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Re: the smallest dictionary

From:Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
Date:Tuesday, June 21, 2005, 18:36
Hallo!

David Fernandez-Nieto wrote:

> i am interested in languages (conlangs and natlangs) that have > specially small (and complete) dictionaries. can you inform about > it. thanks.
First of all, welcome to the list! All natlangs I know of (and I think *all* natlangs) have at least one open class of lexemes - i.e., new words can readily be coined for new concepts. And even languages of "primitive" societies have thousands of words. So if you want especially small vocabularies, look for conlangs with closed vocabularies, such as Toki Pona. However, such languages either have serious difficulties expressing more than a limited set of concepts, or make use of clumsy circumlocutions, or both. If you ask me: small vocabularies don't make sense because the world is not simple enough for that. Greetings, Jörg.