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Re: [lojban] Comparison to Ilaksh?
Robert LeChevalier, On 06/05/2010 15:08:
And Rosta wrote:
* Lojban aimed to be human-speakable and to acquire a speech
community. Ithkuil did not aim to be usable by humans in real-time.
Ilaksh is less phonetically daunting than Ithkuil, but still does not
aim to be usable by humans in real-time.
I guess this is something I'll never understand. To me, if it isn't
usable as a language, then it isn't a language. It might be a
language-related art project, as many artlangs seem to be, but I won't
pretend to understand or appreciate art for its own sake.
To each, their own.
As we know, we disagree about whether being used is criterial for languagehood. You see language as fundamentally a kind of human behaviour, stuff that *happens*, whereas I see language as a tool, and an unused tool is still a tool.
But setting that definitional difference aside, I wonder if you would be similarly baffled by architects designing buildings that are never going to be built, NASA scientists designing spaceships that will forever remain blueprints? The building may be beautiful, and may in its conception and elaboration elevate the spirit, even if it remains unbuilt. The spaceship design may advance science even if it remains a blueprint. Similarly, Ithkuil has both aesthetic and scientific value by virtue simply of its design.
To my own thinking, the actual use of an invented language by a speech community is especially valuable only if the design of the language is an improvement on other (natural or invented) languages' designs. Hence my attraction to the overall Logban project with its goal of creating and bringing into use a viable logical language, and my comparative disdain for the design of Lojban itself and the issue of whether it acquires a speech community. (When I speak of "comparative disdain", I don't disdain the importance Lojban has to others such as you; you have invested enormous effort into the project, and because I wish you well, I wish your endeavours and projects well too.)
--And.
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