[Ltru] RE: Using the "eur" tag
Jukka K. Korpela
jkorpela at cs.tut.fi
Wed Jan 30 19:45:55 CET 2008
Kent Karlsson wrote:
> John Cowan wrote:
>> As I said: the language is a joke, the code element is not.
>
> It still makes the registration of a code element for this joke
> in the 639-3 registry a mistake.
I tend to agree, on the grounds that "Europanto" is not a language under
any normal meaning for "language". It is just an idea rather than
consistent system in the sense that English, Swahili, or Esperanto is
consistent. There are languages that are now extinct, but can we call
something a language when it was never actually used for human
communication in any normal sense?
A purely imaginary language, such as those created by Tolkien, is a
borderline case. It could exist as a mere joke. But Europanto doesn't.
It's just a worn-out joke at the level of a vague idea of mixing
different languages arbitrarily.
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
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