Re: Universal Translation Language

Gary Shannon wrote:

> > I have grave doubts whether it is possible to eliminate all
> >ambiguity.  Classical Yiklamu has possibly the largest vocabulary of all
> >conlangs and was design specifically to be as unambiguous as possible as
> >regards lexicon.  But I suspect one skilled in its use could still be
> >umbiguous if s/he wished to be.
>
> Ambiguity is an essential part of any language.  What would poetry be
> without deliberate ambuguity.  How would you translate "'Twas brillig in the
> slithy toves..." into an unambiguous IAL, since the whole piece is _meant_
> to be ambiguous, and would lose all its "meaning" if it were disambiguated.
Actually, all those words are portmanteau-words (like "smog" from "smoke"
and "fog"), and so if you know the vocabularly, it's not ambiguous at all. He
just coined a lot of them all at once, that's all.

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
AIM: Deuterotom ICQ: 4315704
<http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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