Re: Comparison of philosophical languages

On Monday 20 January 2003 8:14 pm, Andrew Nowicki wrote:
> I believe that any language is merely a tool that
> should be discarded when a better tool is found.
> Any tool can be compared to other tools. I would
> like to know what features of a general purpose
> spoken language are desirable.
>
> Some programming languages are better than other
> programming languages. Some spoken languages are
> better than other spoken languages. Some systems
> of measures are better than other systems of
> measures. If we had been talking about systems of
> measures I would certainly say that the metric
> system is superb to other systems. The flamers
> in this thread imply that we cannot compare
> languages. Just because *they* cannot compare
> languages does not mean that languages cannot
> be compared.
>
> Some spoken languages, for example Japanese,
> resemble Ygyde and Ro in a sense that they build
> compound words from short roots. Even the English
> language has some of this ability: police-man,
> fire-man, work-man, crafts-man, journey-man,
> milk-man, gentle-man, noble-man, water-man, air-man,
> horse-man, herds-man, boat-man, cave-man, sky-man,
> country-man, woods-man, trades-man, yeo-man,
> weather-man, gun-man, clergy-man, house-man...
> Is it difficult to tell these words apart?
>
> On the other hand the English language has some
> nasty near homonyms: She sells sea-shells. I had
> a hot hat on my head.
>
> Another flaw of the English language is that a
> novice listening to a fast speech cannot tell
> where one word ends and another word begins.
>
> If the flamers are right, the English language is
> impossible to learn, and the most random languages
> are the best ones. There is a big difference
> between diversity and randomness. Randomness can
> be described by a simple mathematical formula, and
> therefore lacks complexity which is the foundation
> of true diversity. My intuition tells me that
> the perfect language should resemble wild nature;
> it should be diverse, but not random.
What people are trying to say to you is that -there is no such thing as a
perfect language-.  Nothing more, nothing less.  English is exceptionally
difficult, but no language is impossible.  Especially if you have no language
at first.

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