Re: The Naturalist Manifesto revisited

John Quijada wrote:

  > As for presenting a philosophical language as the language of a
fictional
> group, I personally have always been disappointed that the various versions
> of "Vulcan" (the Star Trek culture) that have been offered up were not
> philosophical languages or loglangs.  Given the nature of Serak's logical
> revolution which completely transformed Vulcan society (according to Star
> Trek "history"), you'd think they'd include a *conscious* redesign of their
> language to match their new ultra-logical philosophy and worldview.  Just a
> thought.
>
> --John Quijada
I don't know if this would apply to Vulcans, but Sangari learn the
principles of logic after they've acquired a language. Their native
languages are colored to some degree by their philosophical traditions,
but they're not necessarily "logical" in the sense of languages like
Lojban or Loglan. Logical thinking is an acquired skill. Certainly the
idea of a philosophical or logical language as a language of a culture
like the Vulcans of the Star Trek era or the typical Sangari is an
appealing one. But I think it would be more of an acquired language,
like Latin in the Catholic church, or Mandarin in non-Mandarin-speaking
areas of China. Of course, conscious redesign of language isn't entirely
unknown in fiction (consider George Orwell's Newspeak), and I can see
that the idea would be appealing to some groups of Vulcans or Sangari.
But whether an actual philosophical or logical language could be
acquired as a first language is questionable.

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