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While browsing this question, two of the answers deal about Lojban and Esperanto.

On the answer related to Lojban, there's an upvoted comment which states that Artifical Languages are not to be considered.

I am a bit confused and perplex:

  • For example, I don't know of any writing system that has not been artificially created.
  • I don't know of any Artificial Language that do not convey semantic
  • I don't know of any Artificial Language that does not comply with a grammar etc...

What are the reasons Artificial Languages should not be under the scope of Linguistics ?

EDIT ABOUT MY ABOVE STATEMENT ABOUT WRITTEN SYSTEMS:

The purpose of these images is ONLY to illustrate my statement (I have been asked about it in comments and answer) that writing systems are artificial.

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Stephane Rolland
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    That comment actually says that artificial languages are off-topic for that list (of languages "whose writing is 100% phonemic"), not for this site. – brass tacks May 05 '19 at 09:51
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    I think it is still a valid question! Some people may have the viewpoint that you mention in the title. I think whether "Artificial languages" are counted as part of linguistics depends on the situation, but I don't know enough to write a good answer to your question. The term "linguistics" may include a lot of different approaches: different people have different definitions – brass tacks May 05 '19 at 09:59
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    This should be moved to [meta]. – curiousdannii May 06 '19 at 01:17
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    The question asks "Why are AL not considered part of linguistics", not "Why are AL not considered within the scope of linguistics SE", so the question is about linguistics, not about the site, hence it belongs here and not on Meta. – Natalie Clarius May 06 '19 at 17:12
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    @Lemontree the question says that, but it's clearly reacting to site issues, specifically what is allowed for list-of-languages tagged questions. – curiousdannii May 07 '19 at 21:49
  • @curiousdannii I'm reacting to linguists who do not consider Artificial Languages a valid topic of study. I have added the tag artificial languages (that has never been used yet) to the question (I had put list-of-languages because I didn't think I had sufficient rights to create tags yet). It seems this is the first question to use this tag, which I think illustrates my point. – Stephane Rolland May 08 '19 at 03:24
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    @StephaneRolland Which linguists are those? You haven't given any examples. And the existing tag is "conlang", so I've edited the question :) – curiousdannii May 08 '19 at 03:31
  • @curiousdannii thanks for the edit :-) – Stephane Rolland May 08 '19 at 03:45
  • I don't understand how the tables of script evolution you provided are evidence that writing systems are artificial... There are known examples of scripts that were created in systematic ways and then entered common use (like Hangul), but what you show, as far as I can see, is just that various scripts develop from earlier script through changes in glyph shape (and presumably also what the glyph refer to, often enough, but that's not the point of the tables). It's possible that the "original" script in those tables was created systematically, but it doesn't seem obvious. Can you clarify that? – LjL May 09 '19 at 23:43
  • @LjL For me a hand-drawn drawing is artificial. Also a chosen set of drawing selected for any purpose (here to convey sound and/or meaning) is artificial. For illustration I have edited my answer and I have also added Sumerian, which shows a similar evolution mechanism. That makes: the most remote point in history of these written system were hand-drawn glyphs. They may also have been created by imitation, loan, or evolution, e.g. from religious/magic pratice, oracle, or whatever... But they were artificial and evolved. And continue to evolve. € :-) /!\ . – Stephane Rolland May 10 '19 at 06:56
  • @LjL & % <3 and the success of many emojis on young people makes me think that glyphs (athough artificial) speak well to the human brain. – Stephane Rolland May 10 '19 at 07:06
  • @LjL also, so as I can understand what is striking/strange in my statement, you may define what is a Natural written system, and most importantly what is to be Natural: Is it to convey sounds information or meaning information, or both at the same time? – Stephane Rolland May 10 '19 at 07:28
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    @StephaneRolland indeed, I suspect there is a rather big can of worms to be opened here about what "artificial" and "natural" mean. I tried to use the word "systematic" over "artificial" in my comment: artificial can be defined as anything done by man, so even spoken language would be artificial. What makes a spoken word fundamentally different from a hand-drawn drawing? We don't know exactly how spoken language arose, but maybe the first words were imitations of sounds heard in nature, to refer to those natural things. That would be similar to how glyphs were often just drawing of things. – LjL May 11 '19 at 17:03
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    @StephaneRolland Then, words in spoken language often arose by impromptu combining of other words or distortion of existing words, with or without the individual realizing it, and with or without society realizing there were slow changes to the way they spoke. Likewise, the glyphs slowly drifted from their original shapes for reasons of writing materials, a natural trend towards simplification, and whatnot. I think the way written language evolves is not entirely dissimilar from the way spoken language evolves. – LjL May 11 '19 at 17:05
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    @StephaneRolland Then you can have systematic, organized language creation; and after creation, if it becomes widespread, a conlang can undergo "drifting" evolution like natural languages. The same can happen to written language, and admittedly, it seems to happen more often: few conlangs have become widespread, whereas Hangul is now a common script, and there are more examples, often of existing scripts being systematically modified and reused in a different way for a new language. It does seem scripts are more often "artificial" than languages, but I don't see a fundamental distinction. – LjL May 11 '19 at 17:11
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    @LjL I think you coined it with the Pandora's box in seperating "artificial" and "natural". Your comments are really much appreciated. – Stephane Rolland May 12 '19 at 07:41

2 Answers2

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The question is "What are the reasons Artificial Languages should not be under the scope of Linguistics" (it's not a question about writing systems). As a question about personal opinion it is not suited for SE because it's not a question about fact, but that can be remedied: what reasons can be given that ALs are not within the scope of Linguistics? That is distinct (even if related to) a question about what is on-topic for LSE (such a question belongs on Meta).

The answer derives from a view of what the subject matter of linguistics is. If you define linguistics maximally broadly as being about any kind of communication and systematic transmission of information, then AL's would certainly be in the scope of Linguistics. Linguistics would encompass many disciplines, such as genetics (the grammar of DNA), bee dancing, bird song, maybe even how viruses work. Historically, the science called "linguistics" (Sprachwissenschaft, nyelvészet and so on) has been associated with a narrower set of questions, about human languages (yes, I know that we have not yet defined "language").

The dominant trend in linguistics has been to study those properties of language that occur universally and naturally, without conscious human intervention, and linguistics has been seen as a scientific discipline which asks "what is the nature of that {cognitive faculty/form of behavior}?". This narrows the scope of linguistics, so that the study of articulatory behavior of world-class opera singers is outside the scope of linguistics (Being Martti Talvela is not universally available and naturally available, it requires massive effort and inherent talent). Or, the study of theories of judicial interpretation w.r.t. what the words of a law are said to "mean" is not a part of linguistics. That does not mean that linguistic tools cannot be used in such studies, it means that the product of such research does not address the presumed central question of the science of linguistics. On those grounds, AL's would not qualify as within the scope of linguistics. You can use the tools of linguistics to construct an AL, but ALs don't inform you about the nature of languages (as defined). Of course the discussion changes once an AL is spoken so prevalently that children actually acquire it as their language.

You can disagree with the initial premise and offer an alternative statement of what you think the science of linguistics is about, and that statement could well include AL's, poetry, pheromone transmission and so on. ALs and writing systems are on the margins (both being artificial). The only argument for a particular definition of a pattern of human activity ("a study") is historical precedent. You could say, if you want, that "Linguistics" is a very broad discipline that includes DNA studies, and define the study of the universal naturally occurring human code of proposition-articulation as "nyelvészet". But there is no objective way to establish the "intrinsically correct" name for a specific field of study.

Nardog
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user6726
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    That makes me wonder, at which moment do one can separate animal communication, with gesture, colours modification, cries/screams, which some of them have been proven to convey meaning (aerial danger, terresrial danger for example), or even names (dolphins give a name to their babies at the moment of birth and this water-whistle is kept al life long), the moment when the homo species started using sounds to express more than anger and danger, and the moment where a danger scream quietly became a word decent for a linguistic analysis... Now I see the difficulty in definining the field of study. – Stephane Rolland May 05 '19 at 16:22
  • That is a question... my theory of language assumes a different evolutionary scenario where the evolution of language is driven by developments in volitional movement, i.e. it's neural, not functional. But that's another thread. – user6726 May 05 '19 at 16:36
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    When, or if, any ALs develop a stable user community and start behaving like real languages -- or if any ever look like getting close -- they'll be grist for the linguistic research mill. At the moment, though, there's nothing in Klingon or Lojban that hasn't been put there on purpose, with full documentation, so while many linguists enjoy conlanging, we all know that no conlang is remotely as complex or interesting as any real human language. – jlawler May 05 '19 at 16:36
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    @jlawler Esperanto is a community of millions of speaker if I remember well. I have a vague piece of memory like 5 millions in the world. I have not checked. – Stephane Rolland May 05 '19 at 16:40
  • @StephaneRolland, the issue is whether children learn the language in the natural way that they learn natural languages, but picking it up from their community. This incidentally points to another division in linguistics qua scientific discipline: the scientific study of natural language acquisition by children, versus the practical study of effective ways to instruct adults how to speak a second language well enough. – user6726 May 05 '19 at 16:48
  • @user6726 I have modified the question label to "What reasons could be given for...". Thanks for this suggestion. – Stephane Rolland May 05 '19 at 19:53
  • @user6726 I'm really interested by your neural approach. Could you point me to papers or introductionary articles? In this neural approach, I would also be interested with bridges to animal communication also, namely mamals. (If that rings any bell to you.) – Stephane Rolland May 07 '19 at 10:40
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Speculating about how people could better communicate doesn't seem relevant or useful to linguists, who seek to understand how people do actually communicate. Linguistics is a science, based on evidence collected from observations. That is a quite different activity from that of artificial language fans, who seem to think they already know how real languages work, but who actually know very little (even less than linguists).

Why do you characterize writing systems as artificial? Alphabetic writing approximates the phoneme systems of real languages, and it has been derived from careful observations of human speech over hundreds of years.

It is true that artificial languages conform to created grammars. This does not make artificial languages like natural languages, however. Natural languages do not conform to any grammars that have yet been devised. Much like the case with writing systems, grammars of human construction are but halting and incomplete efforts to describe some facts of human languages we have observed.

Greg Lee
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    could you give any reference for your statement about writing systems being based on phonems ? All the writing systems I know of were originally glyphs that evolved slowly into alphabets or systems of ideograms, or a mix of the two: leading to a mix of loans, imitation and evoluationary stuffs. I may very well be wrong, that's why I would be grateful if you had a reference for your statement. – Stephane Rolland May 05 '19 at 13:52
  • Not the complete image of the origin of Latin ALphabet I have seen once, but this is illustrating my point of view. Notice the drawing of a cow for the origin of the letter A http://antikforever.com/Syrie-Palestine/Phenicien%20Cananeen/Images/canaan08b.gif – Stephane Rolland May 05 '19 at 13:59
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    Wikipedia has a good article on alphabets with remarks on their phonemic status here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet – Greg Lee May 05 '19 at 14:08
  • You don't seem to answer to my statement about the letter A (Aleph, Alpha, at the origin of the word Alphabet) originnally being the drawing of the head of a cow with its horns. Any reason? Because it is literally an example of my statement,. – Stephane Rolland May 05 '19 at 14:48
  • I have edited my question with other examples of what I mean by written systems having origins in glyphs, thus artificial. – Stephane Rolland May 05 '19 at 19:56
  • Well, it's true that some written forms of the Roman alphabet originated as pictures. I don't understand why you think that is important. You really ought to read the Wikipedia article I referred you to. – Greg Lee May 05 '19 at 20:03
  • My statement was NOT that it was important; it was: writing systems were artificial. From artificial glyph origins, they now result from loans/imitations, and evolutionary processes. Re-reading the wikipedia articile, it is clearly stated that : "The names for the Greek letters came from the first two letters of the Phoenician alphabet; aleph, which also meant ox, and bet, which also meant house". You indicate me to read the article without expressing which statement/conclusion you want to illustrate. That confuses me. – Stephane Rolland May 06 '19 at 08:46
  • I'm trying to get you to see that though the letter shapes of an alphabetic system are indeed artificial and due to deliberate human design, I agree, the letter shapes have little to do with the alphabetic system. While the correspondence to the phoneme system of a language (which is not determined by human design) does have a systematic importance. It determines how well the writing system works. You have to get beyond the superficials of "The Story of Our Alphabet". – Greg Lee May 06 '19 at 13:02
  • I don't think that interest on the evolution mechanisms is superficial. "Our Alphabet" as you said and the Chinese writing system, (and the Mayan, and the Egyptian...) share a pictural origin. – Stephane Rolland May 06 '19 at 14:57
  • Not every constructed language "speculates about how people could better communicate". This may apply to philosophical/logical and auxiliary languages, but there is a good deal of constructed languages which have been created just for the joy of experimenting with language, to create something aesthetically pleasing or funny, or for fiction, without any aspiration to make communication "better" or more efficient. – Natalie Clarius May 06 '19 at 17:19
  • @lemontree, I didn't know that. Thanks for the info. – Greg Lee May 06 '19 at 18:10
  • @StephaneRolland- you seem to be missing the point that the glyph pictures were chosen precisely to represent the onset phoneme of the common existing word for that object (any object whose onset was a suitable rebus was possible). – amI May 07 '19 at 06:29
  • @aml I am aware of that. It happens also in Chinese, some radicals are used only for pronuciation reminders. It happens in Egyptian. It happens also in Mayan, but I don't remember the details that makes it more complex, it's more than a syllable alphabet. I don't say that the reality of phonem is not existant, I even think the only proper alphabet would then be IPA (with my limited knowledge, I practice Overtone Singing which explores all vocals and throat sounds that are not described by IPA as far as I know (little though indeed)). I really claimed that writing system were artificial. – Stephane Rolland May 07 '19 at 11:51
  • @GregLee indeed if you remove or change, or adapt the word "arrogance" from your answer, I would upvote your answer. If find this accusation innapropriorate about of Artifical Language creators and/or speakers.. – Stephane Rolland May 07 '19 at 11:56
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    I think "arrogance" was deserved, however, my point remains without it, so in the interest of amity and good will, I've removed it. – Greg Lee May 07 '19 at 12:28