Hallo conlangers!

On 31.05.2016 23:05, David Peterson wrote:

>> On May 31, 2016, at 9:23 AM, And Rosta <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> If conlangers really were creating languages, then your characterization of
>> glossopoesy would be right. But I have come to think that Jeffrey Henning's
>> term 'model languages' (which are to languages as model railways are to
>> railways) is apter for what conlangs are. If I build a model cathedral with
>> plasticene, you don't laud me for having built a cathedral (much tho you
>> may laud me for having built a model cathedral).
> This is, of course, an inappropriate analogy, to put it mildly. If you build a model cathedral that’s a few feet high, people will look at you funny if you ask them to walk inside and sit at one of the pews. Even a badly constructed language can be used for communication, if the words are there. There’s nothing that can rescue this analogy: it ought to be permanently abandoned.

Fair. Many conlangs are not sufficiently developed to be actually used - 
but unless the design is flawed (or contains ideas that hinder its 
usability on purpose, such as Fith), such an insufficiently developed 
conlang has the potential of being expanded such that it becomes a 
usable language. Insofar, a conlang cannot be aptly compared to a scale 
model of a building, which will never be usable as a building.

When the conlang turns out to be unusable, this is in most instances a 
fatal flaw (as I said above, conlangs intended for non-human speakers 
with different anatomic and/or mental language facilities are an 
exception), not only if it is an auxlang, but also if it is an artlang. 
A fictional human language that is actually unusable by humans, no 
matter how much it is being further developed, is not only not 
naturalistic, it is certainly a bad conlang!

Now that I think of it, I no longer take a middling position between 
Padraic (who considers use - either actual use or at least potential 
usability - to be a major criterion in conlanging) and And (who sees 
conlangs as scale models for which usability is not an issue), but side 
more or less with Padraic (though I'd rather say that potential 
usability matters more than actual use).

And without wanting to add to the "Espe-rants" in this thread that 
indeed belong not here but on AUXLANG, nobody can deny that Esperanto, 
whatever its weaknesses and whatever has been added to it after 
Zamenhof, is a *language* that functions as a means of communication in 
a wide variation of social situations.

>> My reasons for thinking
>> that conlangs fall short of being languages, or at least never escape being
>> model languages, are these:
>>
>> 1. Every published conlang is a non-working model [or almost every -- see
>> (3)]. No conlang's published documentation is complete enough for the
>> conlang to be usable (as a language, mapping between thought and
>> perceptibilia). Since many conlangs are used, they are of course usable in
>> some sense, but what happens is that the conlang is a sketch of parts of a
>> language, and the users call on their tacit knowledge of natural language
>> to complete the sketch into a working model. The conlanger has created the
>> sketch, not the working model.
> If you take this criterion seriously, you’ll see that all natural languages also fail it, and humanity has, thus far, failed to produce a language of any kind. Assuming, though, that what you meant was languages are real, and since conlangs aren’t, you have to have a book that explains them (natlangs don’t need a book to explain them, since they already exist), and currently no published materials are complete enough to explain any conlang, then all one needs to do is produce such a book. It wouldn’t be challenging; it’d just take time and care. Unless your contention is that there is no possible book that could ever explain a conlang in sufficient detail, in which case I’d counter that the same is true of natural languages, which means that we’d end up coming back to “natlangs are real and conlangs aren’t”.

Surely, even if the conlanger has passed away without leaving behind a 
complete documentation of his conlang, one can study the conlang 
(provided text samples are available) the same way one can study an 
extinct ancient language that has left written records behind: namely by 
analyzing the texts. And dependent on how much text is available to 
analysis, one can distill a partial grammar and dictionary of the 
conlang from it. After all, that is what people do at mailing lists such 
as TolkLang or Elfling, journals such as Vinyar Tengwar or Parma 
Eldalamberon, or web sites such as Ardalambion!

> In reality, though, what you describe above when it comes to users using a conlang is exactly what kids do when it comes to learning a natlang (i.e. take an incomplete model and flesh it out). They make tons of mistakes—most of which are eventually corrected—but some stick around and become a part of their new version of the language. These innovations aren’t taught; they don’t exist in books; they’re not a part of the language—that is, until they become a part of the language.

Yep. And that is why all languages with native speakers change over time.

> The main point is this: If you accept there could be a sufficient written description of a natlang, then there will also be a sufficient written description of a conlang, even if one hasn’t been written yet. I actually don’t think there could be either, as language changes through use, nat or con. I also don’t see an important difference between a natlang and a conlang when it comes to its utility.

Nor do I. Natlangs may be richer due to their longer history (though 
there are conlangs that try to emulate that), but a conlang that is 
being used over a longer time span will accrete more richness over time. 
If there is an apt architectural metaphor for a conlang, it is not a 
scale model of a building, it is a planned city like Brasília, while a 
natlang is a city that has grown over centuries.

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