Talk:Bogolang

Alternative term

I think it would be a good idea to add a heading "Need for an alternative term". Moreover ambiguity is only one of the objections to the term which were put forward, which were by my count four:

1. It's ambiguous with "jokelang".
2. It is not descriptive.
3. This kind of conlang is at least not more bogus than other kinds.

   It should be noted that although I got some support from Jörg, who was the one who made this observation, for my opinion (still held, BTW) that bogolangs are especially unrealistic in the sense that a mixed language of this kind is extremely unlikely to arise in the real world, I don't think any of us thinks that this constitutes enough ground to single them out as especially bogus.

4. It sounds pejorative.

   It seems some find that appropriate, but then it is probably true that no conlanger is interested in all kinds of conlang,

and that for every kind you will find some who actively dislike it! NB that neither I nor Jörg considered their possible especial unrealism an objection against these langs, though Jörg observed that the bogolang technique is "sometimes used a crutch a conlanger may take recourse to when he runs out of ideas for a plausible historical phonology", but cheapness does not make them especially bogus either!

Also I don't think that terms should be italicized rather than scare-quoted: it is not like any term is used in a metaphorical sense or misappropriated (except possibly dialang). A link to the CONLANG thread is also desirable.

What about something like:

In a discussion on the CONLANG mailing list during December 2009, the term bogolang was found to be inadequate various grounds:

• At a glance bogolang seems to have the same meaning as jokelang.
• This kind of conlang is at least not more bogus than other kinds.
• The term sounds pejorative.

Though not everyone agreed on all these objections most participants agreed that another term would be desirable, and alternatives such as dialang (which however may also mean diachronic conlang or 'dialect of a conlang', and has been used in at least the latter sense [1]) and graftlang were proposed but so far no proposed alternative has caught on."

This references myself a lot, so I'm loth to just go ahead and make the edit. BPJ 17:30, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Hybrilang?

What about hybrilang: they were described as hybrids in the CONLANG discussion [2] and I think everyone would agree that is a defining characteristic. BPJ 17:45, 4 March 2010 (UTC)