[Membroj] ideologies of conlangers & the international language movement

[Ralph Dumain]

Hopefully, you'll forgive my ruminations on 
specialized topics, such as my recent post on 
anarchism and Esperanto. I have cause to write in 
English or Esperanto, and I don't want to send my 
English posts to international Esperanto groups, 
so I send my English language interventions here 
or post them on my gxirafo blog. There are 
Esperantists in the DC area interested in this 
stuff, so I don't feel too guilty.

I don't remember how I got onto this, but 
recently stumbling onto various references to the 
quest for an international language in the 
anarchist movement, predating the existence of 
Esperanto and even Volapuk, got to me to 
thinking. In the past, I would begin within the 
history of the Esperanto movement, or in the 
interlinguistics literature generally, and move 
outward to various political and ideological 
tendencies within these enterprises. But I've 
also approached the matter from the opposite 
direction; for example, the history of working 
class education and autodidacticism includes the 
role of Esperanto, and individuals who were 
prominent in both, such as Mark Starr, whom a few 
of you will remember. I think, though, that one 
logically organizes one's material differently 
when one examines, for example,  the role of 
Esperanto and other artificial languages within 
the anarchist movement, and anarchism within the 
Esperanto movement. One could say the same about 
socialism, feminism, science, philosophy, etc. 
I've accumulated pieces of information on most of 
these topics over the decades, but I don't 
believe I ever thought systematically about a 
possible difference between these two approaches.

The philosophical languages of the 17th and 18th 
centuries comprise a world unto itself, about 
which there is an abundant scholarly literature. 
There may still be something left to say about 
this subject matter, but it hasn't been neglected.

Then there is the serious thrust for an 
international language gaining intensity in the 
19th century. This has also been amply documented 
in histories of the international language 
movement. Still, in the English language 
literature I've seen over the decades (and my 
memory may be lapsing), the various ideological 
currents do not stand out for me. Again, looking 
at the interest in international languages among 
anarchists predating the appearance of Esperanto 
got me to thinking about this. The need was 
obviously felt in various quarters of society 
including the scientific community. I remember 
reading, at the same time I learned Esperanto 
four decades ago, about the American 
Philosophical Society's interest in a constructed 
language about the time Esperanto came on the 
scene. Still, I can't recall a more detailed 
picture of what factions of society were interested and to what purpose.

This story continues into the 20th century, and I 
would mark another turning point with the 
beginning or end of World War II. The world 
political and linguistic order that followed 
would mark another distinct period. Constructed 
languages other than Esperanto continued to be 
the objects of creators and hobbyists and the 
handfuls of scholars interested in the subject 
matter. This was the time of Mario Pei and the International Language Review.

Now I would say this is the era of the 
conlangers. I'm not sure when this begins or when 
it can be marked off from what I remember back in 
the 1960s. The Internet has certainly accelerated 
the phenomenon. Also, the realm of science 
fiction and fantasy, which already had people 
interested in this stuff decades ago thanks to 
Tolkein, and more recently, thanks to Star Trek. 
I can't be certain whether one could say there's 
a generational turnover involved, but I'm 
guessing there has occurred a qualitative change 
somewhere along the line. Though I've met 
conlangers, I'm not part of the conlanger 
subculture. My last intersection with it was in 
the late 1980s when I encountered the Lojban 
group in the DC area (headquartered in Vienna, 
VA). And this is when my interest in the 
ideological dimension was piqued. Ostensibly 
Loglan/Lojban was invented to test the 
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, an enterprise I consider 
rather dubious, but I was intrigued by this group 
as an ideological subculture, whose real 
properties lay beneath the surface of its 
rationalism and conscious self-understanding.

I lost track of the Lojbanists just before I, and 
they, entered the Internet world. In more recent 
years I've engaged in documenting the conlanger 
world and interlinguistics online, at least to 
the point of compiling bibliographies or web guides, mainly:

<http://www.autodidactproject.org/guidespo.html>Esperanto 
& Interlinguistics Study Guide / Esperanto-Gvidilo (kun interlingvistiko)

<http://www.autodidactproject.org/bib/lg-univ-bib1.html>Philosophical 
and Universal Languages, 1600-1800, and Related Themes: Selected Bibliography

Early today I uploaded a classic work on the subject:

<http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/guerard1.html>A 
Short History of the International Language 
Movement by Albert Léon Guérard (1922)

. . .  which I salvaged from an obscure corner of 
the Internet. But I'm still not up on the 
conlanger subculture, and my only real interest 
is from a philosophical and sociological viewpoint.

Now enter Arika Okrent's new book, which I mentioned here and blogged about:

<http://gxirafo.blogspot.com/2009/06/in-land-of-invented-languages.html>In 
the Land of Invented Languages

I've still not read it, but I've heard and read 
interviews and book reviews, and I have a general 
idea what's in it. This is a popular book, and it 
seems to have been quite successful in being 
pitched to a mass (relatively speaking) audience. 
Okrent indeed touches on the ideological aspects, 
which are in some cases central to the existence 
of certain conlangs. The most striking example 
that comes to mind is Láadan, a language 
specifically designed to express the nuances of 
the alleged female experience of the world. I 
took a brief look at a Láadan web site, but not 
long enough to gain much of a perspective on it. 
A linguistic subculture such as this is just 
begging for ideological and sociological 
analysis. My memory is not so great, I may be 
wrong, but I have the impression that Okrent does 
not delve into this dimension of the conlang 
world too deeply. It seems to me that this is the 
next place to go, and not just for one conlang, 
but for a broad swath of conlangs and conlang 
hobbyists, and ultimately connecting this up with 
a larger work looking at the ideological contours 
of concern with a universal language in previous eras.


>From: Ralph Dumain <rdumain at autodidactproject.org>
>Sender: ehist at yahoogroups.com
>Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:54:26 -0400
>Subject: [ehist] ideologio & interlingvistiko
>Reply-To: ehist at yahoogroups.com
>
>Mi plejparte ekzamenas interlingvistikon kaj la
>historion de la movado por universala lingvo en
>la lingvoj angla kaj Esperanto. Jen miaj precipaj retgvidiloj:
>
><<http://www.autodidactproject.org/guidespo.html>http://www.autodidactproject.org/guidespo.html>Esperanto 
>
>& Interlinguistics Study Guide / Esperanto-Gvidilo (kun interlingvistiko)
>
><<http://www.autodidactproject.org/bib/lg-univ-bib1.html>http://www.autodidactproject.org/bib/lg-univ-bib1.html>Philosophical 
>
>and Universal Languages, 1600-1800, and Related Themes: Selected Bibliography
>
>Notu ankau, ke mi jxus aldonis cxi tiun klasikan verkon:
>
><<http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/guerard1.html>http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/guerard1.html>A 
>
>Short History of the International Language Movement by Albert Léon Guérard
>
>Cetere, kvankam cxi tiun temon plej interesas
>interlingvistoj, Esperantistoj, kaj hobiistoj
>("conlangers"), estas nova populara libro pri la
>temo kiu gajnas multan atenton en la amaskomunikiloj. Notu mian blogeron:
>
><<http://gxirafo.blogspot.com/2009/06/in-land-of-invented-languages.html>http://gxirafo.blogspot.com/2009/06/in-land-of-invented-languages.html>In 
>
>the Land of Invented Languages
>
>pri libro de Arika Okrent.
>
>Aldone al la tradicie eldonita literaturo,
>ekzistas multe da tia kaj nova materialo
>interrete. Nu, kurioze estas, ke malgrau la
>abundo de materialo pri la lingva dimensio de la
>diversaj artefaritaj lingvoj, sxajne mankas
>alispeca historia analizado. Mi klarigu.
>Kompreneble, estas abunda literaturo pri diversaj
>filozofiaj vidpunktoj pri la konstruado de
>lingvoj. Estas ja studoj de la filozofiaj lingvoj
>de Wilkins, ktp., kaj aktualaj logikaj kaj
>filozofiaj lingvoprojektoj kiaj Logban/Lojban.
>Estas studoj pri la sociologio de la
>Esperanto-movado, kaj ideologiaj facetoj de gxia
>historio, ekz. la laborista movado, marksismo,
>anarkiismo, pacismo, homaranismo, ktp. Gxenerale
>oni agnoskas la utopiisman motivon de artefaritaj
>lingvoj. Mi nebule memoras la verkojn de Drezen
>kaj Spiridovic, kiujn mi devos reviziti. La verko
>de Okrent ja pritraktas ideologiajn facetojn de
>inventitaj lingvoj, ekz. Láadan, lingvo kiu
>lauraporte respegulas la vidpunkton de virinoj.
>
>Tamen, sxajnas al mi ke mankas historia, sistema
>kaj analiza superrigardo de la interago de la
>tiel-nomita planlingva movado kun diversaj aliaj
>filozofiaj, ideologiaj, kaj politikaj tendencoj
>(krom verkoj pri la filozofiaj lingvoj kaj la
>scienca revolucio kaj frumoderna filozofio). Oni
>povus analizi el la starpunktoj de la
>planlingvanoj mem, au el starpunktoj de aliaj
>movadoj kaj interesoj, ekz. anarkiismo, feminismo, filozofio, ktp.
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