Re: Language comparison
| From: | Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, January 10, 2005, 1:21 |
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On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 16:54:45 -0800, Sai Emrys <saizai@...> wrote:
>> What is this "overcompensative backlash"?
>
> That which I've heard repeated here - that all languages, even
> theoretical new ones, are completely equal.
I think the deal is that there are a thousand criteria, possibly more, by
which a human language can be judged. Each language rates better or worse
in various categories. What somebody has to do is come up with a
comprehensive, indisputable weighting of those categories, and a scoring
scheme. That task is difficult, as the requirements on a language vary
based on the needs of every single individual speaker, in every single
sicrumstance in which they find themselves.
I cannot concieve of a single, general test of over-all quality. Not that
I cannot think what this test might be, but that I cannot intellectually
accept that such a test could exist.
Thus, the quality of every human language is immeasurable, and probably
indenumerable, and as far as I'm concerned, all immeasurable values are
indistinguishable.
That will be my final word on the subject. Please, please, please, take
this off list. Discussions of optimality are well and good, but we're
getting beyond discussion and into dogma, and that is never fun for
someone outside the conversation to read. Kill it.
Paul