Wikipedia:Conlangs

A conlang is a constructed language.

The purpose of this page is to form a consensus. Since the foundation of Wikipedia, a number of articles (almost 200) about constructed languages have been written, but not everyone agrees on how notable a conlang must be in order to be kept. On one camp, there are people who think all conlang articles should be deleted (although a generous few of them would let us keep an article on Esperanto to merge all conlang articles to); on the other extreme, there are those who think how 'notable' an artlang is should not be criteria for exclusion, as opposed to its 'quality'. We need to set a bar somewhere, or else conlang articles (and conlang VfDs) are going to continue on without rhyme or reason.

The discussion originally ran from July 28 until August 28, 2005, with a vote on proposed criteria beginning August 28. At that point more people got involved, and some objected to the whole procedure. Renewed discussion has been taking place at Wikipedia talk:Conlangs/Straw poll and Conlangs/Alternative proposal since about August 30.

Note: This page is getting too large! If you can, please move comments or sections to subpages (e.g., Conlangs/Only Esperanto, if you think only Esperanto should be mentioned on Wikipedia), with a sentence to describe the subpage's content.

Subpages

 * Conlangs/Why conlangs should be covered Vitally important that the policy covers this aspect.
 * Conlangs/Straw poll (was Conlangs/Votes) - a poll, or vote, or what-have-you, on which criteria are important and relevant. The procedure is being reworked after recent debate got more people involved.
 * Conlangs/Babel Text - Regarding the suitability of the Babel Text as a test of constructed languages.
 * Conlangs/Criteria - for enumerating a set of common criteria.
 * Conlangs/Differential - for enumerating a set of differential criteria. (Wikipedia talk:Conlangs/Differential for discussions)
 * Conlangs/Notability, verifiability, merit, completeness - for discussion on what constitutes those qualities, whether and to what extent they are required for inclusion in Wikipedia; including discussion on corpus size and lexicon size
 * Conlangs/Artlangs, ficlangs, and loglangs &mdash; specific criteria suitable for those kinds of conlang
 * Conlangs/Sai's two cents on what verifiability means for conlang articles
 * Conlangs/Suggestions by Thomas Winwood on lexicon size, peer review panel, required translation
 * Conlangs/Notability by Proxy ( was Conlangs/Tolkien) - Discussing whether or not languages created by J. R. R. Tolkien or another notable person are automatically notable.
 * Conlangs/Relays - Does use of a conlang in several translation relays make it notable or verifiable?
 * Conlangs/Old straw poll - The text of the previous poll/vote that after being deleted by a moderator was closed and rediscussed again (including the votes that already been issued).
 * Conlangs/Alternative proposal - Some comments on the previous questionnaire by IJzeren Jan and a proposal for an alternative.
 * Conlangs/Towards consensus instead of polls - a new proposal that avoids voting to the very last (and probably even then). By Carlos Th (talk).


 * Conlangs/Votes - This is where we are structuring the voting page, to get it ready for the vote on the 28th. Almafeta 13:12, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


 * This page was suddenly deleted by User:Kim Bruning. I have entered a nomination on Votes for undeletion to get it undeleted. --Jim Henry | Talk 20:16, 29 August 2005 (UTC)


 * The page was undeleted, however several people insist we can't call it a "vote". We can continue the discussion about procedure and terminology (vote or poll?) on the talk page. --Jim Henry | Talk 22:51, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Pete Bleackley
Most of the criteria you propose are applicable only to Auxlangs. Actual use, by anyone other than a fictional character, is irrelevant for artlangs. Personally, I would say that Kélen and Wenedyk, (both of which I've had the pleasure to translate) are finer examples of the art than Klingon. However, your criteria would include Klingon because some people have learnt to speak it, even though this is more due to the fact that it's part of the Star Trek cult than its inherent artistic merit, and exclude (what I consider to be) better conlangs whose creators are happy for their language's speakers to remain fictional.

Pete Bleackley


 * This conlang criteria won't let any conlangs through. All it will allow on Wikipedia will be auxlangs. Hence why I disagree that they should be used. Cctoide 11:38, 28 July 2005 (UTC)


 * It's worth noting that some conlangs have Private Use segments carved out for their invented scripts (see the [Unicode ConScript Registry]). Should this factor into these criteria? ThomasWinwood 11:57, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't think so - the ConScript Registry is not any sort of official registry, it's just two people (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) and whatever gets submitted to them. Every single one of Herman Miller's languages is in there, for instance, and I don't think all of those are notable. DenisMoskowitz 15:23, 2005 July 29 (UTC)

IJzeren Jan: My point of view

 * I'm going to add my comments in italics. Almafeta 13:19, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the current conditions are a little auxlang-oriented. But I am glad that Almafeta is at least trying to establish some objective criteria. Currently everybody can just shout "notable" or "non-notable" at will, and therefore I genuinely think we nééd those criteria badly.
 * Agreed! Right now, conlang articles and conlang VfDs are going around without rhyme or reason.

A few remarks:

Number of speakers : like the others said, this can apply only to languages that were designed with the purpose of being spoken. In other words, IALs. True, there are some artistic languages that have some speakers, too. But IMO the number of Klingon speakers says as much about the importance of Klingon as the number of sold Star Trek T-shirts about the importance of Star Trek. Nobody can of course be sure, but a huge number of those people have learnt the language nót because they think it is important, or because they want to communicate in it, but because they are Star Trek fans. Another thing is that the "number of speakers" is terribly hard to establish: where do you get the info, and how well must a person speak the language for being qualified as a "speaker"?
 * Not necessarially. Conlangs like Verdurian, Mango, and Talossan were created with one person in mind:  the creator.  Good conlangs attract speakers like good games attract players, even if they were designed with 'one person' in mind.
 * Also, Klingon is notable for other reasons. Heck, how many other conlangs have translations of the Bible and Hamlet?
 * Sorry, but I have to disagree with that. That's like judging a good poem by the number of times it has been recited in public. Some conlangers (including myself, I should add) simply don't WANT their languages to be actually used by other people. For measuring an auxlang, the number of speakers/users is valid; but in the case of artlangs, the equivalent would rather be the number of people who have "consumed" it, and who appreciate it. IJzeren Jan


 * How do you measure the consumption of an artlang? A poem's notability could be judged by its publication, sales of the work in which it was published, its inclusion in anthologies, the existance of critical analysis... what criteria can be used to establish the notability of a language that is not intended to be spoken? -Satori 23:32, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Books with ISBN numbers : that's an dangerous one. There has been a period when the world was rather susceptible to the idea of a world language. All kinds of authors started building something Esperanto-like and could easily find a publisher to publish there ideas. Nowadays, I think such a thing is virtually impossible, especially when the subject is not an IAL but an artlang. Why would a publisher publish such a think if he knows in advance that he won't sell a huge number of copies? Even Tolkien couldn't manage such a thing; only now books are written about his conlangs. Furthermore, nowadays we have the Internet. Why bother going through hell by looking for a publishing house if you can easily self-publish your stuff in that way. Guaranteed no income, but conlanging is no way to become rich anyway.
 * Nowadays, with places like Lulu.com, I would argue that it's easier to get published than back then. Lulu.com carries the heady cost of $150 to get a book with an ISBN, which is a pittance; however, the work required in your language prevents most incomplete.
 * There should be a standard for the amount of internet text which would qualify as a book (such as Aingeljã's amazing grammar-in-Aingeljã). I would say 128 printed pages.


 * I would argue for leaving out the ISBN criteria entirely. Having an ISBN is no proof that a book is not from a vanity press (nearly all vanity presses supply ISBNs nowadays), and lack of an ISBN is no proof that it is vanity-press -- there may be a number of conlang-related books published between your 1950 cut-off date for "older than usual" and the time when ISBNs were universally adopted by professional publishing houses (mid-1970s, I think).  As for minimum length, see below where I propose a minimum corpus size as one of the minor criteria. --Jim Henry | Talk 22:05, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Older than usual : I can live with that. Although, see my comments to the previous point.
 * My two reaons for this criteria is so that (1) we can include the Langua Ignota, which otherwise wouldn't be notable despite being the first known conlang, and (2) so we can have a proper review on the auxlang surge of the late 1800s and pre-WWII 1900s, without an integral article being deleted every few weeks by some anti-conlang troll.
 * Fair enough, IJzeren Jan

Langmaker Top 100 : perhaps Jeffrey Henning, the Big Boss of Langmaker, can tell us in how far this would be a reliable criterion. I'm not asking him to disclose the algorithms he uses, but I would like to know how useful in his opinion the result is; how easily one could manipulate the outcome; and in how far the outcome is influenced by people who might be looking for something completely different (I noticed for example that languages like "Gothic", "New English" and my own "Hattic" always score well, and I suspect that it because their names attract a lot of googlers). If you are reading this, Jeffrey, tell us this: if someone would, purely theorically, have a conlang called "Vagina". Would it become part of the Top-10, and if so, how quickly?

Mistaken for a real language : By whom? When? Where? I have a website about Hattic, a naturalistic conlang with an entire quasi-history; it is never mentioned that the whole thing is fictional, and indeed I have stumbled upon people who thought the whole thing was real. But that is merely the result of how a language is presented, not how significant it is.
 * Some conlangs have been confused for real languages by governments or universities. (There was a big bruhaha when a professor 'discovered' a 'lost' Romance tongue, when it turned out to be just some Euroclone.)

Caused controversy : Frankly, I think the whole current set of VfDs regarding Brithenig, Verdurian, Wenedyk and others can be considered controversy too, isn't it?
 * I mean outside of Wikipedia. 'Causing controversy' is a general rule for inclusion in any article, but 

ISO code : I don't really know the mechanisms behind ISO 639-3. But I have seen the list of conlangs listed there, and my impression is that someone just picked a few conlangs from the Internet during a spare few minutes. The list hasn't changed at all since a number of years, and I also noticed that the list contains both Ceqli and Tceqli, which as far as I know is exactly the same language (or perhaps the same language in two different stages of its development).

Wikipedia : Question is: how does a language get a Wikipedia? Again, it seems to me that the number of users is decisive here. And even then, the whole thing seems to be rather prone to politicising (see the story of the Toki Pona wikipedia).
 * Languages get Wikipedias by (1) having a large number of active speakers and (2) not annoying Jimbo Wales (see Toki Pona for a case in point, as you said).

My point of view : I think the most of the conditions Almafeta mentions can indeed contribute to a language's notability. But I can't accept that a language that does not fulfill them is therefore to be considered non-notable. Note for example that a language like Parseltongue wouldn't survive these points either, and undoubtedly many more languages wouldn't. What I miss is therefore some criteria that might apply specifically to conlangs of the artistic genre, like:
 * Has this language influenced others?
 * Good one... perhaps it would count as a major qualification if it influnced a language that was made notable with a major qualification, and a minor qualification if it counted as a language that was made notable with a minor qualification?
 * And what if two languages influenced each other? :))) IJzeren Jan


 * How complete is the language? (Frankly, this could disqualify most of the so-called "professional" languages)
 * Unfortunately, this is a bad one to note -- it's easy to use Langmake or some other wordlist program to transform Latin or Esperanto.
 * True. But it does help to exclude 98% of all conlangs, which are really little more than sketches. IJzeren Jan


 * What is the consensus of the conlang community about this particular language?
 * How could we even measure this one?
 * Difficult. Yet, it is a very important thing! This was just one way to say: ... and all conlangs that do not fit the criteria but can be considered notable for other reasons.


 * Does this language play a role in a broader work of fiction, like movies, books of fiction, games or Internet-based projects (in other words, not only in books with an ISBN number about or in the language itself)?
 * Good idea, but mergists ("maximum topics in minimal articlecount and damn the readibility!") would merge all the conlangs into their parent topics.
 * If the mergists are looking out for work, let them start with merging all Star Trek or Tintin personnages... IJzeren Jan


 * Has the language received any particular attention, for example in the media or the press?
 * Counts as 'causing controversy.'
 * Not necessarily in the form of a controversy, though. IJzeren Jan


 * Can the language be considered the exponent of a particular genre?
 * Again, how would we measure this?
 * By asking those who are knowledgeable. I know, it's not very objective or measurable, but most often it is how it works, though. IJzeren Jan

Food for thought, I would say!

--IJzeren Jan 12:53, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Nummy! :)  Thank you for raising some of those points -- I was wondering what you had against some particular criteria.  Almafeta 13:19, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Cctoide's opinions
''I shall comment Almafeta's proposition in italics, adapting it to a particular case, Verdurian. Cctoide 15:38, 28 July 2005 (UTC)''

Minor Conditions
If at least two of these minor conditions can be met, a conlang is notable:


 * Has at least 50 speakers. Few constructed languages get to this mark; this would put it in the top 2% of conlangs.
 * The number of speakers will always be a problem. Number of speakers, like IJzeren mentioned, is not a true meter of a conlang's notability, since someone could have developed his conlang over a lifetime, had a lot of people know it, yet noone might have tried to learn it, either because it is too complicated, or it is beautiful in paper, but not so beautiful one would be inclined to learn it. In the case of Verdurian, even though Mark Rosenfelder developed it over a large span of time, there aren't many speakers. This, however, doesn't mean it isn't a big name in the online conlang scene, because it is.


 * A book with an ISBN has been published about the language. That prevents many small-press and unsupported languages (other than those who think it's a good idea) from having articles.
 * Many conlangers dream of having a book published either about or written in their conlang. However, usually this is done via vanity publishers since such kind of books are usually not profitable. Mark has no books (with an ISBN) published, although he has several stories in Cuêzi waiting for a chance to be published.


 * A book with an ISBN has been published in the language about a topic other than the language itself. That shows that it's used.
 * Maybe, but there's no real reason to write a book in a conlang that's not an auxlang, since conlangs are ever-changing, and never finished.


 * Older than usual. According to Langmaker.com, 1950 (post-WWII) was when the personal constructed language really exploded; there are only 78 known conlangs before then, and those should be considered notable for predating the 'conlang explosion.'
 * Older doesn't always mean better. In the past, most people had no Internet, and hence could not know of other linguistic ways to do things. This doesn't mean that a conlang isn't good. Sindarin, for example, was mainly an Euroclone, due to Tolkien's not knowing about other languages, but it nevertheless beautiful and interesting.


 * Among the 100 most popular conlangs, as determined in Langmaker.com.
 * Langmaker's profiles are questionable. Langmaker (at least in my experience) isn't held in too high esteem by the online conlanging community, due to some conlangs in the Top 100 being either jokelangs or languages that have the dubious honor of being popular. Verdurian is in the Top 100.
 * Sorry? If anyone has a low opinion about Langmaker.com, I'm certainly not aware of that. Jeffrey has been around very long and knows the world of conlanging better than anyone else, I'd say. In my personal view, Langmaker is a really excellent resource, the best in its kind. The Top 100 is a different matter, BTW. IJzeren Jan 21:32, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Major Conditions
If any of the following major conditions can be met, a conlang is notable:


 * Been mistaken for a real language.
 * Like IJZeren said, this depends not on the conlang but on how it is presented. Archeia, a ZBBer's conlang, was once mistaken for a real lang, to the point of being available as a language choice on monster.com, a job hunting site. Verdurian has had this kind of incident, IIRC.
 * Really? Huh.  Man, I wish we had an article about Archeia right now.  I'd love to know more about this (and other) conlang-confusion instances...  Almafeta 02:19, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
 * On the Conlang list some while back (years, I think) there was a thread about conlangs that have turned up in language-choosing combo boxes on web forms. Classical Yiklamu was one, but I don't remember what all the others were. --Jim Henry | Talk 12:09, 29 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Caused controversy. For example, Adjuvilo was created by an Esperantist to ferment dissent in the Ido movement.
 * I can't really say. Verdurian hasn't, certainly.


 * Has (or had) at least 500 speakers. That would put it in the top 0.5% of conlangs.
 * Hardly. Is is estimated that 20.000 conlangers have internet access, however there is rarely an interest in learning eachother's conlang. Verdurian hasn't got 500 speakers.


 * Has an ISO code in any of ISO 639-1, ISO 639-2, or ISO 639-3.
 * If I recall correctly, Verdurian has some characters in ISO.


 * Inspired a conlang that was notable by one of the major conditions. For example, Occidental directly inspired Interlingua.
 * Verdurian inspired quite a deal of conlangs and conlangers, but I'm not sure about the major conditions part.


 * Has a Wikipedia. I mean, really.
 * Heh. Again, this could have happened with Toki Pona, but some kind of controversy ended up taking it away.

Problems
-- Cctoide 15:38, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * One major problem with CONLANG, as it stands right now, is that it's too exclusive. The current webcomic standard for inclusion is 100 strips; this prevents every Tom, Mary-Sue, and Harry from using Wikipedia to self-promote, but allows notable personal achievements to have Wikipedia articles.  A conlang policy should be similar -- but what does 'similar' mean in context of a constructed language?  Languages don't exactly have storylines...
 * Languages have storylines, if they're part of a properly designed conworld ;). However, maybe we shouldn't compare apples and oranges.

Webcomics
Over on WP:COMIC, the suggested criteria include at least 33 weeks of 'active production' of strips, and at least 100 comics. This was seen as being sufficiently selective to prevent each and every brand new webcomic from making its own Wikipedia article.

Should the criteria for conlangs be similar -- i.e., excluding all the innumerous conlangs that were created in one day's or one week's time, but allowing for efforts that have had a significant effort in development and 'finishing'? Almafeta 14:28, 28 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure that development time would be a good way of choosing whether a conlang is Wikipedia-worthy or not. My conlang has been developed for years now, but no-one knows about it except for some forum users (and myself, of course). I think that Almafeta's "original suggestions" are very good, and probably the ones I'd support the most, unless someone else comes with a good suggestion. However, very high grammar notability has to be respected in some way. But if a conlang is notable due to unique stuff, it will probably gain reputation, which would make it known. /Tehvata 17:30, 28 July 2005 (UTC) (Special:Contributions/Tehvata@sv.wp)


 * The idea expressed in Almafeta's second paragraph is excellent, however it does not feel like the guidelines at the top of this page really allow that (the bias is too much towards auxiliary languages which are intended for use - few languages made for the maker's own amusement will ever gain so much as bilingual speakers, let alone native ones). A key point here is that of permanence - how long has a conlang been around? If a conlang appears on Monday and disappears on Friday, obviously not enough time has passed for the language to be developed.
 * I suggest therefore that the limits for conlang articles be set as extensiveness of lexicon, completion of phonology and morphology (a highly subjective distinction; I shall bring the topic up on a conlang forum and see what emerges there) and notoriety outside its "foster" environment (for Verdurian, for instance, the foster environment is the Zompist.com domain and accompanying IRC chat and forum). The latter requirement eliminates any bias caused by the magnitude of the community immediately surrounding the language. ThomasWinwood 16:05, July 28, 2005 (UTC)


 * I haven't got any comments on your opinion at the moment, I'd just like to point out that the IRC channel #almea is in no way involved with Mark Rosenfelder and zompist.com. Your post was not implying that, but it might lead to misunderstandings. As mentioned by Cctoide, we rarely discuss Verdurian at #almea. /Tehvata 19:03, 28 July 2005 (UTC) (Special:Contributions/Tehvata@sv.wp)

Artlangs, ficlangs, and loglangs
Moved to Conlangs/Artlangs, ficlangs, and loglangs

Vote Note
Just about how the vote will go (that's a long way off, but it's good to get this set straight now): Each proposed rule will have its own level 2 heading, with the following level four headings:  Minor, Major, and Oppose. If you vote Minor, you think it the supports notability but does not merit inclusion in Wikipedia on its lonesome; if you vote Major, you think it supports notability and merits inclusion in Wikipedia reguardless of any other factors; and if you vote Oppose, you think that it is not applicable or misleading. If nobody has any objections... Almafeta 22:22, 28 July 2005 (UTC)


 * We may need more than two levels of support... For instance, in judging a language's completeness, neither thoroughly defined phonotactics, nor thoroughly defined grammar, nor a largish lexicon, are enough by themselves to make a language complete; you really need all three; but the existence of a sizable corpus and/or several speakers besides the creator demonstrates completeness even if the phonology is vaguely defined and the lexicon looks sparse. -- Or maybe one of the minor criteria could be "completeness", which itself has several criteria (at least 3 out of of 4 or 5 completeness sub-criteria must be met, to meet the minor criterion of "completeness")?  That was almost coherent...  In short, among the various minor criteria some will deserve more weighting than others; any two of the weightier criteria will establish notability, or any three or more of the less weighty.  Does that make sense?  Or does it complicate things too much?  I should get some sleep before I post again. --Jim Henry | Talk 02:05, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I would just say "having a through grammar" would be what we would vote on, and (assuming it is adopted) coming back to define what a 'complete grammar' is in the future in case that it becomes important to define what, exactly, a conlang's grammar should be capable of. Almafeta 17:13, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

General Discussion
What about notability? Would a conlang that's trying to do something interesting and unique be notable despite lack of completion? (Though notoriety outside its environment might cover this.) DenisMoskowitz 17:21, 2005 July 28 (UTC)

We could set some criteria about completeness of the language's description - lexicon size, whether a certain list of basic questions about its grammar and phonology are answered, etc. I would also propose a minimum corpus size criterion: are there multiple texts written in the language, with some significant total wordage. A language with several thousand words in its lexicon may not really be very complete if the only text available is a few sample sentences in the grammar document, and maybe the Tower of Babel story or the Lord's Prayer. On the other hand, a language designed for lexical parsimoniousness should not be penalized for its small lexicon, if the amount of text written in the language proves that this language is more powerful than its small lexicon would suggest. Corpus size counts extra if some significant part of was written by people other than the creator of the language.

I would also suggest that the minimum number of speakers in Almafeta's criteria should be reduced. 500 speakers are certainly plenty to prove notability, but I think 50 are plenty even without one of the other "minor" criteria; having even 10 or 20 speakers is pretty notable for a naturalistic conlang that was not designed (like most auxlangs) to be easy to learn. --Jim Henry | Talk 17:37, 28 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I guess that depends on the definition of notablity, which I grant is somewhat of an "eye of the beholder" problem. However, let's say I create a board game.  I don't get it published or distributed.  Me and 20 or so of my friends play it from time to time.  If I created a wikipedia article about it, it would likely (and rightly IMO) be deleted.  Or take a more common hobby, such as music.  We routinely delete articles on non-notable local bands, even though some of them probably have 20-50 people who know about them and see them from time to time at a pub or cafe.  Furthermore, I don't speak Klingon, Ido, or Westron, but I've heard of them.  Of course, just as there are hundreds of notable, record-contracted, hit-making bands I've never heard of, I'm sure there are many conlangs I've never heard of that are still notable in some way.  I think Almafeta's criteria are a good standard for establishing that notability.  -Satori 18:06, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Well... I don't.  That's why I started this discussion.  ^^;  Almafeta 18:26, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I should have said, they're a good start. -Satori 18:40, 28 July 2005 (UTC)


 * OK... I see your point. Theoretically a language could have 10-20 speakers and still be extremely obscure, with scarecely anyone having heard of it outside its speaker community and their close friends.  Still, in a minor criteria section of a policy (at least two of these properties, or at least three of these properties...) maybe a minimum of 10 speakers outside of the creator's close friends would make sense.  Various minima for how complete the language is could also go in that minor criteria section.  For instance, a grammar that treats of all the points on the Lingua Questionnaire; a thorough phonology description that treats of allophony and related issues; a lexicon of at least 2,500 words; a corpus of at least 25,000 words in the language by the creator, or at least 5,000 words in the language by people other than the creator. (Feel free to shoot at these specific numbers.) --Jim Henry | Talk 21:26, 28 July 2005 (UTC)


 * My main problem with "outside of the creator's close friends" is that could be hard to define, on its face. How do you verify, say, in a VfD discussion, who the speakers are and what their relation to the creator is?  The minima on completeness surely helps.  But what are the factors of a conlang that would lead to someone outside that circle of friends to use it?  Those factors are probably indicators of notability. -Satori 21:33, 28 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I originally had them at 10 and 100, not 50 and 500; however, this made the possibility of a conlang that is only spoken by one family (or one D&D group for that matter) being considered 'notable'. I arbitrarially bumped the numbers of speakers up by fivefold to make it require more speakers than the creator's closest friends.  Almafeta 18:26, 28 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Perhaps "notoriety outside of foster environment" would work here - spoken by 10 people outside of the creator and gang. DenisMoskowitz 18:43, 2005 July 28 (UTC)

I would like to note that #almea and the KutjaraWiki are not managed by or linked by any way to zompist. #almea hardly ever discusses Verdurian, and the Wiki is not run by Mark. Cctoide 18:23, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, "notability" is an ever-elusive thing. Given the various motives people have for creating languages, from auxiliary languages, artistic languages, and cryptographic languages, I am not sure that we need a policy here that can be applied like an algorithm. I would prefer that conlang articles speak for themselves: if a language can be described in terms that make it "interesting" enough, and if the article that is written about it shows some sophistication and is otherwise encyclopedic, I would generally vote to allow such articles to remain. Smerdis of Tlön 14:51, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Ranking my own languages
Moved to Wikipedia talk:Conlangs/Criteria

Verifiability and Original Research
Moved to Conlangs/Notability, verifiability, merit, completeness

Suggestions by Thomas Winwood
(moved to /Suggestions by Thomas Winwood)

Suggestion by Kaleissin
Why not have a look at the List of constructed languages, decide which ones each of us consider "worthy" of inclusion and then discuss why or why not just these languages should be in WP, thereby discovering inclusion-criteria that have already been used and whether these criteria are necessary or sufficient? Note that the list is divided into auxlangs, artlangs and languages mentioned or used in a verified work of fiction already.

I don't care much for auxlangs at all, so to make an example pour encourager les autres:
 * Used in/important part of known fictional work (these should maybe be moved to List of fictional languages?):
 * Atlantean language, Babel-17, Baronh, Codex Seraphinianus, D'ni, Drac, Kesh, Klingon, Kobaian, Láadan, Languages of Middle-earth (Sindarin, Quenya, Khuzdûl), Lapine, Marain, Nadsat, Newspeak, Syldavian, Pravic
 * Languages with communities (users and discussers), for natural reasons these have to be quite complete):
 * Baronh, D'ni, Klingon, Láadan, Languages of Middle-earth (Sindarin, Quenya, Khuzdûl), Verdurian, Brithenig, Talossan
 * Languages seen as masterpieces in the conlanging community (actually: hardcore artlang subsection :) ) (I'll add to the list as I remember the names, it's getting late):
 * Quenya, Verdurian, Brithenig, Amman-Iar, Teonaht, Miapimoquitch/Tepa, Tokana
 * The rest: either I don't know about them/recognize them or I don't consider them as notable as those already listed.

Furthermore, many of the listed conlangs, especially the fictional langs, are so incomplete as to not be usable for communication at all (exceptions: Kesh, Klingon, Láadan, Quenya) because they only consist of word lists or are described, with few or no examples shown, while the "masterpieces" can be so complete so as to be perfectly learnable by the sufficiently interested. This means the representation/layout of the sketched langs and the more complete langs need to be different. Compare the entry for Babel-17 and Quenya. -- Kaleissin 21:08:54, 2005-08-16 (UTC)

Differential criteria due to purpose
Moved to Conlangs/Differential

What makes a work of art notable?
Moved to Conlangs/Notability, verifiability, merit, completeness

First anouncement
I am starting in the Spanish language Wikipedia in a WikiProject for constructed langauges:
 * es:Wikipedia:WikiProject Lenguas artificiales

The idea with the project is to both define the policies regarding inclussion of artificial languages, and how these languages should be presented.

Those interested can sign in the WikiProject at Spanish lanaguage Wikipedia. You are also wellcome to start a similar WikiProject here.

Second anouncement
There are a few wikis on constructed languages. I am running one at Wikicities (which uses the same GFDL as Wikipedia).
 * Conlang Wikicity

There is room there to any constructed language and any detail of publications (from simple one paragraph article to complete grammars, translations and original works). OR is accepted.

Note that the GFDL applies to the articles, not to the languages. Anyhow any language that was nominated to be in wikipedia would fit in Wikicities.

— Carlos Th (talk) 21:52, 3 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Would this be an appropriate venue for independent review, analysis and criticism of conlangs? Much of the discussion here has centered around the lack of verifiability for many articles about artlangs due to the fact that no one has written about them except their authors; this is partly due to the fact that the zines devoted to conlangs died long ago and for the last few years we've had pretty much only the mailing lists and Zompist Bulletin Board as venues for discussion of conlangs, which don't serve quite the same purpose as a journal publishing in-depth articles (like Rick Harrison's Journal of Planned Languages).


 * It would make sense to publish the original research on various artlangs there in the conlang wikicity, and at some point later, if it seems warranted, do articles at Wikipedia for the most notable of them. --Jim Henry | Talk 23:11, 3 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me. Robert A West 17:11, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Peer-reviewed journal of conlangs proposal
I've posted to http://conlang.wikicities.com/wiki/Talk:Main_Page a proposal for a peer-reviewed journal along the lines discussed above. --Jim Henry

Sai's 2&#162;
/Sai's two cents on what verifiability means for conlang articles