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NGL & the Gnoli triangle

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Jack Durst

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Nov 19, 1997, 3:00:00 AM11/19/97
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 20:33:51 GMT+0
From: And Rosta <a.r...@uclan.ac.nospam.uk>
Subject: NGL & the Gnoli triangle

Julian Morrison:
> The function of NGL is: to build a language for normal interpersonal
> communication among L1 users in the 21st century. In the process, to throw out
> all the excess cultural baggage accumulated in the earlier 20th century and
> before, the parts that are no longer relevant. As an example: implied sexism in
> word connotations. Also, to add into and/or otherwise remap the semantic space,
> so as to optimize it for usefulness, relevance, and future-proof-ness.
>
> Thus:
>
> * NGL is not an auxlang: it will be designed for L1 learners/users (who may or
> may not live in different countries).
> * NGL is not an artlang: it is intended to be deployed in RL on multi-milion
> user scale. It has a purpose beyond being a neat hobby.
> * NGL is not a logiclang: it will be built around linguistic universals so as
> to be easy for L1 learners, logical parts will be an add-on module at most.

I think that NGL sounds like a loglang. (I confess I have not
read the NGL thread.) If you look at actual loglangs - e.g. Loglan/
Lojban, Liva, Voksigid, they have design goals over and above
that of expressing logical meaning clearly. They aspire to
"self-segregating morphology", for example.

What seems to characterize loglangs (in the broad sense, including
NGL) is that they have explicit design goals that are sufficiently
objective for it to be possible to estimate how successful the
solution is.

Artlangs have no design goals of that type, and IALs (prototypically)
do not either; rather they have the non-design goal of getting
used as an IAL.

On a slightly different topic, I was trying to describe the
conlang Namyuan recently, so as to write a document on it,
and found that it was positionable within the Gnoli triangle
to an even lesser extent than NGL. Specifically, Namyuan
is a conlang spoken in the real world by anyone who belongs
to the same culture as the originator of Namyuan. (At the
moment, it is spoken only by its originator.) So it's kind
of like a cross between an artlang and an IAL notthat is maximally
culture-specific.

--And


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