Hallo conlangers!

A good question, it seems, as it prompted so many replies.

On Monday 28 November 2011 18:41:57 Patrick Dunn wrote:

> I don't like proselytizing, no matter what's being proselytized.  I was
> turned off of Shwa the moment any sort of discussion of it replacing
> natural writing systems came up.  Like most auxlangs, it's fixing a problem
> that doesn't exist, and I have no interest in it.

I agree pretty much.  I would not call the international language
problem a "problem that doesn't exist", but it seems today as if
English as a global second language will be the solution that will
win out in the foreseeable future.

On Monday 28 November 2011 19:06:50 Gary Shannon wrote:

> Auxlangs can be interesting as long as they are not taken seriously.

Sure.
 
> In a sense, an auxlang can be a type of artlang. The characteristics
> of a "good" auxlang make an interesting subject of investigation. But
> again, this must be done with the understanding that auxlangs in the
> real world are a pointless waste of time.

Indeed, I have a web page where I discuss what a good auxlang
should IMHO be like:

http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/auxlang-design.html

I am considering making up a "case study" auxlang based on
these criteria some day; but as for now, I am more interested
in other matters, and the project has thus been put on hold
indefinitely.  Also, once it is done, I *won't* peddle it as
"the" solution of the world language problem.
 
> Looked at in that way I see no reason for hostility towards auxlangs
> as languages. That said, however, I do find it very annoying when
> people treat their favorite auxlang like it was one of "those"
> religions and get pushy and self righteous about it.

Yes.
 
On Monday 28 November 2011 19:27:47 Adam Walker wrote:

> I have at least two Auxlangs in my sci-fi novel, Terran and Standard, but I
> haven't bothered to learn anything about them, while I have wwritten
> dialogue in several alien languages.  Let's see which languages have
> actually appeared in my NaNoWriMo novel (not just been mentioned)  English,
> Mandarin, Spanish, Tvern El, Pherlat, Xttg, Graavgaaln, Taisiraniu,
> Trelkairni, Alelliawulian and I think I may still be missing one or two
> out.  Swedish will make an apperance during the edit as will Hopherl, and I
> think there was a place I intended to have some Madrindaln and B-G-2-3 has
> been described several of times, so one or more of those might become
> actual dialog in the language.  All those languages and not a word actually
> in either auxlang.

Fictional auxlangs are of course another kettle of fish than
real-world auxlangs.  One of my low-priority projects is a
science fiction universe featuring several non-humanoid alien
species most of which are members of a metacivilization.  These
beings have an inter-species auxlang based on binary codes; the
humans in the story call it "Loc", which is an abbreviation for
"Language of Communication" (a translation of the name of the
language in the language itself), or sometimes "Trellisese"
("the Trellis", based on a Loc expression meaning "Framework
for the Support of Development" and referring both to a garden
trellis and the metacivilization itself, is the common human
name of the metacivilization).  Loc will be based on an earlier
engelang project labeled X-1 which never went far:

http://www.frathwiki.com/X-1

Of course, the very last thing I am going to do with Loc is to
peddle it as a real-world auxlang!!!

(The lingua franca of the humans in that conuniverse, set a few
centuries in the future, BTW, is English.)

On Monday 28 November 2011 19:52:52 Daniel Burgener wrote:

> This is, I believe, related what several others have said on this topic,
> but shouldn't the distinction be made about discussing matters of design
> rather than of adoption when it comes to auxlangs.

Sure.  There is nothing wrong with discussing auxlang *design*;
that is IMHO a legitimate discussion, which, however, has the
tendency to turn into auxlang advocacy, as the criteria of
what makes a good IAL are partly controversial.

> Just like a naturalistic artlang has certain design goals (being
> naturalistic, having a rich history, etc), an IAL has design goals as well,
> which frequently include things such as regularity, ease of learning,
> similarity to a variety of existing languages etc.  So it seems to me as
> though many members of this list would find it quite interesting to have a
> discussion about a conlang that isn't already "complete" (for some
> definition of completeness :) ) in terms of how to design it to maximize
> learnability, or other specific linguistic goals.

Right.

> And a conlang certainly can be "good" or "bad" relating to its goals.  If I
> present the "perfect auxlang", and it's filled with difficult with features
> that would hinder the goal of universal adoption, that would, I think, be
> an issue that could be discussed here.  Of course, this could segue quickly
> into comparative arguments about different auxlangs (if a conlang can be
> "good" or "bad" relative to some standard, then different conlangs can be
> "better or "worse" relative to that standard).  So perhaps some form of
> slippery slope argument would justify the line being drawn further away
> from this territory.  I don't really know the history of this discussion,
> so perhaps laxer standards have been tried and failed.  But besides that, I
> don't see why such discussions should be limited just because they are
> about auxlangs.

Fair.  Any conlang should be gauged against the primary purpose
set by the author.  For an auxlang, ease of learning, cultural
neutrality, etc. (in whichever balance) matter; for a fictional
ethnic language, it is naturalness; etc.  The difference between
auxlangs and artlangs of course is that the former are meant to
be used *in the real world by real people*, and that's a much
more serious thing than what kind of languages Elves or small
furry things from the Tau Ceti system may speak.  (Engelangs
are more like artlangs in this matter; there are many different
possible linguistic experiments to carry out, and even if a
particular experiment has been done already, it is legitimate
and potentially interesting to carry it out again with a
different design.)

Also, auxlangs suffer from what I once called the "Highlander
condition" (after a popular motion picture): _There can be
only one_.  The point of the IAL movement is to establish
*one single language* as the universal second language of
humanity.  Thus, any new proposal of such a language involves
an implicit rejection of all IALs proposed any time before,
or so many people in the movement feel.  Artlangs do not suffer
from this problem.  There is always room for more.  It doesn't
matter that there are already so many fictional languages; if
you start a new conworld, why should you use languages others
have developed for different conworlds?  That would indeed be
plagiarism; as a world wright, you are *expected* to pursue
your own ideas rather than borrow wholesale from previous
writers.

> I've only been skimming the Shwa discussion, because neither auxlangs nor
> conscripts particularly interest me, but it seems to me is that this is
> what is happening.  Peter is saying "I am developing (or have developed?
>  This is a detail that I've missed in my skimming) a conscript, and it has
> goals X, Y and Z."  And then he asks for feedback relating to how well his
> conscript meets those goals.  Those goals happen to be auxlangy, but other
> than that, it's the same discussion that takes place here all the time for
> other conlangers and their various languages with a variety of goals.  I
> think that topics such as "should Shwa replace existing writing systems?"
> or "which writing system is the best?" should definitely be off limits, but
> I fail to see how "How can I make Shwa as close to meeting this set of
> goals as possible?" is off limits, even if the goals are auxlangy.

I agree with you.  Discussing the Shwa script *as a piece of
human imagination* is certainly on-topic here.  I even must
say that the script is quite well-designed.  The slippery
slope comes in when it comes to the question whether it is
appropriate to the intended use as a *universal orthography*
for all the languages of the real world.  That is analogous
to the idea of an international auxiliary language, or a
more rational spelling of English, and people like Ray Brown
voiced their detest of such efforts, IMHO rightly.  I am
firmly in the camp of those who favour diversity over
uniformity.

On Monday 28 November 2011 19:23:48 Michael Everson wrote:

> On 28 Nov 2011, at 17:19, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> 
> > Also, at least the major IALs are linguistically "uninteresting" as
> > they all follow Standard Average European models.
> 
> Uninteresting to you, maybe.

That's not what I was trying to say.  I have been in the
artlang scene for more than 10 years, and I saw much detest
of "euroclones".  Many artlangers find languages based on
Standard Average European models "uninteresting", that is
my perception; that doesn't mean that SAE artlangs are
*always* uninteresting - hence I put the word in quotes.

Mark Rosenfelder's Verdurian, for instance, is pretty much
SAE; yet, it is excellently and lovingly carried out, and
stands as one of the finest examples of a naturalistic
fictional language.  Its grammar is useful to other
conlangers, not so much as a quarry of ideas (most things
in Verdurian aren't much different from the major European
languages, though some details are original and ingenious)
but as a demonstration of what sort of things are to be
covered in an extensive reference grammar.  It is for this
thoroughness of elaboration that Verdurian is one of my
favourite conlangs.

> > (Not that there is anything bad in a Standard Average European 
> > language,there are indeed excellent treatments of "Europeanness"
> > on the market, but the type has been overdone by naive conlangers
> > who are unaware of the vast diversity of human languages.)
>
> Nevertheless, all auxlangs are not created equal. Volapük, for
> instance, is a lot more interesting than people give it credit for.
> Indeed, I would say that at this stage it has lost any hope of
> being an auxlang, and should be looked at interms of its value as
> a conlang instead. 

Indeed, indeed.  Volapük can be considered out of the race,
but it has its points of interest, and last but not least,
its *historical* significance as being the first popular IAL
in history (there have been many earlier proposals, but none
were nearly as popular as Volapük was in its heyday) will last.
Any history of conlanging should pay appropriate tribute to
this language.

> I'm sure some eyes will roll at this suggestion, but I have
> just spent several days typesetting Ralph Midgley's translation
> "Ventürs jiela Lälid in Stunalän" and I have been very impressed
> at how rich and flexible the language is. A part of the fun is
> working out the etymologies of the roots... but then that rather
> well-disguised European element makes the language easier to learn.

Yes. 

On Monday 28 November 2011 19:51:09 Padraic Brown wrote:

> --- On Mon, 11/28/11, Jörg Rhiemeier <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> [...]
> > Yet, the frequent politicking among auxlangers ("My IAL is
> > better than yours!") puts many artlangers off, for good
> > reasons.
> 
> All points very nicely said. I'm wondering if Peter actually meant a 
> personal dislike, or just a general dislike of attitudes a/o behaviours.

Probably the latter.  Or at least we should assume so,
_in dubio pro reo_.  Many artlangers (including me) do not
know a single auxlanger in person; and allow me to speak for
myself, if I met one, my reaction would not at all be negative!
It is a perfectly legitimate pursuit; only that I have no
serious interest in it.

> > making conlangs just for the fun of it was a waste of resources
> > that would better be dedicated to the IAL cause, but the last
> > thing the IAL movement needs, of course, are more IALs. 
> > There are more than enough already.  The skills the IAL movement
> > needs to succeed are of a different sort, and I doubt that
> > artlangers as a group are especially well equipped to help them.
> 
> An interesting point that. I also happen to be of the opinion that the
> average auxlanger similarly lacks the appropriate skills the movement
> needs at present. You're right: what they need now is not more auxlangs.
> What they need now is compromise-making leadership and promotion of the
> chosen language. They need the skills of lobbyists and educators, they
> need voices that whisper in the ears of powerful people. They need the
> skills of advertisers, lobbyists, consultants and promoters.

Amen.  First of all, they need to settle the competition
between different auxlang proposals!  (Actually, I think that
English has such a huge lead even over Esperanto that the
matter can be considered settled already.)

On Monday 28 November 2011 20:20:57 Mechthild Czapp wrote:

> I do not hate auxlangers, I just hate holy wars. Some auxlangs
> are actually quite pretty and Esperanto was one of my influences
> as rejistanian clearly shows (it even uses the apostrophes which
> Zamenhof considered in early drafts though that is coincidental). 

Yes.  There are very elegant and well-designed auxlangs around.
I personally especially like Novial, but even Esperanto is a
nice and well-crafted conlang.  Some of the minor proposals are
even linguistically ingenious in their own lunatic ways.

--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Êm, a Êm atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Êmel." - SiM 1:1