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Mand'oa as far as I can tell is roughly an English relex.

But it has a grammar document. It has a dictionary. It has a font which people use to make tattoos.

I know that many folk feel that relexes are aesthetically bad, but that is, imho, separate from what counts as topicality.

I agree that relexes are roughly coded English. But where else would one ask about Mand'oa, this fandom thing that Star Wars fans engage in that outwardly looks like what the Elivish or Klingon fans do, but lacks a sufficiently distinct grammar and lexicon to be isolated from accusations of being a relex? You can't ask a Mand'oa question on the English SE on the grounds that Mand'oa is just coded English.

I'm asking about this specific language, not just whatever whatever.

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    Why not? Creating a relex is frwoned by conlang designers (as it shows no real devotion to language design), but this does not stop it from being a conlang. Whenever there is a good question about it, ask it.
    – Sir Cornflakes Mod
    Mar 11, 2018 at 19:42
  • Possible duplicate of Some people have a highly specific definition for conlang. Are other conlang-like things on topic?
    – curiousdannii Mod
    Mar 20, 2018 at 5:44
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    Well as I wrote on the other question: "In general, Stack Exchange sites do not need to preemptively decide on the on-topicality of tangential topics. We have the classification tag for questions asking whether something should be seen as a conlang, and if there is a future edge case question then we can discuss the specific merits of that question when it arises." It's already clear the relexes aren't off-topic purely for being relexes. Ask a question about Mand'oa and then we can actually decide whether it's on-topic or not. We decide the scope of questions, not languages.
    – curiousdannii Mod
    Mar 21, 2018 at 3:29

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I don't see how it's an actual relex. Just looking at the citied grammar page, I see verb formation mechanics that differ from English; lack of a full infinitive; lack of a definite article. M. has a grammatical imperative, English doesn't.

Very similar, maybe. A relex, probably not.

In any event, I agree with you: how can you find about a relex or a near-relex if you don't ask? I don't think relexes should be necessarily be banned just because they aren't invented languages. There are processes that go into creating a relex that are identical to creating an invented language. First off, I can think of phonology, matters of overall aesthetics, matters of writing system. I'd defend the creator of a relex asking about these matters here, even if his end product is a cypher for English.

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