DJP criticisms

[Curlyjimsam]

TBH, it triggers my inner rantor when people complain about the "IE-ness" of languages. IE languages cover quite a typological range, some have split ergativity, some are VSO or strict SOV, it's quite likely that PIE or its preceding stage had active alignment...

I'm not sure Dothraki is actually particularly "IE" - arguably it has a lot of generic features that are common in IE but also frequent outside it. (I haven't considered this systematically though.)

[Neon Fox]

My major problem with The Art of Language Invention was its totally misleading title. It's not about how to conlang; it's about how DJP made some specific conlangs, with a bit of other linguistic data thrown in. There's nothing wrong with the information in the book, but it's not what I thought I was paying for, based on the title and summary.

[bbbosborne]

My major problem with The Art of Language Invention was its totally misleading title. It's not about how to conlang; it's about how DJP made some specific conlangs, with a bit of other linguistic data thrown in. There's nothing wrong with the information in the book, but it's not what I thought I was paying for, based on the title and summary.

seriously? shit i was planning to buy it. guess the LCK still wins?

[alice]

guess the LCK still wins?

The LCK always wins. You do not question this.

[mèþru]

Did I join some kind of cult?

[Frislander]

Did I join some kind of cult?

You're on the ZBB why are you surprised?

[mèþru]

Well zompist gets criticised by other forum members all the time, usually with no repercussions. What makes his book an unquestionable authority now? (I know neither of you are being serious)

[masako]

DJP has harnessed the almighty $ while doing something he enjoys. Zomp, too, has added to his bank account by creating things most here would love to be able to match. As far as criticisms...well, I haven't yet seen a conlang pass through this board (or anywhere else on the webs) that hasn't received criticism. As for DJP's book...I didn't buy it, I probably never will. It took me years to convince myself to buy Zomp's book, and I only did so as I was getting serious about Kala.

No one has all the answers, nor is there any ONE way to conlang. Personally, I think that's its strength, that a myriad of people from anywhere in the world can contribute and demonstrate their perspective on what is a intensely engaging mix of science and art.

[Salmoneus]

That said, David's conlangs are far better than Klingon - which is actually a good demonstration how not to create a conlang. It's one of the worst conlangs I have ever seen, worse even than Volapük.

Wow, I disagree on both counts. Too bad Jay Shorten isn't here anymore to defend Volapük. It's kind of a Victorian monstrosity, yes, but that's what gives it its charm, unlike the streamlined but incoherent Esperanto.

Of the major auxlangs of that era, Volapuk is certainly the one that's aged best, precisely because, as you say, it's ridiculous. It's the steampunk of conlanging.* It has abundant character and it's own weird beauty - half auxlang, half art project - that the battleship-grey esperanto and its romance-with-the-edges-filed-off successors were never able to match.

I mean, who are you going to listen to? Some bland "Akademio de Esperanto" and its "Universala Esperanto-Asocio", or the mighty cifal of the KADÄM BEVÜNETIK VOLAPÜKA!?


*damnit, now I feel a desire to make The Steampunk of Conlanging. No!

[mèþru]

Yes, it looks and sounds better to me than bland Esperanto. I really don't like the whole "everything is male unless if specified to not be" thing though.

[Travis B.]

Yes, it looks and sounds better to me than bland Esperanto. I really don't like the whole "everything is male unless if specified to not be" thing though.

Must a conlang reflect modern liberal mores though? The societies my conlangs are created for are highly illiberal premodern ones, with kings, nobles, a limited number of free commoners, and many serfs and slaves, and general ideas about social mores that are thoroughly alien to modern liberal societies.

[missals]

I have Peterson's book, I've read it, and I think it's great. I don't know what people are talking about with saying that it just talks about how he made his languages, and not how to conlang in general. Now, there can probably be some criticisms of how it's laid out or what exactly it addresses, but the great thing about it is that it very, very specifically addresses how to naturalistically, diachronically develop various kinds of features in your conlang. And he actually goes into the guts of it - he gives excellent examples drawn from his own languages. Now it's been far too long since I've read the book Language Construction Kit to say for sure, but I think Peterson's book is stronger on this front than the LCK book. Maybe. (And of course it is necessarily much better than the online LCK.)

As for the quality of Peterson's conlangs beyond their use as didactic tools, I can't really comment, as I've never looked into them too deeply. But I know that Peterson's conlangs-for-hire are essentially a constrained art, since he has discussed on several occasions how the actors must be able to pronounce them and read the orthography, and he also works within various corporate and legal constraints. (He has remarked that if he's representing long vowels with a doubled vowel letter, he can never, never have long /e/ and /o/, because the actors will always read "ee" and "oo" the English way, no matter what, so he always just dipthongizes or otherwise changes long /e/ and /o/ in such cases.) So considering all that, from what I have seen he seems to do very well.

As for his personal views on linguistics, though, well - we all have our pet peeves and theoretical prejudices, but he can get very abrasive about how he thinks language works. Don't even think of saying the "m-word" (morpheme) around him. I find it to be a little much and occasionally rather rude.

[So Haleza Grise]

It's one of the worst conlangs I have ever seen, worse even than Volapük.

I feel here we have to qualify what makes something good or bad. Volapük fails as an IAL because it doesn't meet criteria that we could reasonably set out to be what an IAL should be (Justin Rye's attack on Esperanto does this). But it's rather charming as a language in its own right. I can understand why some people find it interesting. Same with Klingon (and it was also one of the first conlangs I was ever exposed to) - while I think the ad hoc method of its construction is definitely a weakness I do find the end product pretty interesting. And I genuinely respect that it has a (by conlang standards) quite large, committed group of enthusiasts who support it and make it work as a language, rather than just some specific person's artistic project.

[Salmoneus]

It's one of the worst conlangs I have ever seen, worse even than Volapük.

I feel here we have to qualify what makes something good or bad. Volapük fails as an IAL because it doesn't meet criteria that we could reasonably set out to be what an IAL should be (Justin Rye's attack on Esperanto does this). But it's rather charming as a language in its own right. I can understand why some people find it interesting. Same with Klingon (and it was also one of the first conlangs I was ever exposed to) - while I think the ad hoc method of its construction is definitely a weakness I do find the end product pretty interesting. And I genuinely respect that it has a (by conlang standards) quite large, committed group of enthusiasts who support it and make it work as a language, rather than just some specific person's artistic project.

It's also worth pointing out that Volapuk, despite its many detractors, managed to sustain a speaker-base of at least dozens of people for well over a century.

By the standards of English, that's pathetic. By the standards of Esperanto, that's extremely poor. But by the standards of any other conlang, that's astonishing! I don't think any other conlang has been spoken for so long, and very few conlangs have ever been spoken by more people than even Volapuk at its lowest points (probably none but Esperanto have been spoken by more people than Volapuk at its height).

So it must have done something right...

[masako]

So it must have done something right...

Novelty is about all it ever had going for it. Much like technology, someone always comes along with something a bit cooler and more user friendly.

[alice]

*damnit, now I feel a desire to make The Steampunk of Conlanging. No!

Now there's a good collaborative ZBB project. Brass, iron, and wooden noun declensions, anyone?

[mèþru]

A Romanian-based European creole Girl Genius style?

[Travis B.]

A Romanian-based European creole Girl Genius style?

I can definitely see making a creole based on Romanian with Slavic, Hungarian, German, and French (there was a period in which borrowing from French to Romanian was all the rage) elements as well.

[KathTheDragon]

Yes, it looks and sounds better to me than bland Esperanto. I really don't like the whole "everything is male unless if specified to not be" thing though.

Must a conlang reflect modern liberal mores though? The societies my conlangs are created for are highly illiberal premodern ones, with kings, nobles, a limited number of free commoners, and many serfs and slaves, and general ideas about social mores that are thoroughly alien to modern liberal societies.

Nobody said that. Methru just said he doesn't like it, and let's be real, a modern auxlang really should reflect modern liberal mores.

[Travis B.]

Nobody said that. Methru just said he doesn't like it, and let's be real, a modern auxlang really should reflect modern liberal mores.

About auxlangs, one thing that should be remembered is that language features do not in practice make a society more or less liberal; the modern Anglosphere and Germanosphere are more liberal than, say, many places where languages without grammatical gender are spoken despite English having obligatory pronoun gender for humans and optional feminine marking on nouns and German having obligatory masculine versus feminine marking on a large portion of nouns denoting humans.