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

[lilfluff.livejournal.com]

Man. These sound like the people who are probably also insisting the English language is in decline because unlike when they were kids (pfft, yeah, right) the kids today are corrupting it with slang and misspellings, verbing nouns, etc., etc., ad nauseum.

Some days I really wish I could refind the post a linguist made about getting calls from people on a book tour asking her for professional advice on how to stop the decline of English. Because she had a great part in it where she talked about finally giving up on trying to convince them change was inevitable and instead going for confusion, "No no no, it's worse than you think. Even the English you grew up with is hopelessly corrupted. We must undo the Great Vowel Shift!" And how rather than admit ignorance of what the Great Vowel Shift was the people would just shut up.