[conlang_learners] Thoughts

[Jim Henry]

On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 7:46 AM, Wayne S. Rossi<felianan at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- On Sat, 6/13/09, Eugene Oh <un.doing at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> We probably shouldn't use such
>> subjective criteria in judging the conlangs we have here.
>> "Ugly" and "well-made" differ from
>> person to person, and are potentially insulting.
>> Eugene
>
> I don't entirely agree.  I think that a lot of what will be needed in the project of actually learning a language is going to be having a subjective attraction to it.

There's a difference between using subjective criteria to judge
conlangs -- that's more or less inevitable because objective criteria
are only applicable to engelangs and in some respects to auxlangs, and
even there, the selection of a particular set of objective criteria is
itself subjective -- and expressing the results of one's judgment in a
potentially insulting way.  The latter verges on flaming, which is not
allowed here or on any well-moderated list.

The odds of S.A. MacLagan finding this list, readings its archives,
and being insulted by Olivier's comment are slim, given that he's
apparently dropped off the net some years ago.  And I'd like to avoid
moderating this list with too heavy a hand -- still, let's avoid
describing specific conlangs as ugly *tout court*, whether the creator
of said conlang is a member of this list or not.

-- 
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/