Re: the Maligned Art

I don't really disagree with Sally, but will note that
>somewhat moot in this context, on a listserv taking the
>--More--
>shortened name for "Constructed LANGUAGES."
MY understanding is that the coining of the term "conlang", was intended to
create a new word, with semantics not necessarily that of the source metaphor,
and not merely to form an acronym.  Whether a "conlang" is "constructed" or
whether it is a "language" are separate questions from whether it is a
"conlang".

>I've invented a beach town.  I've mapped out every artificial street, I
>know who lives in what houses.  Am I not going to call it a town simply
>because it lives only on paper?  Shall I not refer to Tsorelai Mundya as a
>city?  Or must I always speak of it as my "invented city"?
>
Context is all-important.  If your writings are limited solely to those who
know what you mean, you have no problem.  But in this world of archived
lists and Web pages that can be and usually are hit upon by accident from
people coming from totally different perspectives, the pressure is high and
will probably get higher not to use language and words in ways that are
highly context dependent.  You can call this a prediction of sorts as to
tyhe future of language so long as the Web and corsslinks between arenas of
knowledge remains a major paradigm of communication.

>Well there you have it, Bob.  People say "my language" or "my city," and
>everybody knows that it's a fictional language or a fictional city.
>On   this   listserv.
True.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273
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