Hallo conlangers!

On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:24:02 +0100 BPJ wrote:

> On 2012-02-24 16:21, Michael Everson wrote:
> 
> > > On 2012-02-23 21:31, Michael Everson wrote:
> > >
> > > > But the Ardalambion crowd are interested in
> > > > Neo-Quenya, which is a very different thing from the
> > > > study of what Tolkien actually did. That scholarly
> > > > work is ongoing; seehttp://www.eldalamberon.com/
> > >
> > > But which might be an interesting topic in its own right
> > > to an academic studying conlangs as a phenomenon.
> >
> > Perhaps, but it's still not Tolkien's work.
> 
> When did I claim it was? Armin Buch (SHT) was looking for
> literature on the use and practice of non-auxlang conlangs
> in general, and use and practice of conlangs it is, whether
> anybody disapprove of it or not.

Indeed.  Neo-Quenya may not be Tolkien's work nor the same as
"real" Quenya, but at least it is a *conlang*, and it is being
used.  The practitioners are very aware that Neo-Quenya is not
the same as Tolkien's Quenya, hence the prefix "Neo-" on the
name.  Same goes to Neo-Sindarin, Neo-Adûnaic etc.

>       Mind you many, not least in the
> academic linguistic world, many disapprove of conlangs in any
> form as 'not being languages'.  That's only a difference by
> degree from what you are saying.

Many linguistics encyclopdiae include an equivalent of "for
international communication" in the definition of "artificial
language", any those that don't usually do not have an entry
for it at all.  Apparently, auxlangs are controversial, but
artlangs are almost unanimously not considered worthy of
scholarly attention.

> > > BTW one can be interested in Tolkien's languages from
> > > both a paleo- and a neo- angle. And how come reviving a
> > > conlang would be bad, while reviving a natlang would be
> > > good?
> >
> > You can't "revive" Quenya. Or Sindarin. Or Goldogrin. Or
> > Khuzdul. Or the Black Speech. You can make up stuff to
> > fill in the gaps, but the result is never "authentic"
> 
> By the same criteria you can't revive Cornish either,
> because you can never know how authentic a form modelled on
> Welsh or Breton, or on general morphological principles
> would be in the light of what was not recorded.

Actually, there are people who insist that revived Cornish was
not Cornish.

> And what do you think Fr. Schleyer would have thaught of
> Arie de Jong's Volapük!?

He would certainly have rejected it vitriolically.  Schleyer
considered Volapük "his own" language, and rejected not only
reform proposals but even words derived by others from the
"official" root vocabulary.  Of course, this led to the
premature death of Volapük as an auxlang.

> > in Tolkien's terms.
> 
> In the terms by which Tolkien revived Gothic and
> old English?  If 'autenthicness' be the issue he
> shouldn't have done that!

Yet he did.

> The product of a language revival is *never* 'the same
> thing' as the language it seeks to revive, be it
> Cornish, Gothic, Old English, Hebrew or (Neo-)Quenya,
> Novial or myself trying to revive my own conlang Sohlob
> from the remains of media loss and format lock in. And
> where there's many poeple involved there will always be
> that pointless bickering about 'the one true way'. As
> if this were hard science -- and even there you have
> the observer's paradox! Yet all creative endeavor is
> worthwhile in some way at least to those involved in it!
> I may look back at my involvement with auxlangs with
> mixed feelings, but I learned things about language,
> and about people, from it.

I prefer making up my own conlangs over "reviving" other people's
ones, but I see no fault in Neo-Quenya or Neo-Sindarin.  These
people at least use linguistically informed methods and try to
find the solution that fits the spirit of the languages best
(as opposed to the Grey Company who just take everything into
their "Elvish" language what they see fit, even stuff from
Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying handbooks and other sources that
have nothing to do with Tolkien - yet, even that cannot be
considered illegitimate as long as such people don't claim that
it was "Tolkien's language" that they are piecing together).
 
> > But it's making up stuff.
> 
> All creative work is, including what is done in
> departments of comparative linguistics, or by different
> stripes of 'theoretical linguists'. It may still be
> worthwhile, at least to those who pursue it, in ways
> unforseen by them or their detractors, even. (And
> comparative philologists have their detractors, as do
> Chomskyans! In the one case I belong to the detracted,
> and in the other to the detractors, but I let them do
> their thing and all I ask is for them to let me do my
> thing.)

Then you are just like me.

> > And may contradict the actual etymological data
> > (inconsistent as that may be).
> 
> And that differs from the Cornish revival exactly how?
> As you surely know not all enthusiasts go about what they
> do with the same skill, understanding, care or respect
> for their models. Surely you also know that invention
> out of thin air is generally frowned upon in Neo-Eldarin
> circles.

Indeed.  The hodgepodge cobbled together by the Grey Company is
nicknamed "Grelvish" by the Neo-Eldarinists and generally looked
upon with disdain.  From what I have seen, I can only say that
the Neo-Eldarinists are deeply respectful of the Tolkienian canon!

> > I suppose I have no great objection to new works being
> > written in these languages, so long as anything Neo- is
> > labelled as Neo-.
> 
> No argument there. The same goes for Tolkien's
> Neo-Gothic or Neo-Englisc, of for Neo-Cornish or
> Neo-Hebrew, or Neo-Icelandic (compare the 'modern'
> antiquarizing standard language to the written
> Icelandic of the 17th and 18th centuries -- it's highly
> instructive --, yet I'm a great lover and admirer even
> of the 'modern' version of the language. Given the
> calibre of literature written in it its neo-roots don't
> seem to invalidate it in any way!)

Sure.  Languages are there to *use* them, and there is nothing
wrong with using a "dead" language.  The Roman Catholic Church
still produces official documents in Latin (in a style that is
often criticized by classical philologists, but it is still
Latin); many people throughout Europe rediscover dialects and
languages their ancestor once used but that had fallen out of
use as tokens of their regional identity; Esperantists use and
advance a conlang that was crafted more than a century ago;
why, then, should it be illegitimate to write poetry in a Neo-
Eldarin language?

> > Personally, though, I think I would not publish an Alice
> > in Neo-Quenya, because of the honour and respect I hold
> > for Tolkien, whose work, which I read at a formative time
> > in my life, helped to make me the person I am today.
> 
> Tolkien's respect for the Beowulf poet or Cynewulf or
> Wulfila, or the great impact the acquaintance with their
> work had on him, didn't stop him from composing in
> Neo-Gothic and Neo-Anglo-Saxon!

Right.
 
> > To me, a Neo-Quenya Alice would not be authentic.
> 
> Neither are Tolkien's 'Old English' and 'Gothic' poems, then!

What's inauthentic in a Neo-Quenya translation of _Alice_?
Sure, it is a translation and not the original, but this
is not the Qur'an.  Sure, it is Neo-Quenya and not Tolkien's
original Quenya, but what does that mean?  Isn't a translation
of a major work of literature into a conlang an expression of
*respect* towards that conlang?  By translating such a difficult
text into Neo-Quenya you show that this language (which is not
the same as Tolkien's Quenya, but the basic structure is 100%
Quenya) is capable of supporting such elaborate speech art.

> > > That the two crowds don't go well together is because of
> > > personal chemistry issues rather than the two pursuits
> > > being antithetical. It's not like no one can do the
> > > other if anyone does the one.
> >
> > I guess. Ursula Le Guin tells of being asked by various
> > writers and aspiring writers for permission to write
> > stories set in her Ekumen. Her answer was "No, go invent
> > your own universe."
> 
> A sentiment I can sympathize with. If I ever get published
> you'll see that Sohldar is nothing like Arda. No working
> magic for one thing -- unless you count telepathy and
> telekinesis (neither of which I consider proven or disproven)
> as magic.

I also sympathize with LeGuin's sentiment.  Building your own
world is better than using someone else's as a backdrop for
fan fiction.  Yet, fan fiction, if it is written well and
respectful to the spirit of the setting, is certainly not an
illegitimate pursuit.  (In a role-playing group I once was a
member of, we did use Middle-earth as a game setting, and we
did not always do justice to it.)

> The problem with languages is that there is a limit to
> the gratification you can derive from merely
> catalogizing them. Many philologists have felt and
> indulged in the urge to compose 'in the language' of
> their study, including Tolkien!  One Festshrift highly
> valued by my highly conservative professor, and written
> by his likes, had a Latin title printed in Linear B!

Yes, there are several such examples.

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