Wikipedia:Conlangs/Why conlangs should be covered

Conlanging is a minority artform - that is a form of artistic endeavour that has not achieved the same level of public awareness as better known artforms, such as painting or music. Wikipedia is well suited for the encyclopaedic documentation of minority artforms, as it is not subject to the space limitiations of a printed encyclopaedia.

For the coverage of any arform to be truly encyclopaedic, it is necessary for significant bodies of work and notable individual works to be covered. It would be inconceivable that any encyclopaedia would seek to cover the topic of painting without a substantial article on Pablo Picasso, or to discuss Picasso's work without making articles on significant individual works such as Guernica or Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. So it is with conlanging. It would be absurd to discuss conlanging without reference to J.R.R. Tolkien, and impossible to discuss his contribution to the art without articles on Quenya and Sindarin.

Encylopaedic coverage of the field of conlanging therefore requires articles on significant individual conlangs. First and foremost, such articles should be able to demonstrate, from verifiable sources, why the conlang is of interest.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by PeteBleackley (talk • contribs)

Surely though, all conlangs should be covered as all languages should be covered. Some real world languages are now spoken by a single elderly speaker and it is not written, and yet it is researched and covered like German or English. All languages, whether natural or constructed are tests of how we describe the universe around us and how we describe what we feel. What makes a conlang, especially one used in daily life, even by a single person, any different from a natural language under the same circumstances? 20:07 GMT August 2nd 2008 - Wikim3

There is a difference, though. A language spoken by one person is not the work of one person; this person is just all there is left of something much bigger. Besides, how do we define a language? There are many thousands of conlangs around, and most of them aren't really more than sketches. To illustrate my point: if you are subscribed to a mailing list or a forum dealing with conlangs, it is very likely that almost daily someone writes something along the lines: "Hey, I've made a new conlang, I'm not sure how to name it yet, but for the time being I'll call it Language #57. Here's a preliminary phonology [...]"... and that's all we'll ever hear about the language. Should we count those as well? And if not, where do we draw the line? No, I'm afraid we'll have to stick to certain requirements, not particularly regarding the size of the language, but definitely related to verifiability, notability and the like. —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 19:32, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The criterion for an article about a fictional conlang is exactly the same as for any work of fiction: if it has received "critical acclaim", ie. sufficient independent mention, then it it qualifies for inclusion. Ptydepe springs to mind. And yes, the criteria for real languages are different for those for conlangs and different again for fictional conlangs. — RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 19:20, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]