht are not non-human.  They have some features that distinguish
them from most other humans, such as polydactylism.  The feature about their
eyes may be "legendary."

> 2. It is spoken in an entirely fictional country which winks into
>    and out of existence in a very counterfactual way.
True.  But this could be one of their many "myths."  So the League of Lost
Languages must come from non-fictional countries?

> The League of Lost Languages is about the survival of languages that
> existed or could have existed in the world we live in, but disappeared
> without leaving any living descendants.  The idea is that in the LLL
> world, some languages survived that died out *here*, without changing
> the world more than necessary to accomodate the languages in question.
>
> Examples include European languages of pre-Indo-European origin,
> modern East Germanic languages, fictional branches of Indo-European,
> sister groups of real-world families and isolates, etc.
Just to be ornery... Teonaht could be considered Indo-European with some
outstanding departures.  After all, the Germanic languages have words in
them for ordinary things that are not shared by any other IE language, and
they have developments that are unique with Germanic.  The same could be
said for Teonaht.

> Of course, this is not limited to Europe.  An LLL language could be
> yet another of the many diverse languages of the North American
> Pacific coast, a modern-day descendant of Sumerian or a pre-Bantu
> language in the Congo basin.  It is also not ultimately necessary
> that the languages are spoken today; they might be extinct but having
> left written records.
>
> The participants would contribute their conlangs, say where and when
> they are spoken, and write fake scholarly papers and similar stuff
> about them.
I already do that!  (You haven't seen them)  Consistency is not one of the
Teonim's best features: sometimes they exist outside this world, sometimes
they exist within this world.  Sometimes it's JUST a language.  I can write
about it as JUST a language, and in another context write about it as a
language attached to a people (more fun).  These comprise Teonaht's
literature.

> So far, these seem to be LLL members:
>
> Name                    Language(s)
>
> Tristan McLeay          Føtisk
> Jörg Rhiemeier          Albic
> Christian Thalmann      Hajro
You've left out Matt's Tokana, which seems an ideal candidate.  I suppose he
has to agree to be part of your club, though.

Sally

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