[Foundation-l] Fwd: Tokipona

[Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)]

Gerard,

That line is not intended as an exception, particularly since I've
proven with diff links that it predates the requirement for native
speakers. Other subcommittee members also seem to be generally against
simply exempting constructed languages without an equivalent
requirement to replace it.

The problem is not so much constructed languages in themselves, as it
is the severely unbalanced restrictions between natural and
constructed languages if we use this as an exception.

Many historical languages are still used as second-hand languages by
enthusiasts who invent new words for modern concepts. For example, the
Vatican publishes the "Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis", a complete
lexicon of new Latin words created to cover modern concepts. The terms
invented by the Vatican are presumably considered both valid and
covered by the ISO 639 code for Latin.

There is no real difference between a historical language used by
enthusiasts and a constructed language used by enthusiasts. You argue
that speakers of a historical language must invent words to cover
modern languages, thus making it a new language not covered by the ISO
639 code. However, the same is true for constructed language; for
example, a Wikipedia in Lingua Franca Nova would contain a huge number
of spontaneously invented words, given its relatively small
vocabulary. The Wikipedia might even become the official reference for
Lingua Franca Nova terminology.

It is not fair, as has been argued on Meta, that a language with
thousands of years of history and thousands of modern second-hand
speakers (like Latin) should be disadvantaged compared to a
10-year-old language with 30 second-hand speakers (like Lingua Franca
Nova), simply because the second one happened to be invented in
someone's office or basement.

-- 
Yours cordially,
Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
(No messages by those on the language subcommittee are official.)