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bloodyrosemccoyIn The Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, And The Mad Dreamers Who Tried To Build A Perfect Language by Arika Okrent
To understand why I was a little personally disappointed with the book, you have to understand that conlangers, like any other tiny, highly specific subgroup, are bitterly divided. On the one side you have the auxlangers, whose primary goal is to build languages designed to be easy to learn and speak—international auxiliary languages. (For some weird reason, auxlangs often are derived from European linguistic roots.) On the other side, you get the conlangers, whose primary motive for building languages is because why the hell not.*
Basically, auxlangers believe that language is flawed and needs improvement; conlangers believe that language is pretty darn interesting the way it is and, in the way of an artist wanting to emulate and recreate and play with something they like themselves, they decide to build their own.
And though she begins her book with an anecdote on Klingon, Arika Okrent’s In the Land of Invented Languages concentrates mostly on the auxlangers. I enjoyed her outlines of the changing goals of constructed languages and the history thereof, but I was disappointed with the very short chapter dedicated to the just-cuz conlangs of the present day. Sections devoted to John Wilkins’s philosophical language, Esperanto, and the interesting use found for Blissymbolics** tended to eclipse her mention of the languages constructed just for the sake of creative linguistics.
This had an interesting effect, too: her tales of the history of auxlangs rely heavily on both the wacky antics of the creators and to a lesser extent the users, and the overall effect is to make conlangers seem, well, a lot more sane than auxlangers. It’s true all the way through the book, too—the folks who embrace some auxlang less for some political ideal and more for simple appreciation seem consistently less bonkers than the ones yelling that their pet language will revolutionize the mind or the political landscape or something.***
And ultimately, she decides that improving language doesn’t work—she goes through the question of whether something’s a bug or a feature, and often comes down on the “feature” side for something the auxlangers would definitely mark a bug. She notes this is something the conlangers seem to feel, too, but she doesn’t really delve into why—you get only a glimpse of the idea of language appreciation, of the possibilities of anthropological linguistics or messin’ with modes of transmission through her somewhat baffled descriptions of Klingon and the Language Creation Conference. And the thing I was really hoping for—outlines and examinations of conlangs—pretty much didn’t exist.
So I’m not sure what I expected out of this book, but whatever it was this wasn’t it. It was interesting, but I will keep my eye out for other books on conlangs, and hope they’re actually about conlangs themselves.
(Also, she only mentioned Tolkien in passing. That’s like writing a history of the mystery story and only name-checking Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as “influential.”)
*There’s a third category that sort of straddles these two, actually—the engineered languages. They’re languages designed to meet some objective, logical goal or to be some experiment in linguistics. But it seems that depending on the creator’s goals, an engineered language can fall into either the auxlang or conlang category.
Also, bear in mind the conlang community might dispute these categories and nitpick. This is only fair.
**Which was fascinating, both for the interesting niche it found for itself—as a communication tool and stepping-stone into reading for children with cerebral palsy—and for the sheer, utter, unadulterated batshit of its creator.
***This despite the fact that she gives some of the weirder detailes of attending the Klingon Language Conference. Our ASL club at UO got weird enough stares when we’d go out for pizza. Klingons would be spectacular.
To understand why I was a little personally disappointed with the book, you have to understand that conlangers, like any other tiny, highly specific subgroup, are bitterly divided. On the one side you have the auxlangers, whose primary goal is to build languages designed to be easy to learn and speak—international auxiliary languages. (For some weird reason, auxlangs often are derived from European linguistic roots.) On the other side, you get the conlangers, whose primary motive for building languages is because why the hell not.*
Basically, auxlangers believe that language is flawed and needs improvement; conlangers believe that language is pretty darn interesting the way it is and, in the way of an artist wanting to emulate and recreate and play with something they like themselves, they decide to build their own.
And though she begins her book with an anecdote on Klingon, Arika Okrent’s In the Land of Invented Languages concentrates mostly on the auxlangers. I enjoyed her outlines of the changing goals of constructed languages and the history thereof, but I was disappointed with the very short chapter dedicated to the just-cuz conlangs of the present day. Sections devoted to John Wilkins’s philosophical language, Esperanto, and the interesting use found for Blissymbolics** tended to eclipse her mention of the languages constructed just for the sake of creative linguistics.
This had an interesting effect, too: her tales of the history of auxlangs rely heavily on both the wacky antics of the creators and to a lesser extent the users, and the overall effect is to make conlangers seem, well, a lot more sane than auxlangers. It’s true all the way through the book, too—the folks who embrace some auxlang less for some political ideal and more for simple appreciation seem consistently less bonkers than the ones yelling that their pet language will revolutionize the mind or the political landscape or something.***
And ultimately, she decides that improving language doesn’t work—she goes through the question of whether something’s a bug or a feature, and often comes down on the “feature” side for something the auxlangers would definitely mark a bug. She notes this is something the conlangers seem to feel, too, but she doesn’t really delve into why—you get only a glimpse of the idea of language appreciation, of the possibilities of anthropological linguistics or messin’ with modes of transmission through her somewhat baffled descriptions of Klingon and the Language Creation Conference. And the thing I was really hoping for—outlines and examinations of conlangs—pretty much didn’t exist.
So I’m not sure what I expected out of this book, but whatever it was this wasn’t it. It was interesting, but I will keep my eye out for other books on conlangs, and hope they’re actually about conlangs themselves.
(Also, she only mentioned Tolkien in passing. That’s like writing a history of the mystery story and only name-checking Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as “influential.”)
*There’s a third category that sort of straddles these two, actually—the engineered languages. They’re languages designed to meet some objective, logical goal or to be some experiment in linguistics. But it seems that depending on the creator’s goals, an engineered language can fall into either the auxlang or conlang category.
Also, bear in mind the conlang community might dispute these categories and nitpick. This is only fair.
**Which was fascinating, both for the interesting niche it found for itself—as a communication tool and stepping-stone into reading for children with cerebral palsy—and for the sheer, utter, unadulterated batshit of its creator.
***This despite the fact that she gives some of the weirder detailes of attending the Klingon Language Conference. Our ASL club at UO got weird enough stares when we’d go out for pizza. Klingons would be spectacular.
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 12:43 am (UTC)And artlangers probably come off more sane than auxlangers because...they kinda are. Or at least less combative (Zompist BB is probably the most hostile artlanger forum, and it's mainly of the "lol noob" variety). There's a reason auxlang debates were exiled from conlang-l to their own mailing list (though AIUI things have become a lot more congenial on auxlang-l than they used to be). This is probably because nearly all auxlangs are to some extent in competition with each other and with the major international languages of the world, and, lacking the political and economic power behind international natlangs, their main promotional tool is the strength of the auxlanger's own convictions.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 01:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 01:46 am (UTC)I have to make an effort not to get too overanalytical with my own languages--I like fossilized phrases that are no longer grammatical, or weird loan words, or bizarre idioms, but I always feel like I'm cheating when I stick them in. "This doesn't make any sense!" I think, then it occurs to me that a lot of English phrases make even less sense, and I use them with wild abandon. It's a tough balance.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 01:57 am (UTC)...that said, I'm still a little bitter that when I outright asked for commentary on a few specific linguistic choices, what I got was critique of my web design. Ah, internets.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 10:17 am (UTC)Granted, I'm not ALWAYS uncritical of conlangs, usually when the creator can't be buggered to make it cohesive (see: Eragon. Of all the things in that book, what finally drove me away was the "ancient language"). But I'm pretty much willing to allow all sorts of things.
But yeah, when you ask for language critiques, you're looking for critiques on the LANGUAGE, dangit. Internet pissing contests do not count.
As for your comment on natlangs, see icon.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 08:37 pm (UTC)(And, yes, when I asked people what they thought of my grammar, I got one comment about disliking my transcription of the phonology, and three saying that they refused to read anything posted on a website that used tables. Not frames, mind: tables. Feh!)
no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 01:41 am (UTC)I won't argue with you on the other topic, though--we ARE saner. I just think it's hilarious that the ones who make up clicking languages for their magical alternate reality color-changing fluffy tree-octopus people or whatever seem to be MORE sensible than the ones who make languages for humans to use based on natlang roots. I honestly didn't expect that from an outsider's point of view.
My somewhat uncharitable explanation is that we KNOW there's no way they'll ever fly. Auxlangers still try, but honestly I do think it's a pipe dream; language runs too deep to be changed from the top down. It's the same problem prescriptive grammarians run into. You can howl all you want about how people SHOULD be talking, but all it's going to do is cause a lot of conversations grinding to a halt while some pedantic twit insists that there's no such thing as being "sort of unique." It's not just an uphill battle--it's a battle to get back out of a black hole's event horizon.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 09:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-30 09:28 am (UTC)From MQ
Date: 2010-01-30 02:16 pm (UTC)Re: From MQ
Date: 2010-01-30 09:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-12 08:40 am (UTC)