Re: Unambiguous languages (was: EU allumettes)

In a message dated 2004:05:09 12:20:27 PM, bpj@MELROCH.SE writes:

>At 21:46 8.5.2004, Ray Brown wrote:
>
>>On Friday, May 7, 2004, at 10:26 PM, Mark P. Line wrote:
>>[snip]
>>
>>B. Philip Jonsson:
>>An unambiguous language would not be amenable to change, and since human
>>culture changes it would eventually be discarded.
>>
>>
>>What makes you say that an unambiguous language would not be amenable
>to change?
>
>Because ambiguity is what drives change in natural languages.
    Also lexical stylistics - both sociocultural (arguably increasingly
Technocultural) and individual.

    _Semantic_ ambiguity and lexical stylistics are the wild cards, Jokers,
in the linguistics "deck" - the chaos/indeterminate extremes in the otherwise
semi-orderly or complex entity/ies we call "language(s)."

    Like music, there seems to be varying "optimal balances" of
predictability and surprise in language use (and abuse). How to broadly - and universally -
define that "optimal balance" is one the perennial questions of linguistics.


---  º°`°º ø,¸¸,ø º°`°º ø,¸¸,ø º°`°º ø,¸¸,ø º°`°º  º°`°º ø,¸~->
Hanuman "Mister Sinister" Zhang, Sloth-Style Gungfu Typist
- "the sloth is a chinese poet upsidedown" --- Jack Kerouac {1922-69}
<A HREF="http://www.boheme-magazine.net">=> boheme-magazine.net</A>

"Poems are sketches for existence." - Paul Celan

"...make things/touch and radiate in the mind..." - Kenneth White

"One thing foreigners, computers, & poets have in common
is that they make unexpected linguistic associations." --- Jasia Reichardt

"There is no reason for the poet to be limited to words, & in fact the poet
is most poetic when inventing languages. Hence the concept of the poet as
'language designer'."  --- O. B. Hardison, Jr.

"Poetic creation still remains an act of perfect spiritual freedom. Poetry
remakes & prolongs language; every poetic language begins by being a secret
language, that is, the creation of a personal universe, of a completely closed
world." - Mircea Eliade

"... upward into/the depths." - Tomas Transtromer

"As webs come out of spiders, or breath forms in frozen air, worlds
come out of us".—William Irwin Thompson, _Imaginary Landscape_

--- *DiDJiBuNgA!!* Hang Binary,baby...---

Hanuman "Stitch" Zhang, ManglaLanger (mangle + manga + lang)
<A HREF="http://www.boheme-magazine.net">=> boheme-magazine.net</A>

     Language[s] change[s]: vowels shift, phonologies crash-&-burn, grammars
leak, morpho-syntactics implode, lexico-semantics mutate, lexicons explode,
orthographies reform, typographies blip-&-beep, slang flashes, stylistics
warp... linguistic (R)evolutions mark each-&-every quantum leap...

"Some Languages Are Crushed to Powder but Rise Again as New Ones" -
John McWhorter, _The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language_

= maeci legosetplex caca plus debri !
    prizerva. saalva. ricue. scopé-gomi plus riçyc'l ! =

English translitteration of the above _djunk-lego_, "junk language":
"Fight {Maquis/-machy} Linguistic Waste & Trash!
    Save, Salvage, Recover, (creatively)Scavenge-Found-Objects & Recycle!"