Re: NonVerbal Conlang?

Sai Emrys wrote:
> On 6/27/06, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
>
>> Indeed it is - and it was, I agree, clear in the poster's mail that "a
>> language without verbs" was not meant, which is why I thought it meant
>> "a language without words." I thought 'Is such an animal possible? Are
>> all these examples really wordless (I assumed some were)? Looks as tho
>> this could be interesting.'
>
>
> If one generalized 'word' to 'symbol' (to include signs or
> ideographs),
'Word' itself is not as easy to define as is often thought. I would
hesitate, tho, to include ideographs (at least in the strict sense of
the term).

> then isn't that tautologically "no", because part of the
> usual definition of language (as given in Ling 101 texts at least)
> that it must include a component of arbitrary symbols?
>
> Of course, being me, that's not a good enough answer... but I've tried
> to think about how one might (years ago) and haven't had any success.
Yep - I cannot think how a wordless language could work, except...

> The closest I can come is where you muddy the boudary of a symbol, as
> in the 'fusional' version of my NLF2DWS ideas,
Exactly - I wondered if Mike had in mind conlangs in which the author
has attempted to convey whole concepts as units by multi-channel
communication.

> but even with that you
> could argue that there exist base forms that are words, and you're
> just fusing them in weird ways.
Indeed - and in the sort of thing I mentioned above I feel there word
exist forms that are words, fused in weird ways. But it might have been
fun thinking around this.
===============================================
Dan Sulani wrote:
[snip]
 >    OTOH, in ancient langs where they didn't divide the text up into
words,
 > maybe the connection would be weaker.

Maybe.

 >    Mathematics is a really interesting case, if one is talking about
 > bilinguals or multilinguals. If I, who am bilingual in English and
Hebrew,
 > see a simple problem in arithmetic, I can't immediately solve it.
First, I
 > must decide which lang I am parsing the numbers in. Once I decide which
 > lang
 > I am using, only then can I proceed to solve the problem in that
lang! The
 > number symbols themselves may be international, but there seems to be a
 > close connection to verbal processing when using them.

Interesting. I am told that some mathematicians can look at mathematical
formulae and do the math(s) without the need for any mental verbalizing.
I don't know how true that is. Certainly, I would need to process them
verbally.

 >    OTOH, people who suffer from severe motoric dysfunction sometimes are
 > given a board with symbols on it. They can (laboriously) point to a
symbol
 > to indicate common wants and needs to a caregiver (food, drink, medicine,
 > bathroom, etc.) The link between the intention and the pointing to a
symbol
 > doesn't seem like it necessarily goes via verbalization. (But then again,
 > little kids, before they acquire language, do it all the time: intend and
 > point.)

They do, don't they? Some people seem to carry the intend-and-point
habit over in certain situations long after they have acquired language.

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"A mind which thinks at its own expense will always
interfere with language."         J.G. Hamann, 1760



--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"A mind which thinks at its own expense will always
interfere with language."         J.G. Hamann, 1760

Reply