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Re: Comparison of philosophical languages

From:Andrew Nowicki <andrew@...>
Date:Monday, January 20, 2003, 20:13
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.

Replies

Joe <joe@...>
Padraic Brown <elemtilas@...>
Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>
Joseph Fatula <fatula3@...>
And Rosta <a.rosta@...>comparing languages on their merits (was: RE: Comparison of philosophical languages
Arthaey Angosii <arthaey@...>