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Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: New Year's Thoughts
From: Padraic Brown
Message
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: New Year's Thoughts
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Thu Jan 5, 2012 6:26 am ((PST))
--- On Wed, 1/4/12, Jörg Rhiemeier <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wednesday 04 January 2012 19:31:19 Padraic Brown wrote:
>
> > --- On Tue, 1/3/12, Puey McCleary <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> Conlanging has existed for centuries, with
> Lingua Ignota,
> Balaibalan, Utopian and Enochian, to mention just a
> few. The idea
> of the artificial "universal language" appeared in the 17th
> century
> with the polygraphies and philosophical languages.
> The languages
> that would eventually become Quenya and Sindarin were
> started almost a century ago.
I see it like cave painting. That is generally regarded as "art". But if
we follow the logic of "conlanging as art is only 70 or 80 years old
and everything before that was utilitarian", then we might argue that
art itself is only a few decades old. Everything before that was
utilitarian, whether music (Bach didn't write music for the hell of it --
he was paid, and his music served a purpose in church or at court) or cave
painting. They are thought to have had sacred or magical or ritual
functions. Doesn't sound like folks creating art for the simple pleasure
of making art!
At the very least, and leaving aside my own opinion on conlangs as art or
tool for creating art (or perhaps an artistic tool for creating more art??)
conlanging is almost always a pursuit done for its own sake.
> Indeed, the art of conlanging lacks a well-established body
> of criticism. That is only beginning to form.
A question that came up was "do we even need all this formal criticism"?
As I said earlier, it doesn't bother me one way or the other; but I think
that sooner or later *someone* is going to start doing it. Whether we like
it or not and regardless of what we think of that endeavor.
It has now become a very public thing -- not just in movies, but it is
moving into the general consciousness. The recent radio interview was I
think quite astounding, making the hidden art and secret vice into an
activity entirely laid bare for public view.
> And even in the auxlang scene, it is recognized that having
> a body
> of original literature is one of the best ways of raising
> popular interest in the relevant language.
True, though I also think that auxlangs *ought* to strive for a large body
of translated work. The whole point of making an auxlang is to serve as a
bridge between people of different languages and cultures. If you spoke
only German and I English and we both Esperanto, wouldn't it be nice to
be able to discuss Goethe or Wagner in a common langauge? An artlang
doesn't need to have much in the way of translation, mostly because it has
its own culture and its own world that it inhabits. One would expect to
see works from *that world*, not translations from *here*, unless there
were overlap between the two histories.
> > but I
> > don't believe that the conlang in and of itself is the
> objet d' art. The
> > conlang itself is simply the medium which the
> conlanger has created *in
> > which* the artist will now write a masterpiece of
> language art.
>
> Hmm. I think a conlang itself *can* be an objet
> d'art, but one
> that only few people will appreciate, and most of the
> better
> artlangs excel by playing a role in a larger artistic
> edifice
> such as a fantasy novel, and playing that role well.
I think that's probably the most controversial thing I've said of late. I
certainly think that the conlang itself can be artistically made; and I
certainly agree that it can be admired for what it is. But I think there is
also much more to the story.
But *what* is it? I see a conlang much the same as I see a clarinet or a
piano. A piano is basically a box with tuned strings and a means of
actuating the strings. A modern clarinet is a long straight black stick
with harsh bristly metal sticking off. About as unartistic as one can make
a musical instrument! Both are crafted lovingly and with great art and can
certainly be admired as stand-alone works of art. But when you get down to
it, they are really just fancy tools that are used to make other art. In
this case music. That's how I see languages: certainly there is aesthetic
appeal, and as far as conlangs go, there is artistry in their creation.
But it is in what is done with the conlang (or the natural language) where
the art is to be found, in my obviously extreme opinion!
> If Tolkien had not written _The Lord of the Rings_ but instead _A
> Historical
> Grammar of the Eldarin Languages_, his conlangs would be
> better
> described, but certainly almost entirely forgotten.
>
> The audience of conlangs as stand-alone works of art is
> just
> vanishingly small, perhaps a few thousand people
> worldwide.
Indeed!
> > This is why I, at least, hold that conlanging is one
> tool or one activity
> > within a larger armamentarium. What is a language if
> not a means of
> > communication between intelligent beings?
>
> Languages are there
> to be *spoken*.
And pianos are there to be played, no matter how beautiful the casework
is!
> Indeed, Tolkien's legendarium is a gesamtkunstwerk, and
Alright, you've done it now! Using a big meaty German word should be
noted as the official birth of formal conlang criticism! ;)))))
> that is what
> makes it stand out. There aren't just grammar
> sketches and word
> lists (in fact, not much of that sort has come to light so
> far):
> there is a massive novel of about 1,000 pages, a smaller
> (and more
> juvenile) novel, a body of mythology, calendars,
> genealogies,
> stories, scholarly treatises of various matters, drawings,
> maps,
> and other stuff. A whole imagined world! The
> languages are just
> one facet of it, and if all we have were the languages,
> they'd be
> remembered merely as an eccentricity of an Oxford don, if
> at all.
Probably so. They are part of a greater whole.
Regards,
Padraic
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