Re: Language superiority, improvement, etc.

Nik Taylor wrote:

> Charles wrote:
> > OK, there is a real political problem with that line
> > of thought; races really are equal. Nonetheless ...
>
> But how do you know?
Okay, first off, Charles was misinterpreting, IMO, the originalquote.  Th=
at said:

> >I consider the "all languages are equally good" argument
> >very silly.
> Yeah, about as silly as the "all races are equal" argument!!
The way I read it, the writer of the second line here was saying
rather that there is nothing silly about the issue, and that it is on
the contrary something that should be taken with some degree
of seriousness.  The point was NOT that races aren't equal,
they are;  the point was that it was not a silly thing to talk about
them being so, likewise with languages.

> > How? It is a logical argument. Things that differ in detail
> > (human languages) can hardly be said to be the same in total.
>
> Okay, then "all men are created equal" must be thrown out.  All men are
> NOT created identical, therefore, they are NOT created equal.  I don't
> know about you, but I'm not so sure about that argument.
Look, the phrasing that Thomas Jefferson used was clearly meant,taken in =
the context of
the political theories of John Locke and those
of Montesquieu inter alia, to refer to one part of the human existence:
his rights as they relate to his political, communal existance with other
human beings.   Jefferson *never* implied by his words that all men
are created *identical*, but only that with respect to political rights,
they are equal before each other and their Creator.  It is patently false
that all are identical in all respects, but we are supposed to give all t=
he
same *political* identity before the law. Thus it was very much
a relative position, vis-a-vis the rest of the possible facets of mankind.
That's all that was implied.

But Charles's argument still holds, insofar as he was arguing an
absolutist position, where things which are absolutely different
 in detail (e.g., human beings) cannot be said to be all part of
one big *identical* group (what we might call humanity).  The
group is an aggregate of individuals, and so the group will only
be the same the extent to which  the individuals that compose it are
the same (e.g., all humans have DNA within a certain, definable
biological spectrum).

> > I once mentioned J. Guy's observations about Sakao
> > and Tolomako (or some such language pair) where one
> > was clearly better than the other in every respect.
>
> Clearly better to whom?  I'm sure that another person might come up wit=
h
> the opposite conclusion (especially the speakers of the "inferior"
> language)
Agreed.  Any attempt to use terms of value judgment areat base flawed, an=
d are outside the
scientific realm of doing
things.

> > I don't know whether most experts agree, maybe they do.
> > But for now I'll just go on believing it is possible
> > to build much better languages than today's natlangs.
>
> Build, sure.  But that doesn't mean that natlangs aren't roughly equal.
I would even deny the ability to build -- there is *no* basis on
which one can make such a language any more than another
on the macrolinguistic scale.  It's critical to understand that
dichotomy (the one between microlinguistic and macrolinguistic
issues), because it's the difference between life and death
of his position.


=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

"Schlie=DFt den heil'gen Zirkel dichter,
  Schw=F6rt bei diesem goldnen Wein,
Dem Gel=FCbde treu zu sein,
  Schw=F6rt es bei dem Sternenrichter!"
   - _Ode an die Freude_, J. F. von Schiller
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

=0D