Re: The languages of Aohutl, Parts I and II: Oa-Oa-Lahahan and Mwa (was: SF Xenolinguistics)

On Monday, June 13, 2005, at 03:35 , Patrick Littell wrote:

> Herein follows a compleat compendium of the languages of the planet
> Aôhutl.  Not having been blest with the example of living trees or any
> similar sylviform plants, its divers inhabitants were forced to develop
> grammars for their debased and pagan tongues based upon other
> architectural forms. 
Oh, I see. So that's why we earthlings developed "terrestrial
tree-structure scheme" languages; the tree-structure got hardwired into
our 'language faculty' as a result of millions of years of pre-human
contemplation of trees    ;)

[snip]

Love the description of the Oa-Oa-Lahahan & Mwa languages!

> You'll note that neither the Mwa grammar nor that of Oa-Oa-Lahahan
> involves any recursion. 
But as whatever may be expressed by recursion can also be expressed by
iteration (tho the opposite is not true), is lack of possibility of
recursion serious as long as iteration is possible?

>  Some sentences like "I think Myriam knows I have a crush on her" may be
> able to be translated, but neither of these languages can handle the
> infinite recursive possibilities of a human language.  (Well,
> Oa-Oa-Lahahan can't even handle the Myriam sentence, but the
> Oa-Oa-Lahahan don't have thoughts of that complexity in the first place.) 
      :)

[snip]
> Anyway, more to come ;)
I look forward to it. Do I assume the Plogl inhabit Aôhutl?

Ray
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