Re: Introducing myself, and several questions

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jörg Rhiemeier" <joerg_rhiemeier@...>

>> > Damian Yerrick <tepples@...> wrote:
>> >
>> >> My name is Damian, and I'm a conlanger.
Sally:
>> This does sound like a twelve step program, doesn't it! :)
>
> What is a twelve step program?
Like Alcoholics Anonymous.  The ritual is to announce yourself this way:
"Hi, my name is Joe Smith, and I'm an alcoholic."  Group: "Hi, Joe!"  It was
a poor, tasteless joke, so please forgive me. :(  (There are other "12 step
programs" for other addictions/problems/enthusiasms, etc.)

>> > I find naturalistic conlangs (i.e., conlangs that look like natlangs,
>> > with a sense of historicity) beautiful and conlangs that give away
>> > their artificiality at first sight ugly, but there are people around
>> > here who have a different taste.
>>
>> So Jörg, what conlangs give their artificiality away?  There are so many
>> features of a language that could considered "artificial."  Many of the
>> linguistic scholars of glossolalia were so sure they could identify the
>> artificial aspects of that linguistic practice by noting the 1) open
>> syllables, 2) reduced phonology, 3) echoism, etc. that we find in
>> Hawaiian,
>> for instance.  An over regularity of grammar?
>
> It is not easy to say, but an extreme regularity of phonology, grammar
> and word formation looks artificial, so does, for example, a language
> which superimposes some sort of grammatical categories onto the IPA
> chart.
Now what would that be? Curious.

>  The worst offenders are philosophical languages and closed-
> vocabulary schemes.
Yes.  Wilkins allowed no room for neologism.  But as someone else remarked,
no language that intends to have things to say in general about the world
can have a closed-vocabulary--not even a philosophical language (should it
ever be put to use).  If you couldn't neologize, then you would just produce
clumsy circumlocutions.

>> If I were ever to invent a new language, don't hold your breath! I would
>> probably make its words far more monosyllabic; it would be inflected with
>> a
>> syntax that expresses topic and focus.  Or I would invent a Teonivar who
>> invents a philosophical language.  And have it fail, or taken up by
>> Rrordaly's mimes.
>
> Who are Rrordaly's mimes?
Long story; best for the conculture group.  A species of slave, basically.
Rrordaly is a world and an enemy to Nenddeyly, where the Teonim reside when
they aren't escaping into ours.

>> However, I might add that there is some research being done into the
>> aesthetics of western language by no other than the Cornish Language
>> revivalists; I talked to one at the Berkeley conference I attended two
>> years
>> ago.  I don't know if this was his particular bailiwick, or one that has
>> a
>> larger calling.  But language aesthetic, especially in the reconstruction
>> of
>> language, or the creation of a dead language,
Great Jumping Jehosephat!  Did I write this after dinner?  I'm usually
comatose then.  Or late at night?  I meant the "recreation" of a dead
language.  I suppose any one of us could create a *dead* language, but
that's not what I meant.

 >> >> Specifically, is the narrator's description of the language of
>> >> the Eloi in chapter 5 of HG Wells's _The_Time_Machine_ unnatural?
>> >>
>> >> "Either I missed some subtle point or their language was
>> >> excessively simple - almost exclusively composed of concrete
>> >> substantives and verbs. There seemed to be few, if any, abstract
>> >> terms, or little use of figurative language. Their sentences
>> >> were usually simple and of two words, and I failed to convey
>> >> or understand any but the simplest propositions."
>> >
>> > Sounds like a pidgin.
>>
>> Sounds, rather,  like that South American tribe whose name I can't
>> remember;
>> I have it on the tip of my tongue.  Their language was also almost devoid
>> of
>> abstractions, and they showed an inability to calculate, as well, i.e.,
>> to
>> think in abstractions.  We even discussed it about a year ago.
>
> Pirahã is the name.  I could believe the story if it was set in a
> Eurasian relic area and involved the speakers of that language
> having bony ridges above their eyes and mixed offspring between
> them and normal humans being sterile etc., because then it would be
> a candidate for a Neanderthal or Homo erectus survival.  However,
> it is in the wrong location for that, and I am pretty sure that
> it is a hoax.
A hoax, huh?  Hadn't thought of that.  But what would be the incentive of
creating such a fiction?  Isn't it more interesting to consider that there
are pockets of Homo Sapiens that do feature "alternative" cognitive skills?
I think I read something about how the Piraha~ exhibit certain traits that
may be due to overbreeding and isolation.  They may have evolved no need (or
lost it) for history, raconteurship, or calculation.  I remember asking
whether any study had been done of a Pirah child being brought up in a
different environment, interested in knowing whether there was a genetic
disposition towards discalculus, non-abstract thinking, etc., or if it was
just cultural.

Not sure I am convinced that these features can only be assigned to
Neanderthals or Homo Erectus.  They seem to suggest a regression rather than
a lack of development.   And who really knows how cognitively developed the
Neanderthals were?  BTW, latest Scientific American has an article on the
"hobbits" of Flores again.  We talked about that last year.  It seems that
homo sapiens can go through quite a number of physical and mental
adaptations at the group level--given circumstances.

Sal

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