Re: On the design of an ideal language

> Yes.  What is "easy to learn" depends on which kinds of
> languages one is used
> to.  For Europeans, an euroclone with much recognizable
> vocabulary is easy,
> but Africans or Asians may think differently.  An
> often-advanced argument is
> that many terms such as "telephone" or "automobile" are
> "international", but
> in fact most non-European language prefer uing their own coinages: the
> Japanese words for these two, for example, are _denwa_ and _jidousha_,
> respectively.
But just because "denwa" is preferred to "telephone" doesn't mean that
they aren't familiar with the word "telephone" (in whatever assimilated
form).  The number of these widely recognized terms is however very
small, but I figure anything that can help shorten the learning curve is
worth trying.  All these little things can add up in the end.


> And then ease of learning is just *one* design goal.  The
> language must be
> expressive enough to handle *any* mode of human communication, up to
> scientific papers and legal documents.  A crude trade jargon
> is useless.
Yes.  Very true.


> Another design goal is cultural neutrality, which is not
> without problems,
> either.
While this is a nice thing to try to achieve, I really don't think it's
possible.  Almost any design decision will favor one group or another.
Yes, a designer can mix up the lexicon with terms from different
languages but just how many from each creates a good balance?  Then you
have to consider the balance in terms of how frequent each word would be
used.  Beyond the lexicon is the grammar which brings issues of its own.
So yes, you are right in saying there could be problems here.