Re: Four things: Was: Comparison of philosophical languages

Sally:
> Four things:
>
> 1)  And, please remind me what an Engelang is, how it differs from a
> loglang, and what its assumptions are that we "artlangers" are "contentedly
> blind" to.  :)
>
> And Rosta uarlo krespr:
> > He is not so naive as to suppose his ideas are appropriate
> > to a discussion of natural languages, and he is right to
> > suppose that discussion of conlangs is the appropriate
> > forum. But he doesn't realize that he is tacitly working
> > under a set of engelangy assumptions and that he is
> > addressing a body of artlangers who are contentedly blind
> > to those assumptions
> >
> > --And
I refer the Right Honourable Lady to the answer given by my
learned colleague the member for Manhattan.

> 2)  This is the major criticism I have of the "descriptive" word, which is
> a feature of the kind of philosophical language that Andrew is proposing
[...]
> >France = tocaty = "proper noun middle artistic country"
> >Italy = nacaty = "proper noun religious artistic country"
> >Argentina = panuty = "proper noun cold random country"
> >Egypt = byfity = "proper noun dry old country"
> >Iraq = fibyty = "proper noun old dry country"
> >Christianity = ybonate = "noun wet religious organization"
> >Islam = yminate = "noun political religious organization"
> >Judaism = yfinate = "noun old religious organization"
> >Mormonism = yfunate = "noun new religious organization"
> >pope = ytenatu = "noun top religious manager"
> >Poland = jytoty = "proper noun dirty middle country"
[...]
> Why is Italy more religious than France?  Or
> France more artistic than Italy?  Is it that stereotype of l'artist et son
> beret?  Why is Poland dirty?  Far better just to take the name of the
> country, as someone suggested, and adopt it into the language.
I agree. I don't have this problem with Livagian, because the rationale
for its names for countries are concultural rather than engelangy.

> On a lesser level, describing root vegetables according to a personal or
> cultural bias based on a description does the same thing.
I find the idea of a language without cultural bias very hard to
comprehend and not desirable. My ideal conlang would be strongly
biased towards my own culture.

> I get the impression from And, who keeps invoking my description of the
> poor man's project as the "usual objections," :)  that he thinks I'm
> dismissing it.  I have issues, that's all, about its efficacy
Fair enough. My interpellation was just a move to make sure that your
valid objections didn't lead to the inference of outright dismissibility.

> I'm not saying that natural languages are not without their cultural biases
> Far from it.  But a perfect language (an impossibility), and especially a
> universal one, should strive to correct those faults, at least in part.
> All naming, all language, will reflect an ethnic vantage point.  Not to
> know that seems fatal to claims of perfection or universality
I agree about the impossibility of universality. But, as you know, I
don't agree about perfection. But maybe we understand perfection
differently. As I see it, it is like when we choose a spouse. It
seems to me entirely sane for you to believe that your husband
is the perfect man, and to have elected him from the millions of
other eligible men because of that judgement. He's probably not
the perfect spouse for me, but that's neither here nor there,
for he satisfies your quest for perfection. [I intend this as
a hypothetical and not intrusive example.]

> 3)  On the issue of word boundaries in language:  For me, understanding ANY
> spoken foreign language, whether it be French or German (languages seen to
> be fairly different in their use of word boundaries--witness the famous
> liaison in French, or the infamous initial mutation of Irish and Welsh), is
> initially difficult.  When spoken quickly, even Spanish, which I've spent
> most of my early years learning, runs together for me.  I am much better at
> reading and speaking foreign languages than I am in comprehending them,
> especially on TV or worse, on the radio, where I can't see the person's
> lips move.  It takes far more constant practice for me to be able to
> understand a foreign language, and it's not word boundaries that bother me
> so much as the phrase boundaries.  If I can get the phrases, the words will
> seem to fit into them.  This may simply be the way my brain is organized,
> and the lack of opportunity (I was only one year in Wales, and only two
> years in Switzerland, alas, before I was whisked back to the States).  But
> I don't see how any invented language can fix that failing of mine.  In any
> new language, I feel transparent, as though the words are arrows and flying
> right through me instead of lodging in my comprehension
The unbogus argument in favour of unambiguous word boundaries is not
that it assists in real-time comprehension but rather that it is a
necessary ingredient in a language free from ambiguity (in the technical
sense of that word -- multiple definite and distinct meanings for the
same string).

--And.

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