sudanglo:The pointless and somewhat lunatic hobby of conlanging, ...

Don't join the CONLANG mailing list at Brown University or the Language Creation Society and say that too loud.

Oh, Sudanglo, you're such a curmudgeon

Conlanging is a creative way to learn about linguistics, from the basics of phonology to pragmatics. It can be an incredibly complex process. It does have its uses, for example, in storytelling (Star Trek and Avatar come to mind), or even cryptography. But you probably want 'real' uses of conlanging, right? How about programming languages? The programs you're running at this very instant are written in a constructed language.

sudanglo:The pointless and somewhat lunatic hobby of conlanging, only serves, in my mind, to confirm that the best way to explain Esperanto is language simplification.

I really think you hit the nail on the head much earlier in this thread, when you noted that learning Esperanto is a way to participate in a linguistic experiment without any real precedent in human history. That's pretty much what I tell people, and although they don't quite get it, they respect it. I just point out that nothing like this has ever been done before, and I want to be a part of it.

sudanglo:the principles of simplification ... Like ... easy phonology

That's not true, Esperanto is very difficult to pronounce properly.

avoidance of idiom...

That's not true too, as speakers just calque idioms, significant word order and grammar features from their languages to Esperanto.

sudanglo:Starting from scratch, all over again, hardly makes any sense if you are serious about getting your language widely adopted.

1) Conlanging doesn't mean IAL Conlanging, it's more generic than that.

2) Well, not trying to get your language adopted at all makes hardly any sense if you are serious about getting your language widely adopted. Probably why those trying to make Esperanto rivals don't adopt Esperanto, sort of defeats the point of trying to rival or beat it. (that whoever is a trap in my opinion, using Esperanto as a goal is a sure fire way to get too caught up in reinventing the wheel)

Sudanglo:The pointless and somewhat lunatic hobby of conlanging, only serves, in my mind, to confirm that the best way to explain Esperanto is language simplification.

Is this serious or joking?

If it is serious then:
1) Does that mean Zamenhoff was a lunatic?
2) Does that mean Esperanto is pointless because it simply reinvented the Volapük wheel?
3) Does that mean living is a lunatic past time since there's "no point" from an objective, uninvolved perspective?

If it's joking, then "lol"

I'll apologise for my cold attitude towards you whenever you say things like this, but it's hard to figure out if you're saying it friendlily or not, and if not then why'd you'd have such a problem with one man's hobby vs another's - god forbid people are allowed to enjoy something!

Ceigered, you should know by now that sudanglo is this forum's resident curmudgeon, and you shouldn't get too upset by it. Sometimes it isn't worth your breath to argue about things in situations where one person is unlikely to convince the other - and both you and sudanglo have very strong opinions on the topic of conlangs, and on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Curmudgeon must be one of those words that in American English has a different meaning to what it has in British English.

The serious point, of course, is that the correct categorization of Esperanto is important for the purposes of persuasive propaganda.

It is just as wrong to present Esperanto as just another conlang (joining the hundreds of others) as it is to present Esperanto as just another minority natural/living language.

ceigered:

razlem:

ceigered:

razlem:Sounds cool, I want to see it when you're done

Actually, I'll show you how it is thus far: spread sheet with basic mutations.

Nifty! Do you have phonological rules set up yet? If it's for a conculture, you could use some cool rarer sounds.

Phonological rules are lying around in my head and on various scrap pieces of paper. Pronunciation is going to be relatively simple despite its pseudo-con-culture-esque nature (there is a related project on that which pretty much gets rid of all consonants, and if I make an older version of this language it'll have a lot more consonant clusters and that slight palatalisation you see in Russian (t'). As it stands it will be slightly less complex than Esperanto in pronunciation (shouldn't be a h nor hx).

I'll get you a private message update later once I've got everything else done that is uni related as to not frustrate the non-conlanger forum readers haha.

I was thinking about conlangs last night and realized another way of putting a bit of twist into a conlang's structure is to use another base number system. Base 12 and base 16 are ones that mathematically inclined people sometimes work and think in.

If you want to give a conlang a bit of a Douglas Adams joke, make the number system base 13. 6 times 9 in base 13 is 42.

sudanglo:Curmudgeon must be one of those words that in American English has a different meaning to what it has in British English.

"An ill-tempered (and frequently old) person full of stubborn ideas or opinions."

Scratch:I was thinking about conlangs last night and realized another way of putting a bit of twist into a conlang's structure is to use another base number system.

I've seen some conlangs like that. I just don't have the patience for another base system

sudanglo:The serious point, of course, is that the correct categorization of Esperanto is important for the purposes of persuasive propaganda.

It is just as wrong to present Esperanto as just another conlang (joining the hundreds of others) as it is to present Esperanto as just another minority natural/living language.

OK, I'll concede to your point here