Hallo conlangers!

On 11.02.2016 18:55, Douglas Koller wrote:

> 发件人: Constructed Languages List <[log in to unmask]> 代表 Jörg Rhiemeier <[log in to unmask]>
> 发送时间: 2016年2月11日 23:20
> 收件人: [log in to unmask]
> 主题: Re: Wahat does make a good script? (Was: Conscripting: my questions about Glagolitic)
>
> On 11.02.2016 09:45, R A Brown wrote:
>
>>> But it's left us with a strange usage among some
>>> conlangers who, e.g. claim that Quenya is a_priori (which it
>>> certainly is not in the proper sense of the term) simply
>>> because Tolkien did not base its vocabulary on any existing
>>> natlang.
>> Point is, this usage is established by now, even if the "a priori"
>> languages aren't a priori in the philosophical sense. It's an *idiomatic
>> usage*, damnit, and languages are full of such things!
> Which is where I thought the list, rightfully, had left this. With respect, why are we revisiting it?

It was Ray who brought that up, after someone (I forgot who) talked 
about "a priori" scripts (referring to scripts with freshly-invented 
glyphs, such as what Glagolitic appears to be, as opposed to scripts 
that inherit glyph shapes from other scripts, such as Cyrillic, which is 
little more than expanded Greek). And I think Ray is just nitpicking 
here. As I said, languages are full of idiomatic usages of words 
distinct from what these words mean in some other discipline.

It is not hard to find words that are used differently in different 
fields of knowledge. In what sense are "philosophical" languages such as 
the schemes developed by Dalgarno and Wilkins in the 17th century based 
on philosophy? Only in a *very* specific (and now obsolete!) way. 
"Protolanguage" means one thing in historical linguistics and a 
completely different thing in language origin studies (though the 
popular press, missing that these are two different disciplines, 
sometimes confounds the two, leading to funny misconceptions about 
prehistoric languages). Or from various fora dedicated to discussing 
progressive rock music, I know debates about the difference between 
_progressive rock_ (the genre) and rock music that is in some way 
"progressive" (there are, of course, several ways rock music can be 
"progressive").

Thus, demanding that a word means the same in conlang classification as 
it does in philosophy is meaningless, especially if the philosophical 
meaning *does not even apply* because that would mean that there are 
*no* a priori conlang at all. What use is a class that has no members 
and can never have any members? Conlang classification is not 
philosophy, nor a branch thereof. Why can't we just accept the usage 
that has been established for decades?

It is also to be noted that Couturat's and Leau's classification, which 
established the use of _a priori_ as a classification of IALs, does not 
easily apply to artlangs. Languages such as Klingon or Quenya are of a 
kind that is *not covered* by C&L's classification (why should they? 
They aren't IALs!), but they have in common with a priori IALs that they 
don't draw their vocabulary from specific natlangs, and that's why they 
are classified as _a priori_ in artlang circles. That's a usage 
different from C&L's (who spoke of "first principles"), yet it is one 
established in the artlang community.

--
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