Talk:Constructed language/Archive 1

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Is 'conlang' Colloquial?

I've never heard this term. Who is it colloquial amongst? 

Mr. Jones 12:35, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Most creators of conlang. Google for it. Jor 20:49, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Could Italian be called a Planned Language?

I don't know whether this is true (so don't call me stupid behind my back or I'll go and have a long session with my psychiatrist ;-) sob, sob, sob), but wasn't the Italian language planned beforehand, by a man named Dante Aglieri? (don't quote me on the spelling)

Not really. Dante wrote his Divine Comedy in the Tuscan dialect, and the book became so popular that over the centuries it defined the evolution of italian. But he never sat down and planned the Italian language. Since then, whenever language reformers have cleaned up Italian, they have turned to Tuscan for inspiration.
The authors of the 1611 authorized translation of the Bible (called the King James Version) had much the same effect on the English language, correct? --Damian Yerrick, who would love to see a sitcom series based on The Divine Comedy

What about Indonesian and Swahili?

A Request for Authors Knowledgable about "Solresol"

From SteveSmith: I added Solresol to the list of languages in Artificial language. I'm not up to doing a separate entry on it -- maybe someone else will -- but here's a good Web reference: http://www.ptialaska.net/~srice/solresol/intro.htm

Should "Cimerian" be in this article?

Can someone who knows about constructed languages please incorporate Cimeran into this article so Cimeran ceases from being an orphan? Kingturtle 23:24 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

No, Cimeran is unverifiable as a language. It should not appear on the list, nor should the thrice deleted article on on it be recreated. Angela


Thoughts on further Categorisation

Hi, I think it would be a good idea to set a policy regarding the list of conlangs that to be on the list, a particular conlang should either have been commercially published or released, or else have a significant following or popularity. This way we don't have a bunch of people putting up conlangs they made at home that no one's ever heard of and don't really deserve an article. Just my thoughts. -Branddobbe

Our policy that says articles must be verifiable should cover it. I've mentioned this inside HTML comments on the article so people editing it to add new ones will see it. Angela. 00:01, Jan 15, 2004 (UTC)
I have to disagree with you here, Angela. Since conlanging is a growing hobby, many people are inventing languages and publishing them to the web, making their languages verifiable (but impermanent). I think the language should either have been created by 1950 (Conlangs by year or be in a published work (book/film/album/game/etc.). Joe Cetina 05:40, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
That doesn't solve the problem of John Q. Conlanger adding his every little conlang to the list, because most of them were made after 1950. -Branddobbe 05:59, Feb 23, 2004 (UTC)
Read "by 1950" as "before 1950" :-) Joe Cetina 22:10, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Oops. I had read it as "after 1950" for some reason. -Branddobbe 04:41, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
What's wrong with including things that are verifiable but impermanent? When such things hit VfD they are rarely deleted. The same problem occurs with micronations; Atlantium, for example, was only invented in 1981 but people voted to keep this because it was verifiable. We don't have policies on how long something needs to have existed, and there is no agreement on whether something needs to be famous to be included (see Wikipedia talk:Fame and importance). Angela. 08:41, Feb 23, 2004 (UTC) [link changed to reflect page move -- Oliver P. 03:59, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)]
I guess it just doesn't seem very encyclopedic to include the hobbies of individuals. There are plenty of sites that link to "every little conlang" and we already link to those sites; I would interpret it as their job to report on those and our job to report on languages with some level of outside interest. Joe Cetina 22:10, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
It seems like we should be able to include noncommercial conlangs if they're significant enough, such Verduarian [1] which is known to probably thousands. -Branddobbe 04:41, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
I was thinking (until i hit this talk) to add the languages listed on [[2]] to the Category:Constructed_languages list, but there seems to be a lot of amateur languages, some of them are interesting, some are english rips. is there any consesus on the policy regarding constructed languages (wich to include), note/sugestions: iam talking about the Category:Constructed_languages that doesnt have any languages listed at the momment, i sugest that all the (artificial) languages be listed but the important/relevant languages in the list could point to articles in wikipedia and the other ones to their respective website. (also the relevant languages could be bold or something) - --Cyprus2k1 10:43, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Addition of Fictional language called Baronh

Hi, I came here from Japanese Wikipedia. I found a lack on the fictional languages list of this page and added it, Baronh. You can find an article about this language in Japanese Wikipedia or http://dadh-baronr.s5.xrea.com/intl/indexroman.html Be force with you & Bile 'ena. 31 Jan 2004, 19:04 +0900 Sidr"yac

Removal of auxlang, artlang, loglang

What's the justification for deleting these words? They're commonly used in the conlang community; deleting them is removing information from the article. -Branddobbe 23:10, Apr 17, 2004 (UTC)

hi Branddobbe.

Wikipedians, and in general computing geeks, are too fervent in their bobbies ["bobbie"?] and shallowness in inventing new terms and throwing jargons. ["to throw a jargon" is a verb, I guess. A new verb, at that. Looks like the author is indulging in a little conlanging himself.] Terms like auxlang, artlang, loglang does [should be "do", shouldn't it?] not serve much purpose [question: What does "much" mean here?] and are more or less the passions of the conlangers themselves. No reputable real professional [odd ordering--and choice--of adjectives] encyclopedia would use them. [This is an opinion.] Nor professional publications on linguistics. [I can point you to some, since I, a linguistics graduate student, am working with a professional linguist on creating a conlang class at UCSD.] They tends ["does" they?] to be just inventions of the conlang communities [once a term is invented, it's invented. Can something "tend" to be invented? And whose invention of these terms would have made them reputable, if not those that deal with them themselves?] and are not good coinage either. [Can't say what it means to "be not good coinage".] Having words like auxlang, artlang, loglang seems to imply that artificial languages are categorically categorized into these groups, which is not true. [Not being a language creator, how would you know?] As one example, historical and respectable AL has many aspects, including political, scientific studies (not logic related)...etc. [That's not an example.]

the [words at the beginning of sentences are capitalized] subject and jargon "conlang" is itself very stupid. [Would one making a "reputable real professional encyclopedia" really say something like this?] With a few exceptions such[,] as [L]oglan, [E]speranto, [B]asic [E]nglish[,] etc, most so[-]called "conlangs" are just [the?] fantasies of [a?] few individuals. [So if one person--or even a small group of people--does something, it's illegitimate?] No respectable linguistics [linguist?] would study it. [I have evidence to the contrary. Read up on Eric Bakovic at UCSD.] "[C]onlang" really should be just called Artificial Languages, as opposed to Natural languages. [Based on your overwhelming evidence, I presume?] Today, i [I'll leave that uncapitalized] like the term "conlang" with the connotation that it refers to trivias these conlang hobbiest communities busy themselves with, while Artifial Language refers to those that had some historical or linguistic significance. (such as Esperanto and its ancestors, Loglan) [How do you know if any of the languages created by "few individuals" will have any historical significance?]

Anyway, i think wikipedia would be a much better encyclopedia if wikidedia [I agree, here: Wikidedia addicts have no place in a Wikipedia!] addicts refrain from immediate reverts of sincere edits. Give it 24 hours. [The previous led you to this statement? Huh.]

Xah P0lyglut 00:17, 2004 Apr 18 (UTC)

Whether they're in use by professional linguists or not, these terms are in widespread use by people who do this as a hobby, so it would be a fallacy to leave them out of the article. You can't remove the terms from the article because you don't think they're good terms. Whether or not you like them, they are used by the people who are the subject of the article. -Branddobbe 06:33, Apr 18, 2004 (UTC)

Just to make it clear, I'm a Wikipedia addict and a computer geek and a conlanger, hi. But I didn't invent those terms; they were years old when I first knew of the field (or hobby), and they're still in wide use, because they serve a purpose. It's of no importance that professional publications don't use them, and even so, Wikipedia is not a professional publication. An open encyclopedia should not include only the words and concepts that are consecrated by ivory-tower "respectable professionals".
As for the apparent implication that "artificial languages are categorically categorized into these groups", it's indeed not true, and that's exactly why definitions are in order.
Yes, many conlangs are just crude inventions (not "fantasies") of a few individuals, but conlanging is rather widespread, and as a phenomenon it deserves attention. And some conlangs are actually very well designed. Even some "respectable linguists" have created conlangs.
You say that conlangs really should be just called Artificial Languages, as opposed to Natural languages, but there are conlangs specifically made to look and feel like natural languages, while others are made especially to avoid their pitfalls, and there are even natural languages that have been in part constructed, so finer distinctions should be made (other than simply reserving "conlang" as a term of derision). In any case, "artificial language" seems adequate for all kinds, regardless of historical significance.

--Pablo-flores 16:18, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

That terms are part of the jargon of a relatively obscure but active group doesn't seem like an argument against their inclusion. Quite the opposite, in fact. If somebody who doesn't know the lingo comes across these terms, they should be able to look them up on Wikipedia. Isn't that partly what the Wikipedia is for?

-- Gwalla 22:43, Apr 18, 2004 (UTC)

Well put, Pablo! Examples of conlangs by linguists include Klingon. P0lyglut seems to think that conlanging is some sort of stupid hobby that doesn't deserve any attention--a joke. I consider your remarks, P0lyglut, rather ridiculous. I myself am a Wikipedian and conlanger, and like computers. Please go to my User page and look at my conlang; I hope you will reconsider your POV that most conlangs are "fantasies". Conlanging gives you hands-on experience with linguistics, and you can learn quite a lot from it. It is my favourite passtime. Trebor1990, 18 April 2004

Hear, hear! In addition to Klingon, the linguist Marketa Zvelebil (well respected in native American linguistic circles, I hear) did work on Vulcan, and J.R.R. Tolkien was a philologist, having studied and written vast amounts on Old English, Old Norse and Greek. Also, I'm a conlanger, with more than twenty grammatical sketches and three fully developed languages to my credit. Conlanging is not (any more) a unique phenomenon, able to be studied only for its obscurity. thefamouseccles 08:16 Apr 23 2004 (UTC)

Was it really necessary to put a link to an article on the Zompist bulletin board in here? There's already an offsite link to Zompist in the External Links section, and the Zompist article looks like a vanity article that is unlikely to grow beyond the stub stage and unlikely to be of interest to anyone who isn't already part of that community. Just my 2 cents. - Gwalla 07:42, May 3, 2004 (UTC)

Ïanà as an artificial Slovak dialect, or Wikipedia hoax?

Is anyone familiar with an artificial writing system called Ïanà, which is supposedly a French-influenced dialect of Slovakian?

While working on the list of Wikipedia:Orphaned Articles, I discovered an orphaned article about Ïanà. I posted questions at Talk:Ïanà and Talk:Slovak language, where there was some suspicion that the article might be a hoax.

Anyone know if this is real or bogus? The artificial languages talk page seems a logical place to ask. Kevyn 09:53, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I suspect this is a nonsense. I am Slovak and have never heard about it, though I am interested in artificial languages. (OK, I know this is not the proof something does not exist - but how can such a thing be proved? There are no useable details in the article, e.g. in which part of Slovakia are those Ïanà-speakers supposed to live.) Language with 3 letters and 30 accent marks seems impossible to me. To claim it to be a dialect of Slovak language is absolutely nonsense, because Slovak language uses similar set of letters as most other languages (see for example: sk.wikipedia.org). Google search for "Ián Ivan" returns no results, search for "Ján Ivan" (which would be the correct name, if the person is Slovak) returns only results leading to contemporary people. Google for the names of the Ïanà books return nothing.
To say it shortly: (1) This article is the only reference to "Ïanà" in the whole Internet, and gives no verifiable details, and (2) it seems very improbably (though... everything is possible). Viliam Búr, 14:33, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC+2)

Now on VfD

Ïanà is now listed on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion Kevyn 22:31, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • Ïanà has been deleted from Wikipedia, as per VfD.

Restructuring proposal

I changed Artificial language to Planned language because the former title is offensive (not NPOV) to many of the people who have taken the time to learn a planned language. --Chuck Smith

Oh, poppycock. "Artificial language" is the normal, commonly used term of art among linguists, and shouldn't be offensive to anyone who speaks plain English. "Artificial" means "created by man", nothing more or less. The very idea that "artificial" things are somehow inherently inferior to "natural" things is a silly idea. --LDC

"Planned language" ("Plansprache", "planlingvo") is definitely the preferred usage in interlinguistics (the study of international auxiliary languages); not beause the practitioners thereof think that "artificial" is bad, but because the unwashed masses are easily swayed to think that. (Artificial food? What horror!) However, it does *not* seem to be the preferred term for non-auxiliary languages, where "constructed language" (conlang) seems to be preferred; I would certainly not recommend changing everything from "artificial" to "planned" all willy-nilly. --Brion VIBBER

I'm inclined to think he is correct about this, and you've given me no reason to think your changes are justified, so I'm going to do some repairs based on that. --LDC

Sounds good to me. I guess I was being a little too literal about "Be bold in editing pages." (that's why I didn't change all of them) I'll work to repair things as well. In most texts about Esperanto I've seen planned language used... but constructed language does sound better. Thanks! --Chuck Smith

Don't let me dissuade you from boldness--you made some changes and gave a reason for them. I didn't like the reason, so I said so. Brion corrected my impression and gave some useful input, so I made some changes based on that and described them. Everything worked just like it's supposed to. :-) --LDC


Planned/Constructed/Artificial Languages

A restructuring proposal and a question:

  • Now, that Artificial language is only a redirect to Constructed language, it seems to me the major reason for a separate Planned language has gone. Also as the three subcategories Logical language, Auxiliary language, and Artistic language got separate articles, I'd suggest moving the respective lists in these articles, with the positive side effect, that Constructed language would look less like a list of lists.
    • Sounds good to me. -- pne
  • Also, what's got into the list (and what's got an own article and what's got deleted) looks rather arbitrary to mee. Another idea would be, to limit all references in this 4 or 5 articles to major Constructed language, for whatever value of major seems fitting. Inclusion in ISO 639 would be a primary candidate.
    • I'd tend to disagree, partly because it's a bit more difficult to determine major with non-auxlang conlangs. -- pne
  • All other references can go into new article Constructed language (minor), which explains the phenomenon of large numbers of these and can give short specific information for some of them, which didn't get their own article.
  • BTW, what are the conlangs based on Slavic and Celtic? I didn't find anything.
    • Slovio is a pan-Slavic auxlang. I don't know of any conlangs based on Celtic roots and grammar, though there are some Romlangs which use Celtic sound changes and phonology (e.g. Brithenig). -- pne 13:18, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Pjacobi 11:23, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Material removed from Lingua franca

This advocacy for conlangs will be of interest in this article, if it is not already adequately covered here.

Constructed languages tend to base their premise of universality on the assumption of a need for extreme simplicity, and the premise that non-native speakers should not be at a disadvantage. Their advocates claim that idiosyncratic elements as presented in ethnic languages are a major obstacle to a functional degree of use in that language. Unfortunately some learning curve still applies to constructed languages; and as such, their use is still rare.
According to advocates of constructed languages, the number of speakers is no measure of the intrinsic value of a constructed language.
If a constructed language (or other language with few speakers) were to be decided upon such as by international agreement to be used as an international auxiliary language, the number of speakers would rise to meet the demand. At present, the demand for speakers of constructed languages is limited, though Esperanto is said to have gained currency as a lingua franca among translators.

--Jerzy(t) 02:55, 2004 Aug 14 (UTC)

List of additional languages

This page contains a list with detailed explanations of several constructed languages, not yet on the Wikipedia article page:

http://www.rickharrison.com/language/index.html

So, how do we decide which "amateur" languages belong in the article? There are tons out there that have no speakers and aren't used in any published works. They also tend to come and go. --Theodore Kloba 20:17, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)
The link above only covers IALs. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but you are right: there are tons out artistic languages out there which deserve mentioning as well. Langmaker.com is an excellent source of information, covering about 1200 or so conlangs, but it does not give much info about the significance of a language (although it is able to produce listings according to vocabulary size, year of creation, language type etc.).
We can safely agree that the fact that certain conlangs that were published in books, movies or computer games is enough for them to deserve a Wiki entry. As far as other conlangs (published on the Internet) are concerned: that depends from case to case. There are a number of insiders who are qualified to judge that. I consider myself one of those, and I know that there are a few others around here too. IJzeren Jan 09:37, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC) (who did most of the conlang part on the Dutch wikipedia).


What stays here, what goes on Artistic language?

It seems like there is some overlap with the Artistic language article, maybe some of it should be removed from here. --Theodore Kloba 16:22, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right. The problem, I think, was that both pages contained a list of examples of the same thing. I have now merged both lists and placed it under Artistic language. I also moved the examples of international auxiliary languages and logical languages to the pages in question. That should do the trick. IJzeren Jan 07:29, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC).

Just Vocabulary and Grammar?

Most conlangers, I think, also design the phonology and morphology of their languages. I'd have edited those into the introductory sentence, but I didn't want to make too long and awkward, and am too lazy ATM to reword it. Anyone agree? --Rschmertz 08:48, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

"Natural language" - an inappropriate term

"...the term language planning refers to prescriptive measures taken regarding a natural language (in this regard, even "natural languages" may be submitted to a certain amount of artificiality, and in the case of regularized grammars, the line is difficult to draw)."

These lines show again the misguiding effect of terms like "natural language" and "artificial language". Of course, being unthinkable without human intellect, to a certain degree every human language can be called "artificial"... as well as "natural" - to a certain degree also spontaneity plays a part in its development. For the sake of scientific clarity "human language" should be used instead. Human languages are all languages applied for human communication, both "ethnic languages" and "planned languages". -- Titbit Titbit 13:34, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

(*) And in fact it is already used, even if "natural language" (coined in the early 19th century when language was seen as an analogue of a biological organism) is still more frequent. -- Titbit 14:12, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

so you suggest "ethnic language" replace "natural language"? that would be idiosyncratic. I do think "natural language" is a meaningful term, but it presupposes a sort of a 'language instinct', of course. natural languages would be languages that are not regularized by conscious planning of a central authority. There are ambiguous cases of course, as in any terminology. dab (ᛏ) 13:57, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. Now I know what's your understandig of "natural language" ... The really problem is that there is a lot of different current meanings. To avoid confusion some linguists (still rather a minority) don't use the word "natural" at all (as far as languages are concerned). They use "human language" for one (but not precisely your) meaning of the traditional but ambiguous term "natural language". This meaning is: a language applied for (normal) human communication (In contrast to (for instance) languages designed for communication between man and computer, computer and computer; formulas in mathematics or chemistry an so on.)
As a subdivision of human languages these authors use the term "ethnic language" (in German language publications "Ethnosprache") and define the meaning approximately as follows: The origination of an ethnic language is connected with the development of an ethnic group (a tribe, a nation ...). In contrast the origin of the development of a planned languaged was a language project... This may sound quite oversimple to some of us, rather unacceptable to others and a discussion of the definitions behind these terms would perhaps end up pretty controversal ... however I´m going to finish here for today. Of course from the viewpoint of tradition such innovations in the linguistic terminology may seem undesirable. Nevertheless I'm convinced, that the advantages of the above mentioned terms are worth of consideration, even if they are not yet generally accepted. Titbit 16:26, 28 July 2005 (UTC)


Wikipedia is to register the way terms are used, not set the example in usage. If terms are used to mean different things (as "natural language", "artificial language", "ethnic language", and "human language" are) then probably Wikipedia should (in the appropriate articles; not necessarily here) discuss the ways those terms are used. It should also note when the same phenomenon is described by a variety of terms and there is no consensus yet about what terms are most appropriate. The article can stand some improvement in this respect, but probably no drastic changes are called for. For instance, maybe it should note that some people use the term "natural languages" in a way that includes all the languages that evolved naturally in speaker communities and also a subset of constructed languages, i.e. those which have proven to be learnable and speakable. It should also note that this is a minority usage and "natural language" is usually in contrast to "artificial language" or "constructed language". --Jim Henry | Talk 17:23, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Conlangs

We're trying to write up a guideline with community concensus about what conlangs should and what conlangs shouldn't be in Wikipedia. Please go to Wikipedia:Conlangs and drop in your 2c! Almafeta 17:04, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Lists of artificial languages

I don't have the time, so... Could someone please gather links to all of the lists of different kinds of artificial languages and add them to the bottom of the Conlangs page? Currently, the article ends with "See also: List of constructed languages", but then that page links to "List of fictional languages", which in turn links to "Languages of Middle-earth" and "Languages in Star Wars". It's a hideous mess. All of these lists need to be gathered together and listed on the same page. If not the bottom of the Conlangs page then their own page. Thank-you. Ravenswood 17:45, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

uh -- why? what's wrong with categorizing the lists? they would just clutter the main article. dab (ᛏ) 20:13, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
They don't have to be on the main article - give them their own page. But the problem is that they're scattered all over and no central point that links to them all. Ravenswood 16:07, July 29, 2005 (UTC)
OK, so what do you reckon the new all-in-one list article should be called? I think List of constructed languages should remain more or less as it is -- a list of the more notable languages in each category, with links to separate longer lists for each category. We can create a new article for the all-in-one list but I'm not sure if it should be List of constructed languages in one page or what. --Jim Henry | Talk 09:25, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Ravenswood. At the moment the languages are scattered over an X number of lists, some of them appearing in more than one lists. A hideous mess indeed, and almost impossible to maintain. Yes, one central List of constructed languages would be the best solution IMO. The article about Auxiliary languages should not contain lists of IALs, only a link to List of constructed languages#Auxiliary languages or somesuch. The List of fictional languages is a bit problematic, since it is not merely a list but also contains descriptions. However, I'm sure we could (and should) fit it in somehow.
Next question: under which conditions does a language qualify for inclusion? Can we state that once a language is not notable enough for an article it is automatically not notable enough for inclusion on the list(s)? --IJzeren Jan 09:51, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

In my opinion we should pay more intention to linguistic terminology. We should'nt ignore the difference between languages and language projects. The use of the term "language" prerequisites some kind of a social base, a number of users applying it over a period of time for a certain range of practical purposes. A language project is the starting point of the evolution of an constructed (or planned) language. I suppose everybody will agree so far, but of course there may arise some dispute on single cases. We can avoid this by naming the list "Constructed languages and language projects". Maybe some of us will not see the point in it, but such details are important if we want to be taken serious by linguists.
A "List of fictional languages" already exists. I prefere not to mix up this languages with others, because of the striking difference in purpose. --Titbit 11:54, 5August 2005 (UTC)

Notability and deletion

After the recent massive attack against a fair number of constructed languages, I started digging in the archives and noticed that VFDs against conlangs happen much more frequently than I thought. Usually they lead to the deletion of the article in question. In most cases this deletion is justified, but I have seen several examples of valuable conlang-related articles that were only deleted because no one knowledgeable was there to defend them. Personally I would have if I had known. But frankly, I don't have the time to skim through the Votes for Deletion pages on a daily base, and putting all conlang-related stuff on my watchlist for just this reason. I can imagine that I'm not the only one...

Anyway, progress is being made. Go have a look at Wikipedia:Conlangs, where a policy is being discussed about establishing objective notability criteria for conlangs. If everything goes alright, it will be voted upon by the end of August. In the meantime, all input is welcome. Once we have defined those criteria, it will be a little less easy for a person to issue a VFD again a conlang just because he doesn't like conlangs.

Secondly, for the reasons I mentioned above I think it would be useful if all conlang-related VFDs would be listed here. That way, anybody who is interested in the field can simply see in his watchlist that something is going on. That is not a way to whip up support for conlangs, only to gather some more people who are interested and knowledgeable in the field, whose input could be valuable.

  • At present: five VFDs against conlangs are still open: Breathanach, Brithenig, Fyksland (incl. Fyksian), Nalona, and Verdurian.
  • Three conlang VFDs were recently concluded and their articles subsequently deleted: Aingeljã, DiLingo, and Lango.
  • An undelete request has been issued for Aingeljã and DiLingo, here.
  • One conlang survived a VFD that belonged to the same series: Wenedyk.

If I have left out something, please do correct.

--IJzeren Jan 07:37, 5 August 2005 (UTC)


VfD update

I seriously consider nominating Breathanach for undeletion, too. The result of the vote was 11D, 9K - not exactly what one would consider "rough consensus", even if one discounts the votes of those with very few edits. --IJzeren Jan 13:20, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Has already been done by Pete.

After the deletion of Breathanach I feared that a similar thing might happen to Fyksland, so I temporarily stored it here (including the Talk page, but unfortunately not including the history). And yes, fifteen minutes later the page was gone. --IJzeren Jan 14:14, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

ok, but can you summarize the proposed criteria of notability? It seems sensible not to allow any old constructed language (possibly constructed in an afternoon, and known to five people?) on Wikipedia. I see this as comparable to bands. Which bands deserve articles? Obviously not your random highschool band. Possibly if they have produced a record available from stores? I don't know, but there certainly are borderline cases. dab (ᛏ) 14:11, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
Of course, I agree that not every conlang is notable. Far from that, and I wouldn't even dare to propose that! Anyway, the subject is currently under discussion on Wikipedia:Conlangs. --IJzeren Jan 14:14, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Altlang / Alternative language / Alternate-historical language

meanwhile, I note there is not even an altlang article. The wiki-friendly way would be to start that, create a section on every altlang you are interested in there, and recreate the Breathanach article once its altlang section becomes long enough to warrant its own article. These issues do not need to be resolved via confrontation on vfd. dab (ᛏ) 14:18, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with that. To put it even stronger: I would oppose the creation of such an article. What good does it do if we create a separate article for every subset of a subset of a subset? IMO the categories are there to serve that purpose, but the articles aren't. In the case of the altlangs: they are being discussed within artistic languages (which in itself is already a subdivision of constructed languages, and that's where they should stay. Of course, that does not preclude or exclude the possibility of having separate articles about a few notable examples of the genre.
FWIW, on the Dutch wikipedia I was the author of almost the entire nl:Kunsttaal article, and I've done my best to avoid its splitting up into smaller articles.:
--IJzeren Jan 07:12, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
I don't get your point. The deleted articles had red altlang links. Are you suggesting these should remain red forever? For all I care, make altlang a redirect to artistic languages, and list Breathanach and friends there, that's beside my point. Read my comment again, I am suggesting you mention these minor languages within a larger article, rather than campaigning for them to get their own article. Now, which is more pointless, an entire article just about Breathanach, or an entire article just about altlangs? dab (ᛏ) 19:03, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
Well, since you mention it, I am not at all in favour of red links that are not supposed to ever becomes articles. Although I'd favour altlang becoming a redirect, I don't think it should be linked to in the articles in question (we rather don't link to redirects, do we?). Besides, I'd much rather use the term "alternative language"; jargon like "conlang", "auxlang", "altlang", "artlang", etc., should remain where it belongs: in conlang circles (redirects are of course OK).
Regarding the Breathanach case: I'm not campaigning for it. To be honest, I think Breathanach is a borderline case when it comes to notability. What I'm campaigning against is the way the vote was concluded: 12d/8k is not exactly what I would call "consensus". I'm merely dissatisfied with the whole procedure (and by the tone certain people use in their treatment of conlangs, but that aside).
All in all, if there comes an article about altlangs, then Breathanach should definitely be included (in a list of "notable altlangs" in the form of one sentence like "Breathanach - created in 1998 by Geoff Eddy, Q-Celtic sound changes applied to Classical Latin". But frankly, such a list could appear as well in the List of constructed languages or in the short discussion of altlangs under Artistic languages.
Regards, IJzeren Jan 21:05, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
I fully agree with your point on the "conlang" / "altlang" lingo. So, altlang will be a redirect, at present to artistic language, and if alternative language ever evolves into an independent article, the redirect should of course lead there. dab (ᛏ) 09:17, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
Agree that we shouldn't have an article titled "altlang", but I think Alternate history language or Alternate-historical language would be better still as titles for such a hypothetical article. --Jim Henry | Talk 16:09, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
it's all on Artistic languages, for the time being. Expand from there as the need arises. dab (ᛏ) 16:14, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks: Conlang

It looks like http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Conlang is moribund. I just discovered it recently and made a few edits before realizing I was the first person to work on it in months. Does anyone else want to work on it as well? --Jim Henry | Talk 22:01, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm one of the previous authors of the conlang wikibook and I'm willing to help finish it off. See my comments there. -- Ingolemo 19:11, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


Voting on conlang policy starts

Voting has started on the conlang notability/verifiablity criteria at Wikipedia:Conlangs/Votes. --Jim Henry | Talk 15:14, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Expand my contributions

I've started articles on Lingua Ignota, Teonaht and Kélen. Would anyone like to expand them?

Pete Bleackley --132.185.132.12 09:59, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Three troublespots

I'd like your attention for three problematic articles:

--IJzeren Jan 08:33, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Kotava

To all conlang experts: would you please take a look at Kotava? To be honest, I'm having serious doubts regarding the notability of this language, but in this case I'm hesitant to issue an AFD against it. Because the article clearly has an advertising character, I've added a POV tag (see Talk page), but I'm not sure what would be better: rewrite and NPOVify it or just delete. --IJzeren Jan 09:51, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Saying that the article has an advertising character is an understatement; it's virtually an ad. :) IMHO after a very swift assessment, it seems well done in principle, though it only differs from a myriad other auxiliary languages by the fact that its website has a nice layout and that it seems to have more than one developer (or at least more than one person understands the language). It comes much, much closer to universal ease of use than the horrible mess that is Esperanto (I can be POV in talk space, no?) but it is not as good as it claims to be (the phonology is still alien and complex for the average speaker of, say, Japanese) and repeats some naive solutions to some unsolvable problems like semantic ambiguity. I wouldn't vote for deletion right now. From the position of "conlang expert" that I've shamelessly appointed myself to, I offer the ones who should decide this one thing to consider: I think I can produce a similar language in a about a week, and I've met many people who could do (and have done) the same just for fun. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 10:52, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. That last thing is undoubtedly true. I can't say I'm very impressed with the language itself, although the presentation on the web is excellent. But this is mostly about notability. I'm having some serious doubts regarding that, although admittedly there is some activitity around the language. That was also the source of my doubts. Plus the fact that within a span of one or two days, Kotava made its entrance into the French and English wikipedia with an article (apparently written by the same person) and into the lists of conlangs of numerous other wikipedias (including the Dutch one, in which I hold myself somewhat responsible for the conlang section). It looks pretty much like a coordinated action to get attention for Kotava, and that's of course not what wikipedia is for. --IJzeren Jan 06:22, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
I think we should AfD it. If there are no English users of it who can at least translate the article into grammatical English, it doesn't belong on the English Wikipedia. (An auxlang only spoken by French people reminds me of the pre-EU period when the Franc was the only currency eligible to be pegged to the Euro, resulting in it being called "a unified currency for France". Maybe Kotava is a unified language for France?) DenisMoskowitz 14:00, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Hehe. Well, see above for the reason why I'm hesitant in this case. Of course, go ahead and AfD it, but I suppose you already know the outcome in advance. That's why I wanted to bring it in here first. BTW, there is also a version in the Spanish wiki (apparently a translation of the same text), which is already up for deletion. --IJzeren Jan 06:22, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
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