LINGUIST List 5.720

Tue 21 Jun 1994

Sum: Unknown Language

Editor for this issue: <>

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1. , spocanian summary

 ---== AN UNKNOWN LANGUAGE ==---

I posted a [semi-]query two months back asking for some morphosyntactic
and semantic information concerning a number of data from the "unknown"
language X.
It was neither my intention to ridicule linguistics (why should I? It is my
own profession and pastime) nor to make a fool of linguists, in the hope
that they would waste their valuable time and put their reputation at stake
in an attempt to identify the nature of language X. I was of an opinion that
IF a reader of my message would feel inclined to answer my questions, (s)he
at least would have some doubts concerning the existence of X. And indeed,
most respondents apprehended that there was something "wrong" with X, judging
by remarks like "I don't think these data come from a natural language",
"This is wonderful! Especially if language X really exists [..]", "'Money'
is 'smurf'? Smurf??? Pull the other one!", "So what is the real answer?",
"But what is the point of the game? I hope you'll post the solution on the
List soon", "I would be grateful if you can vouch for the data (genuine not
invented) [..]", "Yours skeptically, [..]", "[..] the end of your message
implicates that you know what it [=X] is".
My intention was for you to take part in the game, and in doing so I
preferred unprejudiced answers, without the reader being sure that X is an
invention. Therefore I chose to withold the fact that there is *no* community
in the world where language X actually is, or ever has been, spoken. And so I
naturally could not reveal X's real name: Spocanian (no relation with the
town Spokane in the state of Washington). Unlike its predecessors (and probably
also its descendants) which either are constructed as a worldwide lingua
franca, or are invented as an inherent part of some novel or film, Spocanian
was constructed for the sake of the language itself. This does not mean that
this language is an isolated phenomenon. Since it is my principle that the
language should look as natural as possible (this was in fact tested by my
query), I cannot deny the existence of a culture, religion, climate,
geography, history and so on, all things affecting the lexicon and probably
also the syntax of any natural language. That is why Spocanian is spoken in
Spocania, by Spocanians. The whole concept has attracted a lot of attention
in the Dutch, Belgian and Scandinavian media, though there the emphasis has
always been more on the history, geography, culture and tourist attractions
of Spocania than on its language, due to the general opinion that language
is boring, let alone linguistics (see also the current discussion in linguist
about the "popularization/popularisation of linguistics").
Spocanian is the result of almost 35 years of playing around with grammar
rules and etymology, and is not intended as a follow-up of a language like
Esperanto. In fact, Spocanian is not able to be this, for its morphology,
syntax, pragmatics, pronunciation and lexicon are too complex and have an
undesirable quantity of irregularities, as seems to be inherent in most
natural languages. At this moment, its grammar consists of approx. 1500
pages, and its dictionary contains over 25,000 entries, with a lot of idiom,
proverbs and untranslatable words (often referring to Spocanian culture).
My only problem is: art and literature are commonly accepted as products of
creativity and intuition. They are regarded as autonomous, and are thus
suitable as an object of study. A language like Spocanian, however, is *not*
commonly accepted as such, and the question whether it can be an object of
study is [still] controversial.
Those who have analysed my Spocanian data in my query have contributed to my
attempts to get Spocanian accepted as a serious creative product. Many of my
colleagues in the Department of General Linguistics at the University of
Amsterdam do take a serious interest in Spocania[n], balanced by both humour
and criticism. This attitude has encouraged me to send out my query, although
I am aware that not everyone will appreciate my approach of the Spocanian
concept. Still, I did not receive any unfavourable reactions in this respect,
apart from a well-known linguist in Holland (aware that language X was
Spocanian), who thought that "I had gone too far" by posting my E-mail query.
I received 8 answers in total, and let me first thank the following people for
their responses:

Carl Alphonce alphoncecs.ubc.ca
Picus Sizhi Ding picus.dinganu.edu.au
Jacques Guy j.guytrl.oz.au
Hartmut Haberland hartmutruc.dk
Kate Kearns k.kearnscsc.canterbury.ac.nz
Erika Mitchell ejmitchelllcc.stonehill.edu
John Nerbonne nerbonnelet.rug.nl
Hella Olbertz hellaalf.let.uva.nl

and all my colleagues who preferred a personal communication rather than
sending an E-mail.
The summary in which I will discuss the answers I received on the questions in
my query, and in which I would like to tell more about Spocania and its
language, cannot be posted here, due to its length. However, it is
retrievable from the listserv:

 send the command
 get mystery txt linguist
 to: listservtamvm1.tamu.edu

Rolandt Tweehuysen
University of Amsterdam, Dept of General Linguistics
E-mail : tweealf.let.uva.nl
snail mail: Postbus 3774, 1001 AN Amsterdam, Netherlands

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