[conlang_learners] Submission of conlangs

[Brett Williams]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 8:59 PM, Sai Emrys <conlangs at saizai.com> wrote:
>
> I don't think you want to trigger the competition drive; people will
> get disappointed, see it as some sort of referendum on the quality of
> their conlang, get into arguments over what language is 'better', etc.


Well, what I thought of to not trigger people's competitive drive was
a lottery.  We've in fact chosen a competition, and I don't think
people are likely to be fooled into feeling otherwise.  There is such
a thing as a healthy competition, though, and I believe it is possible
that we can foster one.

For instance we should make it perfectly clear that we are only going
to choose a language whose creator or other proponents speak calmly
and respectfully.  We will judge who is most polite, restrained,
welcoming and gentle, because what we are looking for is someone we
can cooperate with and build a healthy happy community around their
language.

I think your fears may be falsely informed by the highlanderesque
auxlang epic.  In this case we're not looking for the best language of
all time, just a language that seems to suit the moment.  People
understand that we're probably going to do this again, so this isn't
their only shot, and that there are a zillion languages to choose from
for this first experiment, so it's hardly an insult to lose.  By
logical necessity either Teonaht or Alurhsa (or much more likely both)
won't be chosen, but it certainly won't be any reflection on their
quality-- they're both masterpieces.

I just hope that anyone who feels inspired to compete for our
attention does so in a productive way, such as by working on lessons
and examples to demonstrate to us that we'd be able to learn their
language.


<3,
mungojelly
aka
brett