Hallo conlangers!

On 20.06.2016 16:04, Sai wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 2:29 PM, Jörg Rhiemeier <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> [...]
>> I can understand both positions. Myself, I am closer to BPJ, preferring
>> naturalistic conlangs,
> To be clear, I am not dismissing naturalism. Rather, I am questioning
> *phonicism*. There are, for instance, plenty natural signed languages,
> yet barely any con-. This can't be ascribed to only a preference for
> naturalism per se.

I see. Surely, sign languages (and other languages using something else 
than the vocal-auditory channel) are underexplored in conlanging. But as 
Alex has pointed out, we know very little about diachronic development 
in sign languages, as we have no records of any ancient sign languages. 
Nor do we know what way, say, a pasigraphy or a loglang would evolve if 
a community used it over several centuries, since there hasn't been any 
that has been used by a community, let alone for an extended time. It is 
as with alien languages: we have no data.

Also, the vast majority of conlangers are of course hearing people who 
use what you call a "phonic" language in daily life and have learned one 
or two further such languages in school, and know very little about 
non-phonic languages (consider the widespread confusion of sign 
languages and finger spelling!).

> I have a further extension of "natural", i.e. the sense of being
> "natural to the medium". I try to cleave to that for UNLWS. It's not
> the same thing as "precedented in natlangs".

Understood. Yet, such non-standard usage is always prone to 
misunderstandings. Words, you know, always mean what people agree on 
what they mean, and if you use them differently than everyone else, 
nobody will understand you.

> I do try to think of what the output of its diachronic evolution would
> be, but that's necessarily speculative, as I don't add the assumption
> that the evolution would be via phonic L1 speakers (which would
> necessarily corrupt the essence of UNLWS — just as much as if you were
> to assume that all sign language evolution was only via phonic L1
> speakers, the resulting evolved sign language would not be the same as
> a native sign language, and be the worse for it).

Fine. We know nothing about the diachronic development of such 
languages. Sign languages seem to be different from spoken languages in 
that they tend to be more iconic, perhaps because they are 
diachronically young and in a creole-like stage.

>> But if you are more into what could be called "avant-garde" conlanging,
>> things like BPJ's Sohlob are probably not what you are asking for. Most, if
>> not all features of these languages have natlang precedents or
>> near-precedents. Surely, UNLWS is a more adventurous and innovative project
>> than Sohlob. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Sohlob has fewer merits.
>> It is sometimes more challenging to build something in a particular style
>> with constraints specific to that style, than to start from scratch and make
>> something from whole cloth.
> I don't mean to denigrate phonic or naturalistic artlangs at all.

Then I misunderstood you. I am sorry for that.

> I just question the assumption that artlangs, even naturalistic ones,
> are so restricted.
>
> It is no indictment of singer-songwriters to say that there is more to
> art than songs. Songs are great! But so is dance, sculpture, etc.
>
> By analogy, the artlangs we have are almost *only* songs.

This simile doesn't feel very apt to me, but I think I know what you are 
trying to get at. There are many unexplored possibilities in conlanging, 
and you are trying to sail into those blue waters. Fine. Certainly, 
UNLWS and the Gripping Language are among the most original, unusual and 
interesting conlang projects I know of, on a par with such things as 
Fith or AllNoun.

> I think that's very unfortunate at the larger scale — for the
> art/craft of conlanging — that nearly the only non-phonic conlangs are
> engelangs. We have a dearth of entire swaths of possible artlangs.

Sure - take fictional extraterrestrial languages, for instance. Most of 
these languages are either ones that resemble human natlangs, or poor 
caricatures of those. It is the same problem as with the rubber mask 
humanoids one sees in so many science fiction flicks. Of course, we have 
no data; but there are good reasons to assume that extraterrestrial 
intelligences are not necessarily so human-like in their physique - or 
their languages.

I have a science fiction universe with alien intelligences on my back 
burner. Those aliens are not humanoid - nor will be their languages, 
though I don't have many good ideas about them yet.

> (This is hardly an indictment of what exists — I'm an inveterate
> engelanger myself — just an observation that because of the phonic
> assumption, we are missing out on possibilities.)

Yes. There is a vast universe of hypothetical languages to explore 
beyond the trodden paths.

--
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