Communities built around non-auxiliary conlangs

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Porphyrogenitos
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Communities built around non-auxiliary conlangs

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

A conlang phenomenon I’d like to see more of: People creating communities dedicated to learning, speaking, and writing in a certain conlang just for the sake of creative expression, and not as part of an effort to propagate an auxlang or (solely) for the sake of more deeply participating in a particular fictional universe.

The languages I see this happening with often sit somewhere between the categories of auxlang, engelang, and naturalistic artlang. It’s not extraordinarily difficult to get a hang of the very basics of these languages - your naturalistic diachronic conlang’s Old-Irish-inspired stem-changing verbal system may be beautiful to a historical linguist, but it’s going to present a pretty imposing barrier to overcome for potential learners. But on the other hand, they’ve got something to offer beyond an auxlang designed to be purely functional - they may have some unique structure that impacts how you express certain ideas, or a highly-productive grammatical feature that offers a lot of interesting possibilities, or something else that gives learners something to discuss and play with.

The prime example of a language like this, I think, is Toki Pona - it’s easy to pronounce, has a simple grammar, and not a ton of roots to remember, but its basic premise allows for endless exploration, and consequently it’s gained a community of users who contrive new ways of expressing ideas with its minimal grammar and invent new methods for representing the language - including multiple logo-syllabic writing systems.

Some other examples of conlangs with communities like this include Sona, Angos, and Talossan (which is also connected to a micronation). The Raumist movement within the Esperantist community seeks to take Esperanto more in this direction, as well.

Anyways, I started thinking about this because of a post by badconlangingideas.tumblr.com about a color-based noun classifier system. I thought, “That sounds potentially plausible, but more than that, that sounds really fun.” If one created a language with features like that - i.e., different enough from English to be engaging, but with a unique twist (a gimmick, even) to make it a vehicle for creative expression - that could potentially attract a decent amount of people.

Does anyone else see an appeal in this sort of thing?
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Lambuzhao
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Re: Communities built around non-auxiliary conlangs

Post by Lambuzhao »

:wat:
I don't think you meant to, but you completely sidestepped the robust communities for Klingon and Tolkien's languages (!?). None of those were meant to be auxlangs, but they have an aesthetic to them that continues to build adepts and attract adherents.
Nachtuil
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Re: Communities built around non-auxiliary conlangs

Post by Nachtuil »

There is also the Na'vi community. I suppose the better question is if you consider conlangs created for creative projects that have small communities to be valid no-auxiliary conlangs.

As for appeal, I think there is definitely an appeal. As ever, it is hard to pull a group of people together for it without some other motivation going on like fandom and or identitification with some philosophy or political position. Any conlang on this board could be used for such a purpose I think.
Porphyrogenitos
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Re: Communities built around non-auxiliary conlangs

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

Lambuzhao wrote::wat:
I don't think you meant to, but you completely sidestepped the robust communities for Klingon and Tolkien's languages (!?). None of those were meant to be auxlangs, but they have an aesthetic to them that continues to build adepts and attract adherents.
I'm certainly aware of them - I didn't specifically address them in my post because, while they're not auxlangs, they have a built-in culture and literary universe that serves as a major draw - they're extremely important conlangs, to be sure, but I find it particularly interesting when a conlang doesn't have that kind of cultural framework built around it, but nonetheless it still attracts users just on the basis of its structural properties.
Nachtuil wrote:There is also the Na'vi community. I suppose the better question is if you consider conlangs created for creative projects that have small communities to be valid no-auxiliary conlangs.
Oh, they definitely are - after all, they're not auxlangs - but as I mentioned above, I think it's in a way even more of an "accomplishment" for a conlang to find users when there isn't a literary universe or fictional culture to help draw people in. Though obviously there's a spectrum - obviously some people will find Tolkien's languages, for example, to be interesting enough to learn on their own, without being as strongly interested in LOTR universe.
Nachtuil wrote:As for appeal, I think there is definitely an appeal. As ever, it is hard to pull a group of people together for it without some other motivation going on like fandom and or identitification with some philosophy or political position. Any conlang on this board could be used for such a purpose I think.
Definitely. Something I've found is that "dead auxlangs" - i.e. auxlangs whose last advocates died out or dropped out decades ago, or even over a century ago - will sometimes attract communities who simply enjoy the language on its own merits. Sona and Solresol are like this. Volapük is an interesting case because it's had a continuous community - though drastically reduced in size - with continuous leadership since the time of Schleyer, but its leaders are (of course) no longer under the impression that Volapük could be a serious contender for an international language. The contemporary Volapük community is kind of like a cross between a hobbyist club, an academic association, and a self-chosen ethnolinguistic group.
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lsd
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Re: Communities built around non-auxiliary conlangs

Post by lsd »

The majority of communities are often made up of conlangers (even putative ones)... This reduces their importance and their impact ...

Except those related to the entertainment industry (including that of Tolkien ...) for which it is a marketting tool (hence the multiplication of Hollywood built languages ...) ...

The exception is Esperanto spoken in most major cities that has managed to formed communities attracted by its international utopia more than by linguistics or by a fandom remotely guided...
Even if by force, the interest of the Esperantists for the other auxiliary languages is evident (up toki pona) whether to confirm their choice or to maintain it ...
It would not fail to Esperanto than to invest in some holywoodian entertainment works to accumulate all tables ...
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