Re: Comparison of philosophical languages

On 20 Jan, Sally Caves  wrote:

> Okay, look.  People are getting a little intense here, myself included.  I
> vote that we put a moratorium on this thread.
    I promise not to get intense.
I just want to add my two cents, FWIW, and then I'm done.

On 20 Jan, Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> En réponse à Andrew Nowicki <andrew@...>:
<snip>
> > I did not use dictionaries when I was learning
> > my mother tongue.
> >
>
> No, but at that time you had hardly anything else to do, and your brains
> took all their capacities to learn language as good as possible.
    Uh, just for accuracy's sake, Christophe, that's not strictly true.
As any good book on human development will show, babies have
one whole helluva lot to do! They have to learn to coordinate
and make use of a body that's constantly changing (ie once you finally
learn the rules, the game has changed!), and to continually try and
make sense of their surroundings by means of this new body and with nothing
from a previous time they can compare it all with! _And_ on top of this,
they must acquire language, in all its complex glory! Poor kids!
I'm still amazed that any of us has ever managed to do it!

    Anyhow, I totally agree with the rest of what you said:


>You must imagine
> how difficult it must be, since it took you several years to achieve it
> thoroughly. Moreover, you were literally immersed with the language you
had to
> learn, while it's not the case with other languages, and a fortiori with a
> brand new IAL! And finally, your brains were malleable at that time. They
are
> not that much now (as seen in your insistance in refusing to understand
that
> this list is not for auxlang propaganda), and learning another language is
a
> difficult task, as has been proved for centuries.

    Andreas Johansson wrote:

> I've never heard of data
> suggesting that anglophone children has later speech development on
> average that children learning other languages, f'rinstance.
    Me neither! And I have close to three decades of clinical experience in
the field!

    And finally, in answer to what Andrew himself 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 can't argue with one's beliefs.
    As for myself, I happen to be convinced that languages
serve quite a few more functions in one's life other than acting
as a tool.
    But even assuming that we are talking about tools:
how can any craftsman who's actually _used_
tools call them "merely"?  Not in my experience!
Not even when newer types of tools are taken up
to replace the older ones. People who _really_ use them
generally have a lot of respect for their tools,  and that
includes, IMHO, their linguistic tools!

Dan Sulani
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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a

A word is an awesome thing.