Hallo conlangers!

On Sunday 27 October 2013 04:35:59 Daniel Bowman wrote:

> It is subjective, of course, but I think it is possible to have a fair
> *impression* of the quality simply on the thoughtfulness of the creator.
> [...] What matters to the
> creator of the conlang?  How deeply have they thought about it, and how is
> it expressed in their language(s)?  How is this reflected in their
> presentation of the grammar, vocabulary, phonology, and writing system?

Yes.  It matters a lot how much thought, and what *quality* of
thought, the author invested in his language.  Yet, there are
brief sketches that may have been put together in a weekend,
and still show more mastership than some languages that were
brought to "completion" and worked on for years.

> For example, I am not fluent in Old Albic,

How could you be?  There is only little of the vocabulary that
has been released to the public so far.  Not even I am fluent in
Old Albic!

>       but I am very interested every
> time Jörg discusses it, because it is clear that he has thought long and
> carefully in its construction - and it is very interesting to see his
> creativity at work.

Thank you for your appreciation.

>      Likewise with John Quijada's Ithkuil.  Other peoples'
> minds are fascinating, and what better way to understand the workings of
> really interesting minds than to learn about the languages that spring from
> them?

Indeed.
 
> On the other hand: We are all of us, to a greater or lesser extent,
> amateurs at this, and it is not right to judge anyone's language harshly,
> even when it does seem simplistic or hastily done.  As a small and
> relatively unknown group, it behoves us to keep open and accepting minds.
> So in the end, I think that we can all agree that judging a conlang is
> difficult and subjective, and that is probably the right attitude for our
> community.

Concurred.  All judgments of the quality of a conlang are
subjective.

On Sunday 27 October 2013 23:13:14 Herman Miller wrote:

> On 10/26/2013 10:57 PM, Padraic Brown wrote:
> > Emil wrote:
> >> Padraic's remarks suggest to me that a language as an artistic product
> >> can be judged independently of real-world considerations.
> > 
> > To a certain extent, I'd certainly agree with that. As a piece of art, a
> > conlang does not háve to be fully functional in order to be a good piece
> > of art. Any more than Dali's pocket watch has to be fully functional in
> > order for Persistence of Memory to be a good piece of art.
> 
> I think to some extent that depends on how you're defining "fully
> functional". Klingon is functional enough for the needs of Star Trek
> writers to write dialogue for Klingons. (Maybe they get Marc Okrand to
> translate all the Klingon lines, I don't know. But in principle they
> have what they need to do it on their own.) Tirelat and Jarda are
> functional enough for me to use in translation relays, but the
> documentation isn't good enough for someone else to translate something
> into one of those languages.

Fine.  A fictional language need not always be brought to
"completion", if that is attainable at all.  It is always just
a *model* of an imaginary linguistic reality, and thus may merely
be a *partial* image of a usable language.  For an example from
my own oeuvre, see Attidian:

http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/attidian.html

A tiny fragment of a conlang, meant to convey the image of an
extinct ancient language from which only one meagre short
inscription is known.

> > [Getting attuned with a language's cultural background]
> > There are people who do this on a regular basis (Foreign Service workers,
> > e.g.), and so I don't think it must necessarily be a one time shot! I
> > think the only draw back to this kind of art experience is that, chances
> > are good, the artwork itself -- the conlang -- is probably not well
> > enough developed for the experiencer to get much out of the experience!
> 
> Well, a background for the conculture is certainly important for many
> conlangs, but I don't think you need that to evaluate the conlang itself
> as a conlang.

A fictional human language *can* be evaluated on its naturalism,
plausibility etc. without taking the concultural background into
account, but I feel that such a background, where it exists, ought
to be taken into account for the full picture, especially as many
fictional languages have vocabulary and idioms that are particular
to the relevant conculture.

> [...]
> > This is certainly a valid (though I think, in some ways, far more
> > sterile) way of going about it. This is like the person who has heard of
> > the Brandenburg Concertos and decides, rather than just buying a CD,
> > goes and takes a masters in classical music and composition in order to
> > appreciate the music from the inside out. To me, this is a more clinical
> > approach: more of a "brain approach" rather than a "heart approach".
> 
> I think you need both, especially with something as complex as a
> language. You miss the details if you don't understand how languages are
> put together. Even if you think of conlangs as a kind of music, just
> sounds strung together, it helps to understand how they work. Conlangers
> need linguistics in the same way that artists need to know anatomy. (Not
> to the extent that physicians need to know anatomy!)

Not all linguistic knowledge is useful in conlanging; much is not.
Yet, some basic knowledge of grammar, language typology and (for
the diachronists among us) historical linguistics is instrumental
in building conlangs.  And of course, conlanging is a great way
to learn how languages work!

> [...]
> > Well, a bridge is really only tested on opening day when you allow
> > zillions of cars and trucks to drive over it. Likewise, a language is
> > only tested when people learn it and use it. For practical purposes,
> > yes, I think it is very unlikely that a conlang will be so tested. But
> > on the other hand, this kind of testing really doesn't tell us anything.
> > It would certainly tell us whether the conlanger did a good job of
> > creating a usable language. Ho-hum. Unless his góal was to produce a
> > usable language, the testing is pointless. It might be marginally
> > interesting to an artistic conlanger to know that he's created something
> > useful; but I think he'd be more interested in learning how others
> > reacted to its artistry. Were they moved by its beauty or turned away by
> > its harshness? Did it add to or take away from their experience of his
> > broader work (a novel, a play, a song)? How did fit into that work, in
> > the perception of the experiencer? I.e., did he hit his mark, or did he
> > shoot himself in the foot?
> 
> Well, it might be useful information if a language passes such a test,
> but if it fails, all you know is that the language isn't suited for the
> users who tried to use it. That doesn't tell you whether the fault is
> with the language, the learners, or the instruction method.

Yes.

On Monday 28 October 2013 08:56:57 R A Brown wrote:

> On 26.10.2013 14:33, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> > Hallo conlangers!
> 
> > On Saturday 26 October 2013 09:12:38 R A Brown wrote:
> [...]
> > be realistic if human beings could not use them.  Of course,
> > languages of fictional non-human beings may have features that
> > would render them unusable for humans (i.e., use of ultrasonic
> > sounds), if the fictional beings can cope with them.
> 
> Yes, I'd remembered that after I sent my email.  It is, e.g., IMO a
> valid criticism of Lin that its phonology is unrealistic or that no
> human could _speak_ a language with its strange syntax.  The language is
> presented as the written representation of one "spoken" by alien beings
> who communicate by telepathy.  Unless one can communicate by telepathy,
> it is rather difficult to evaluate Lin in this regard   ;)

We do not know how telepathy works (if it works at all), much
less how it works among a particular species of aliens.  One
can say that Lin would not work well as a human language
- fine; but the premise is not really that.  Rather, it stands
to be gauged to which extent the concept of the aliens who are
meant to "speak" it makes sense or not - and that is difficult
as we have no data on real extraterrestrial intelligences.

But as I have seen it, the conceit of Lin is so fraught with
bizarre fringe ideas that we can say that it is almost certainly
utter hogwash, and that the notion that Lin actually exists out
there can be rejected on these grounds.
 
> All one can do is to evaluate it on the aim of its author to achieve
> maximum spatial compactness of its written form.  On this it surely
> scores highly.

Fair.  The author claimed that Lin is spatially extremely compact
in written form; and no matter what kind of esoteric mumbo-jumbo
he wove around it, we can say that it is indeed highly compact,
so on *this* count Lin is a success!
 
> [...]
> > Piashi is in my opinion not a complete failure; it was worth
> > trying out, even if the result was disappointing.
> 
> 'Failure', I think, was the wrong word in any case.  The project
> explored the problems; it was more that since I began the thing the
> world has moved on and the aims were already being achieved 'naturally'
> with the de_facto use of English as a global auxlang and the evolution
> of SMS.

Yes.
 
> [...]
> > One could question TAKE on the ground of: "Why should one
> > want to have a language based on ancient Greek but without
> > inflections?  What is to be gained from such a project?"
> 
> What is to be gained by any bogolang?  What is to be gained by applying
> sound changes of Slav languages to Vulgar Latin?  They are all
> experiments.

Sure.

>       But if one does these things as well as one can (and not
> just superficially) much can be learnt.  Surely by discovering that TAKE
> was a darn sight more difficult to achieve than Latino sine Flexione
> teaches us something about the structural differences between ancient
> Greek and Classical Latin, as well as perhaps giving a greater insight
> to differences between fusional and isolating languages.  One could also
> ask why TAKE has achieved a greater degree of isolating than LsF.

These are all valid results on valid questions.  Remember how
we discussed whether TAKE should not only shed the inflections
but also the polytonic accent system of Ancient Greek?  And
after all, the whole thing was set off by a cursory remark of
a list member (I forgot who) who spoke of "Graeca sine flexione",
and as a way to "do it right" after Philip Newton came up with
his GSF, which turned out to sport many features which were not
covered by the equation "Greek - inflections = X".
 
> > But as an experiment, it is just fine.
> 
> And from properly conducted experiments one can learn.

Precisely.  My (seemingly eternally dormant) Quetch project is
also an experiment; even Old Albic can be viewed as an experiment,
as I explore hypotheses about the prehistory of PIE in it.
 
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1