Re: concepts of Babel text

On Thu, 3 May 2001, Pavel A. da Mek wrote:

> But the Babel text describes only what happened,
> not why it happened nor if that was good or bad.
> Miscellaneous concepts may be seen behind this story.
> Some extremistic auxlangers maybe can interpret
> splitting of languages as a harm done by God to men,
> but most of artlangers here will consider it undoubtedly as a gift.
It describes what happened *in a specific culture*. If one's language
comes with a culture of its own, it may be the case that not only did
it (or anything like it) never happen in the history of that culture,
but it *could* never have happened because the premises are too
different.

In Valdyas, for instance, it's ridiculous to think that all the world
ever spoke only one language, because it's self-evident that if you
go to the next village, the people talk different from you, and if
you travel for ten days, you'll have trouble understanding the people
there.

A world that speaks the same language all over is, for the average
Valdyan, (a) science fiction (not even myth, because myths are true
stories about the gods and this obviously can't be true because no
god would stand for it) and (b) boring. Getting to know other people
is fun, and the way people speak is part of them.

The gift of the gods is variety, but right from the beginning, not as
a splitting-up of unity.

   Irina

--
           Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
irina@valdyas.org (myself)     http://www.valdyas.org/irina/valdyas

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