Re: Language comparison

On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 22:53:13 -0800, Sai Emrys <saizai@...> wrote:
...
>I meant "primitive" as in those used by modern-day African tribes,
...

This view is the one of the old European tradition of "linguistics", where
Latin was considered to be the supreme language and heathen languages were
assumed to be primitive babbling. When the Europeans colonialism began, the
Europeans were amazed that the languages of less developed cultures could be
even more complex than Latin.


(I'm rearranging the criteria you suggest could distinguish the qualities of
languages:)

>* little effort to use
If there were human languages that would require more effort to talk, then
they would have died out in the many thousands of years of language evolution.


>* minimal loss in translation from thoughts,
I don't believe that there's a "thought language" first (or "mentalese" as
Pinker calls it IIRC) that would afterwards be translated into a "language
language". I believe in the following connection of thought and language:
Language is the form that thought takes (or must take) if we want to
communicate it. Language is not a "translation" of thought, but merely a
form of thought used for a specific purpose.

This position goes back to Wilhelm von Humboldt. Interestingly, he also
believed that languages did actually differ in quality, but I don't know
what criteria he used. It's to be found in his book "Über die
Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaus und seinen Einfluss auf die
geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts" ('about the heterogeneity of
language construction and its influence [of language construction] on the
intellectual development of mankind'), which is said to be one of the most
interesting books on languages (and one of the first). Maybe I should try
again to read it! :)


>minimum possible potential for confusion between users
>* semantically dense (i.e., minimal wasted space [bounded by necessary
>redundancy)
Language is constantly improving into two orthogonal directions: maximal
denseness and minimal confusion (if it's too dense, the communication
fails). These are among the main motors of language change (apart from
inventiveness). Again, if these maximums/minimums would exist, languages
would evolve towards them. However, there's no such directionality in the
evolution of language.


>* as clear/ambiguous as desired
>* possible to carry multiple meanings (if desired)
Unlike in computer "languages" (which is a misleading metaphora in this
discussion) or Logics, meaning in natural languages is always flexible.


>* writing system legible from any direction / inversion (e.g. flipped,
>or on other side of a window)
All writing systems can be read from any direction/inversion. We're just
more used to read in a specific way. If you would have learnt reading in a
class with a single book so that all had to sit around it in a circle, then
you'd be able to read equally fluent from any direction.


>* writing system that fully uses its medium (e.g., non-serial use of 2d
>space)
The aim of writing is not to fully use the paper, but to represent speech,
which is essencially bidimensional.


>* multimodal - maximally using whatever means of information transfer
>available
Face-to-face communication does this always. It involves rhythm and melody
and any movements we make.


>* usable in any given environment/situation (e.g., underwater, loud
>rooms, with hands full, with mouth full, etc.)
All speech organs have a more original function that is different from
producing speech. When that original function is used, you can't produce
speech. All natural languages are either sound languages (respiratory
system, mouth) or sign languages (arms, hands, face, body). There are no
languages that use either.


>* advanced version: carry multiple meanings, some of which are only
>understandable if you have a different mode of access (e.g., a more
>advanced version of shaking your head when you're talking, such that
>hearing-only listeners don't get the "this is false" message)
Why should any language keep its speakers from showing what they think about
the facticity of what they're uttering? I can't imagine a language where it
wouldn't be possible to show through intonation (or some other device) that
you are ironical about what you're saying or very convinced or very sceptic etc.


>* corollary: not overspecified (e.g., ubiquitous gender when wasteful
>of space or otherwise undesired)
>* runtime encryption (if wanted)
I don't understand these two (they sound pretty much like computerese to me).

gry@s:
j. 'mach' wust

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