Paul Hartzer wrote:
> But, apparently, a nerve was struck.

It's possible more than one nerve was struck
(witness the discussion on the term "national").
For my part, the struck nerve was when Mark
and others replied to my note to you (which
you summarised as "no, I know the difference")
by explaining the difference.

Mark J. Reed wrote:
> [The CONLANG list is] where we are having
> this discussion, and so its conventions
> apply by default.

FWIW, I didn't see anything in the welcome
materials which said I have to say that I
speak several natlangs when I want to say
that I speak Esperanto and a few national
languages.

> None of us realized you were intentionally
> avoiding the term "natural language" for
> philosophical reasons.

I'm not so sure it's for "philosophical" reasons.
There is an extent to which the term "natural
language" does not *appeal* to me when used
in contrast to "constructed languages".  There
is also an extent to which (as has been pointed
out by others) that the distinction between
fully constructed, partially modified, slightly
prescriptive, and fully wild languages isn't
overly useful, and certainly not the sort of
thing that I cared to muck around with too much
in my brief personal introduction.

> If you also spoke, say, an artlang or loglang,
> then they would not fit into any of those
> categories, but using "national" instead of
> "natural" doesn't help with that case.

True, but since I don't, this wasn't what
I was trying to say, and so the words I chose
correctly expressed my meaning (with the possible
exception of Paul, whose question didn't affect
the meaning and was quickly cleared up.)

There is a sense in which I could now claim
to speak Pakuni - being well acquainted with
(rough guess) at least 80% of the known vocabulary
of the language and mostly familiar with the rest.
(Usually, though, I never claimed to "speak" a
language while knowing fewer than a few hundred
words.)

If I were to write the same sentence today, I
might say that I speak Pakuni, Esperanto, and
a national language or two.

> Pointing out that the natural languages you
> speak are not intended for use as IALs seems
> rather redundant;

Maybe if I said so explicitly.  It's also redunant
to say "my mom knows how to tie her own shoes."
After all, "her" tells us that she's female, and
we know that already.  For that matter, what if
she could tie someone else's shoes but not her
own?  Still, since the word "her" is short (and
doesn't take away from the meaning - that the
subject can tie shoes), we use it.

> no natural language is ever "intended" for use
> as an IAL, since you can't speak of the "intent"
> of something that was not designed.

Again, if that makes sense to you, I won't
stop you from expressing yourself that way.
When I hear "natural language", I'm reminded of
"natural language processing", which can
include machines designed to process Esperanto.

I also deal with people on a daily basis who
want to know what language they're hearing
me speak.  They ask a quick question and want
a quick answer.  I don't have time to get
involved with explaining to them why it's
okay to speak an "unnatural" (or non-natural)
language, so to some extent, the term "national"
language is somewhat reflexive (that is, I
use it by reflex) and - our discussion about
"propaganda" notwithstanding - a way to
communicate what I think Esperanto is all
about.

> In general, I don't see the benefit of
> the term "national language". It is an
> emotionally and politically charged phrase;
> on the one hand, it's used in IAL promotional
> materials to call attention to the
> perceived inherent bias in natural IALs

Maybe, but for me it's much more subtle.
I think that's all I have to say about that,
since I feel we're getting awfully close to
the edge of NCNC.

I do think that in most contexts when I say
"national language", people understand it to
mean "a language associated with a Geo-ethno-
political entity, such as French or German."

> on the other, it's the stated goal of those
> who wish to e.g. make English the (only)
> official language of the United States.

True, I think we could talk about English being
(or being declared) "the national language of
the United States".  At the same time, I think
we're hiding a lot in the first word "the".

> Neither use seems particularly valuable in
> a technical discussion of language types.

I can accept this, but I didn't think that
a passing mention that I speak Esperanto,
Interlingua, some Ido and Intal and Volapük
(not to mention a familiarity with Zamenhof's
reform project of 1894), do okay in German,
read Dutch, can mumble inteligably in a few
romance languages, have had an extended
conversation in Croatian, and recently
reported a broken toilet in Chinese - at all
constitutes a technical discussion of language
types.

Amike salutas,
Thomas/Tomaso ALEXANDER.
www.NightinGael.Net
---Anything below this line is not from Thomas ---