Re: CHAT: Parallelism

On Sat, 12 Jun 1999, Carlos Thompson wrote:

> > The ideas that I had seemed a little lame... For example one could have
> two
> > languages, one in which each word consisted only of vowels, the other in
> > which each word consisted only of consonants. The latter would be
> > syllabified, and you could stick any vowel into each syllable. Then, when
> > speaking, the vowels would say one thing and the consonants another.
> >
> > A similar way would be to have one language which used certain sounds,
> > probably front articulations, and another which used back articulations.
> > They would have to be arranged so that the two did not interfere with each
> > other. Then you use the two simultaneously. A little difficult,
> probably...
> >
> > Looking at the problem in a slightly less practical way, consider this:
> Look
> > at language as a means of dealing with abstracted concepts. Without the
> > constraint of it needing to be written or spoken, how could you design and
> > distribute these concepts to allow their use in a parallel fashion? (That
> is
> > a very open-ended question, I know...) Consider it, for example, as a
> > language used only for thinking. It removes many of the constraints, but
> > raises the design standards to a great degree.
> >
> > Any ideas?
>
> Have you ever tried to write and speak about unrelated thinks
> simultanoeusly... not that is imposible but is difficult.  I've tried to
> sign and talk but doesn't seam too easy either unless signs follow words or
> words follow signs, but I think an approach of oral+signed language is
> better than one of two language articulating simultaneously in the mouth.
Of course, that problem would be null for our alien friends.

Have the language a mixture of signed, spoken, and tonal, with each level
being a parallel channel of communication.