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.

On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 11:19 AM, Jörg Rhiemeier <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Hallo conlangers!
>
> On Sunday 27 November 2011 19:05:30 Sam Stutter wrote:
>
> > On 27 Nov 2011, at 17:25, Peter Cyrus wrote:
> > [...]
> > > I understand that artlangers dislike auxlangers, and I can see why Adam
> > > wants to slap a green star on Shwa advocacy.
> >
> > I don't think we dislike auxlangers. Some of them are quite cute :)
>
> Yes.  I don't know any in person, but I have been told several
> times that Esperantists (the largest contingent in the IAL
> movement, but what can be said about them probably also holds
> for most Idists, Novialists, etc.) tend to be quite nice and
> friendly people with a strong community sense.  At any rate,
> people who believe in auxlangs are mostly, that can be assumed,
> people who wish that people from different nations would talk
> more with each other instead of talking about each other or
> raising arms against each other.  At least, that is what IALs
> are made for.
>
> Yet, the frequent politicking among auxlangers ("My IAL is
> better than yours!") puts many artlangers off, for good reasons.
> It annoyed artlangers a lot back in the days of old when it was
> carried out here, before the AUXLANG list was founded to get it
> out of CONLANG.  Also, at least the major IALs are linguistically
> "uninteresting" as they all follow Standard Average European models.
> (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.)
>
> These points are probably the reason why so many artlangers (and
> engelangers) detest and mock at IALs, and this often translates
> into a dislike of auxlangers.  But I think the cause of the IAL
> movement is a legitimate one, even though the problem now seems
> to be closing in on a pragmatic solution that does not involve
> any artificial language.  Zamenhof and most other auxlangers
> did and do pursue a laudable goal, namely the improvement of
> understanding between people from different ethnic background.
> What can be wrong about that?  Also, most of the more successful
> auxlangs aren't really that badly designed, even if they just
> distill the essence of linguistic Europeanness into a coherent
> design; and many of the more impractical suggestions are indeed
> fascinating from a linguistic standpoint!  To speak of myself,
> I do not dislike auxlangs or auxlangers at all, though I am
> more interested in artlangs.
>
> What regards the attitude of auxlangers towards artlangs, I think
> it is mostly disinterest, and few auxlangers actually dislike
> artlangs or artlangers.  Some auxlangers may think that 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.
>
> --
> ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
> http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
> "Bęsel asa Ęm, a Ęm atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Ęmel." - SiM 1:1
>



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