Talk:Ithkuil

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[edit] Notability

Someone should include an image of some ithkuil script. Most remarcable script it is.

I'd noticied that Ithkuil page was created in the past & deleted after some time, discussion about deletion here.
Heh. I guess the article make no harm to anyone. Pavel Vozenilek 23:35, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am a conlanger and I admire Ithkuil excessively. But it's just not notable enough in the Wikipedia sense of the word to deserve its own article. It may have been influential on other conlangers in recent years, but it has zero speakers and has never been used in a professional work of fiction. Those seem to be the two criteria for a conlang to be considered notable on Wikipedia: speakers or use in professionally published fiction. (But even Ceqli, which has several speakers besides its author, was not considered notable and got deleted; while Toki Pona, which has maybe 50 speakers at most, did manage to squeak by.) I'm pretty sure this Ithkuil article will be deleted again once the people who nominated it for deletion last time realize that it has been created again.

However, Ithkuil probably is notable enough to deserve a paragraph or so in a main article about logical constructed languages or philosophical constructed languages, and certainly a link to the main Ithkuil site from one or both of those articles. --Jim Henry | Talk 01:15, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Correction - after the Ceqli article was deleted, it was later undeleted after another discussion and vote. See Talk:Ceqli. But I still don't think there's much hope for Ithkuil to survive another vote for deletion, given the lack of speakers. --Jim Henry | Talk 01:24, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hey, I was the one who worked hard to save Ceqli back from deletion. The original deletion of Ceqli was started by a nomination from a conlanger who knew that the author of Ceqli was the same person who created the article. However, after some fixing up the vanity factor was removed from the article. I did my job to save it because I knew Ceqli was notable enough to deserve being in Wikipedia. As for Ithkuil . . . now that a second article was written by an entirely different person, there will probably be fewer delete votes this time because people will realize that multiple people are interested in doing articles on this conlang. Those conlangs you see that get 1 Google hit and were created last week don't get two different people starting articles on them on Wikipedia, and if they get one person creating an article it will be the author (neither the first nor second creator of the Ithkuil article was the language's inventor). Wiwaxia 07:51, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
This is stupid, Ithkuil has no speakers BECAUSE IT WAS NEVER MEANT TO.

Frankly, I'm shocked about this talk of deletion based on some illogical arbitrary criterion regarding quantity of speakers. Clearly Ithkuil is a complex topic of interest to many people including myself who, dispite degrees in anthropology that includes linguistic training, had never heard of it before cliking the link to this article and might never had heard of it if it was forced into a paragraph in some more general article. In fact I wish there was more information on this page. Subjects, that are clearly seperate topics, should not be edited out of existence or hidden deeply within obscure articles. Surely the limited amount of memory it requires does not justify such censorship.DHBoggs —Preceding comment was added at 15:27, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Totally in agreement. Why deletion???

[edit] Interest in Ithkuil

There seems to be a LiveJournal community of people interested in Ithkuil [1]; all of them are writing in Russian or some other language written with the Cyrillic alphabet. The Zompist BB thread I cited in my last edit to the article also says there was an article about Ithkuil in a Russian-language magazine and that Quijaida has been contacted by several people saying that they are interested in learning it. We should say something about this in the article, but I think we need to track down the specific article reference to say it coherently. --Jim Henry | Talk 22:10, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Since the creation of the first Ithkuil page, I have heard about the Russian interest in the language (the first time around, I had never heard of Ithkuil, but now it seems to be a favorite on conlanging sites -- now I'd vote to keep it). As you'll notice, there's an interlanguage link to Russian. It seems to be written by the same person who wrote the English article. Wiwaxia 04:47, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
I've asked for bibliographic info on the Russian article's talk page. Hopefully someone will eventually add it, or send it to me and let me add it. --Jim Henry | Talk 15:47, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
Here it is:
  • «Скорость мысли», Станислав Козловский
Paper version: magazine «Компьютерра», №26-27, June 20, 2004
Electronic version: «Скорость мысли», Станислав Козловский
--DIG 20:17, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
Magazine: Computerra (same jeux de mots as in English: Computer + Terra)
Article title is "Speed of thought".
As for the author's name, I will forward your question directly to him. If he does not get back to you in a few days, I will try to guess his name's correct transliteration.
--DIG 07:27, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
Correct transliteration is "Stanislav Kozlovsky"
Thanks. --Jim Henry | Talk 17:47, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
Hi to All, sorry of being off. It seems i'd missed some discussion here. Why I think Ithkuil Wikiworthy enough to stay. I'm not conlanger or linguist at all, but Ithkuil highly impressed me for being a conlang that trying to show how a language can be, at least theoretically.
After creating article I found that it was actually recreating. Googling I found Russian page for Ithkuil and Russian WIkibook project (It seems to be frozen). After creating article I found that it was actually recreating. Googling I found Russian page for Ithkuil (added hyperlink) and Russian WIkibook project . Just to mention that English isn't my mother tongue I'll heartily appreciate any help or suggestions for improving this topic.
--Any_Key 22:13, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
After creating article I found that it was actually recreating. Not at all. You're not re-creating the article unless you paste in the same text as the first writer of the article. Wiwaxia 03:57, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Complexity

The language is obviously dead. It won't work in any sense. It is contrary to the nature, and nature loves simplicity. Nevertheless I respect the author's devotion --Amakuha 16:32, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I feel the same way. Ithkuil is a remarkable triumph in many ways, and clearly a labor of love--that said, I believe it is utterly unlearnable by any but the most supremely gifted humans--maybe not even them. I also don't share Quijada's zeal for hyperspecificity in language. Context is the ultimate communicator, and Ithkuil seems to leave nothing to context. And the vagueness and murkiness of words and meanings is part of the allure and seduction of language, IMHO.
That said, for what it is, Ithkuil is a work of genius. (same author)
I admire the language. It cant be spoken, true. .. but thats also true for many other conlangs, and for far sillier reasons.

"It is by no means intended to function as a “natural” human language. Ithkuil exists as an exercise in how human languages could function, not as human languages do function.

While I enjoy the idea of inventing fictional languages which mimic natural languages, it is not enough for me to add simply another language to the thousands that already exist or have existed. For me, the greater goal is to attempt the creation of what human beings, left to their own devices, would never create naturally, but rather only by conscious intellectual effort: an idealized language whose aim is the highest possible degree of logic, efficiency, detail, and accuracy in cognitive expression via spoken human language, while minimizing the ambiguity, vagueness, illogic, redundancy, polysemy (multiple meanings) and overall arbitrariness that is seemingly ubiquitous in natural human language."

That was a quote by the creator, John Quijada. I hope that corrects any wrong impressions of what this language is meant to be. --Hurricane Angel 21:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

How can a language be dead if it had never been "born"? As you know no one speak it naturally, so there for it cannot die. When you are already at the bottom of the barrel the only way to go is up. As the popularity of it increase and more and more people learn of it, it will not die, it will only grow. Beside, it is in our human "nature" to create bigger and more complex things (even language). 129.173.242.34 (talk) 19:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Misc

Can somebody with undelete powers please undelete the history of the page Ithkuil? Wiwaxia 00:47, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Can some one write a few sentences in this language?

[edit] Unable to cite source since it is gone now

There exists no human who can speak Ithkuil, including its creator: “I don't speak Ithkuil, never have, never will, never claimed to.” — said John Quijada <!-- [2] dead link-->[citation needed].

I don't think it will be possible to cite a source for this anymore, since the Zompist BBoard thread in which it was posted seems to have disappeared. Google doesn't index the message board threads there, as far as I can tell, so there's no cache. I don't remember what the date of the posting or the title of the thread was, now. --Jim Henry 22:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I remember I saw it there. But the threads are gone. I think WebArchive doesn't collect dynamic pages. Ypou may ask the author, he had made few fixes here. Pavel Vozenilek 05:30, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed quotation

"The most remarkable aspect of Ithkuil is that it is the only life-threatening conlang."

I've contacted the originator of this quote, and he requested that it be removed. It's funny and clever but notably non-notable. --Ozy 00:11, 28 August 2006 (UTC)