John McWhorter on conlangs

 John McWhorter is a linguist specializing in creole languages and a political reactionary focused on problems of race. In more recent years he has been addressing the public also on matters of language. In this video, he turns his attention to conlangs:

Are Elvish, Klingon, Dothraki and Na'vi real languages?


McWhorter affirms that these conlangs exhibit all the features of real languages including fully elaborated grammars, speech communities, and linguistic change over time.

Note also that the development of these languages is tied to, and most importantly originated in,  science fictional world-building. 

As I indicated in a previous post, McWhorter has confessed to knowing Esperanto. If these hobby languages can be justified as real languages, then Esperanto deserves linguistic legitimation all the more. I would like to see McWhorter do a video or podcast on this infinitely more important constructed language, Esperanto, which builds on the real world, has a speech community that functions in the real world (with unfortunate exceptions), serves a useful purpose, and can profit far more from validation from linguists.

John McWhorter, Esperantisto

En Septembro 2006 mi lernis ke John McWhorter, uson-negra konservativulo kaj lingvisto, laŭdire konas/komprenas Esperanton. Mi malamas ĉiujn negrajn konservativulojn, kaj mi surfekis lian libron Aŭtentike Negra. Se vi povas legi la anglan lingvon, vi povas legi mian recenzon inter miaj ceteraj recenzoj ĉe amazon.com. McWhorter, kies profesia fako estas lingvistiko, estas specialisto pri kreoloj. Mi tamen malamas lin, sed la ligo kun Esperanto estas notinda. Legu sube fragmenton el intervjuo.

[Verkite anglalingve 17 Sep 2006]

I just discovered that John McWhorter, black conservative and linguist, knows Esperanto. I despise all black conservatives, and I trashed McWhorter's book Authentically Black. If this stuff interests you, you can read my review lodged amidst my other amazon.com reviews.

But the interesting fact of the day is that McWhorter, a specialist in creoles, knows Esperanto. I don't detest him any the less, but it's still noteworthy:

Booknotes, March 2, 2003
Authentically Black: Essays for the Black Silent Majority by John McWhorter

---

LAMB: What are the scope of those 12 languages that you can read?

MCWHORTER: Oh, let's see. I don't think about it much anymore. There's French and there's Spanish and there's Italian and there's Portuguese. There is German and there's Dutch and there's Swedish. There is Hebrew. There's Russian. There is Swahili. There's Japanese. And what am I leaving out? Something. . .

(CROSSTALK)

MCWHORTER: . . . Esperanto.

LAMB: Esperanto?

MCWHORTER: Yes.

LAMB: Which is what kind of language?

MCWHORTER: Esperanto's an artificial language that was created by a peaceful-minded gentleman in the late 1800s. And there are still Esperantists around. It's supposed to be an international language. Really, it's a kind of a watered-down Romance language, and I always just thought it was cute, really. So (UNINTELLIGIBLE)