Yeah, but ... it's fake

[Shelob]

Quenya has been through a complicated evolution, inside Tolkien's mind of course

Yet still there's a difference between an evolution that is in one person's mind and one that takes place between people. A person, in their mind, can work through the steps of evolution, can justify things, whatever, but there's something fundamentally different to it than something which has evolved through, basically, trial and error. Not everything in a language makes sense, and things change which don't look like they ought to have changed. It's an issue of what's needed to communicate at the time. Take the Pirahã language, it has no number words, they're not needed to communicate what needs to be communicated.

Let me demonstrate it this way, consider Frankenstein's Monster. Life has existed for thousands of years, it has changed to meet needs and, eventually, has created one Vicktor Frankenstein. Frankenstein is a fairly normal person, he's you're average example of mankind. Frankenstein sits down one day and says "I feel like creating Life today". He would have had an easier time of it if he ended up creating the Game of Life, as it is Frankenstein went through evolution quickly in his mind, he looked at things that were already and worked from what he saw as well as what he figured ought to be. Hey Presto! The creature is created! Is this creature any less alive than Vicktor? Than any of the people and animals around him? No. Yet it is, somehow, different. It is the result of thousands of years of evolution only through the one person who created it.

Not to say Quenya is hideous and will go around terrorizing it's creator and reading Paradise Lost, if it does that we've bigger things to worry about. I also wasn't trying to say that Quenya hasn't evolved, simply it hasn't evolved in a way which makes it "real". The same way Frankenstein's creature was evolved, but not in a way to make it "human".

And anyway, who's to say that we can't grow up speaking Quenya? If someone had studied and learned Quenya well enough to riase their child speaking it then surely to that child Quenya would be as real as its (I'm hoping) other mother tongue. I can't say I see that as being highly likely, but it is possible.


Also, I'm rather intrigued by, firstly, the idea of a language being considered "living" simply because lots of people know about it and, secondly, how "living"/"dead" languages differ from "real"/"not-real" languages. This second espically becuase you, Yuukale Narmo, seem to suggest that if enough people simply know of the existance of a language it can qualify as "living", as compared to the more conventinal destinction by how many people know/use the language.

"School Children everywhere know of the existance of Latin, therefore it is a "living" language"

versus

"No one actually uses Latin to communicate day by day, ergo it is a "dead" language"


...Ironcially enough, both "versus" and "ergo" are derived from Latin...but I'm sure you see what I'm getting at. Also, to quallify a language as "living" or "dead" do you have to first grant that it is "real"? Could Quenya be, then, a "living", yet "not-real" language? Or perhaps it is a "real" but "dead" language?

Sure Quenya will never be as natural as any other "real" language, but i'm sure it is better built in it's " pseudo-evolution " than Esperanto does XD~~~~ .

and, as i said:

Originally Posted by Yuukale

given that another huge mass is capable of writing a poem or two and prove it !

before you say " a poem or two is not enough " . Please, bear in mind it was just a way to express the idea, don't get so strict ....

To finish this.....
Maybe Quenya will never be considered a REAL language and even worst, nor even a LIVING language, but there's only one thing i am sure.

Quenya will always be real and alive in the heart of poets and bards, that, like we, has a love for the doings of Tolkien and the beauty that elves could see in the things.

Namárië.

[Lalwendë]

It seems there are two ways of looking at whether Quenya is 'fake'.

Firstly, was the language artificially created? Yes, it was. Just the same as Esperanto was created. But also in the same way that Binary code or Maths are created laguages, necessary ways of either explaining complex theories or enabling computers to work. Then again, Tolkien developed his languages from a basis of other languages and liguistic play. English is full of created words, do we say that it is artificial just because the OED has new words we have made up in its pages?

Secondly, we might say it's 'fake' because its not widely used and cannot deal with the practicalities of everyday life. Thinking about that, there are not many speakers of Cornish, but tell a Cornish nationalist that their language is 'fake' because it is not widely used and they'd probably have a few strong words of Anglo-saxon to use to tell you where to get off. Likewise, the French language has adopted a lot of English terms (e.g. Le Weekend) as French does not always have the right words to convey new ideas. I'm sure a French person would also tell you where to get off if you said their modern day French was 'fake'!

As for everyday use, I seriously doubt Quenya would ever enter everyday use, though it might become more popular with online communities, which themseves are becoming just as important to us as traditional communities. But it would be centred around hardcore Quenya fans only, just as Klingon is around certain Trekkies but not all by any means. I'm a hardcore Tolkien fan but I know I'll never learn Quenya, even if it is to meet Anguirel's challenge below.

Originally Posted by Anguirel

We physically cannot construct Feanor pinching Nerdanel with a lewd joke, or some irritating courtier recalling Elrond belching.

[Shelob]

I think "adopting" new terms is simply a form of evolution, the same as creating them. English has for the most part got it's roots in other languages and yet it's "realness" isn't be questioned because of it, just like we don't question it's "realness" just because someone coins a new phrase...if that were the case most languages would have ceased to be real around the same time the internet became common.

Also, and this just came to me so the idea's still rather messy, if Quenya were adopted as the common language of Tolkien fans wouldn't it then, by any definition, be forced into realness? Consider "real determined by use", if enough Tolkien fans were using it to communicate between themselves it would be as valid as many a language because it would be being used, perhaps not for everyday things like running down to the store, but for enough things. Also consider the "real determined by evolution" track, if it were being used (esp. online) would Quenya not have to adapt and change the same way other languages do to meet the needs it's speakers have? In that case Quenya would have started out the product of one person's mind, and would have been as full and real as such a language could have been, but by being used it would have become a new-quenya which was the result of the same processes our commonly accepted "real" languages are. That new-quenya wouldn't be exactly the same as Quenya as it is now, but then Old-English isn't the same as Moddern-English. By this then "not being used" and "not evolved/evolving" are really the same thing. If a language must be evolved/evolving to be "real" then it must be being used, if a language is being used it must be evolving. Quenya as it is may never quite be "real" but the moment it is changed to meet the need of speakers it would be.

That may not address the issue of "Tolkien evolved it in his mind", but then that wasn't between speakers so the language still wasn't being used...and so it still doesn't quite fit under anything I've said...