Languages

[zianuray]

The other day someone asserted that languages such as Quenya and Klingon "aren't real languages because they're made up."

I countered with "But all languages are made up -- either by the people who grow up speaking them such as German, English, and Mandarin or by those who think them up, like Esperanto, COBOL, or Klingon."  


Discuss.

Comments

[wren08.livejournal.com]

Hum- I think the difference is that nobody grows up speaking Esperanto daily. But then again, no one grows up speaking Latin any more and I don't think anyone would consider Latin not a 'real' language.

There are organic languages that grow from people communicating and making up words to express new concepts or shades of concepts and then there are constructed languages- for either a story or a new and possibly better way of communicating.

Constructed languages tend to have fewer rules and fewer exceptions to the rules- and often are less complicated than organic languages. This makes them simpler and possibly easier to learn but in my opinion it does not make them not real languages.

[zianuray.livejournal.com]

Actually, some families do use Esperanto as their "first language" -- especially if the couple met at a convention and the is the common language between them. I would say "very few" rather than "nobody" in this case.