Re: lexicon

On Sat, May 31, 2003 at 12:24:50AM +0100, michael poxon wrote:
> I'm not sure anyone knows what language was created for (does
> there have to be a reason?) - but in any case that kind of
> argument tends to imply a wilful act of creation. I think you'll
> find that 'arts' came before everything, and included language.
Only if you include Creation as an art and take literally
something like the Genesis story of God creating through words.
But if we restrict the discussion to Human language and Human
art, then there's no doubt that language came first; it's
a built-in instinct, whereas art is a cultural construct.
And while the creative urge responsible for art is probably
also an instinct, it has much less control over the result
than the language instinct does.

Conlangs, of course, are also art themselves.  But in natlangs,
very, very few features are the result of aesthetic choices.

-Mark

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