On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 9:32 PM, Jens Wilkinson<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> My own view is that when people from a variety of
> backgrounds use it, the language will naturally become simplified, as
> pidgins inevitably are, so the evolution will probably work in a good
> direction without any need to "freeze" it.

Such a view, I think, would indicate the need not for prevention of
reforms, but only of making them more cosmopolitan / international, so
that anything that's too local gets canceled out.

It is an interesting question though - are auxlangs the same as what
would happen if one had a [insert every language here] pidgin?
Personally I suspect not, but I can't well justify that.

> I have a hypothesis at least of why that is so. Suppose that I start
> learning Russian. In that case, I don't start with the idea that I can tell
> the Russians how to speak *their* language. There is an assumption on my
> part that Russian is owned by the Russians in some way.

One salient example: in ASL, some learners seem to be too incompetent
to create new vocabulary (mostly because they haven't assimilated its
classifier usage and other general patterns, so make up things that
are morphemically inconsistent). Others seem to be competent but just
don't do so out of a kind of cultural deference.

I know that I've had to come up with a couple signs (e.g. for a
specific kind of meditation technique) or discussed ones that are
mid-adoption (e.g. for "polyamory"), and not had any problem - but I
know a fair bit about ASL's morphology, so I ensured that they 'fit'.
Plus, I mostly don't have any especial concern for it as a culture,
only as a language; I learned it in the first place only out of
linguistic interest, not the usual "oh noes I must help the poor
deafies" thing.

> With a planned language, I begin from the assumption that I have as much right as anybody
> else to be a participant. I suppose that the complicated situation is one's
> own native language. I feel as if theoretically I have a right to propose
> changes to English, but on the other hand I was brought up, basically
> indoctrinated, into believing that certain things are correct, so it's
> difficult to actually go out and do it.

But nevertheless you do - at least for open-class vocabulary, ne?

Proposing or enacting grammatical changes is a bit harder, though, in
an L1 than a conlang...

On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 10:07 PM, <deinx nxtxr><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Would you argue in favor of preventing (con)language evolution?
>> Perhaps until some point of "stability" is reached? (If so, how would
>> one recognize such a point?)
>
> Yes, I would.  Standards are important.  Without them a lot of things just
> can't function and creating an auxlang is all about putting forth a standard
> for linguistically diverse groups of people to use to communicate.  The
> question isn't about whether a standard should be set or not but how to keep
> people from deviating too far from it so that it remains an effective
> communication tool.

This seems to me to be necessarily untenable except in the short term
with a small speaker base. Every natural language evolves; it's part
of having enough speakers.

Would you have e.g. the Esperanto of 4000 AD be identical to what it
is now? Or would you have it evolve as any language would?

> I'm referring here mainly to auxlangs because they are specifically intended
> for intercommunication.

Certainly; it was my presumption that that was our context.

> Other types of conlangs probably wouldn't need any
> type of language police because they have different motivations though even
> Klingon has the KLI.

I think Klingon is a special case, because it has a need for canon.
Most artlangs don't especially.

(This makes me wonder how Arabic has dealt with its evolution, given
the strong religious beliefs around a very fixed version of the
Qur'an. Do they simply treat it as "old arabic", to be learnt
liturgically in the same way as Jews learn Torah, or try to halt
linguistic evolution to stay consistent with it?)

- Sai