Re: Most developed conlang

Hello,

  <<
  I haven't actually done it yet, but I've considered making a conlang for
  describing geometry in 4 (spatial) dimensions, as perceived by a
  (hypothetical) 4D being.
  >>

 Interesting. Unfortunatly, it seems to me that languages (natlangs, at least)
don't even do so well in 3D. In an outdoor theater (no backs on seats, seats
are stuck together on each row) I once encountered the situation where someone
said "scoot up" and the people nearby had all sorts of interpretations.

 Geometry? I'm not sure if there is a good way to describe 3D polyhedra. Are
our conworld inhabitants doomed to reciting Schlafli symbols
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schl%C3%A4fli_symbol)? (On second thought, that
might not be so bad...)

 I find other spacial dimensions fascinating. 4D people can walk in 3D, or
"flying" in 3D terms. They might look "up" at the birds and wish they had even
more mobility.Sometimes I feel that fish have more freedom than anything else.
They can truly enjoy travel in three dimensions (compared to a bird, which has
to land on a branch some time or another).

  -John

"H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...> wrote:  On Fri, Apr 20, 2007 at 02:40:11PM -0400, Ben Haanstra wrote:
[...]
> to go back to most developed conlang,
>
> I'm actually wondering which language has it's uses. I mean specifally
> that you use it to simplify things in the world, like a language which
> helps you at math or something, or to express things that aren't
> really easy in your motherstongue or even impossible.
[...]

I haven't actually done it yet, but I've considered making a conlang for
describing geometry in 4 (spatial) dimensions, as perceived by a
(hypothetical) 4D being. I've dabbled quite a bit in exploring what a 4D
world analogous to ours would look like, and it's quickly become obvious
that there is the need for, at the very least, a whole new set of words
to describe absolute & relative directions, proximity, positional
relationships (over, under, beside, behind, in front of, etc.),
locations, size (long/short, narrow/wide, ...), etc..

Not to mention a major makeover of spatial perception which indirectly
result from having an additional spatial dimension:

- Cities don't need to be divided into blocks, 'cos a grid of roads do
  not segment the land into disjoint sections;

- There's no need for bridges across rivers or narrow lakes 'cos you can
  just walk "around" them;

- Ropes are useless 'cos knots in them are topologically equivalent to
  unknots in 4D (no more tangled mass of wires behind your computer
  desk!), but 2D sheets being much more useful in this respect (and also
  much harder for us 3D beings to understand, as they involve such
  things as knotted spheres and Klein bottles, which are so unfamiliar
  to us).

- The amazing expressiveness of a 4D face...

.... and plenty of other fun stuff so difficult to describe in our
3D-centric language.

Of course, no conlang is complete without a conculture to go with it
IMNSHO, :-) so I've also sketched out some rough ideas of 4D beings to
inhabit my 4D world with, and to speak this conlang. But I haven't had
the time to actually sit down and work this thing out.


--T



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