Re: Language superiority, improvement, etc.

At 01:00 13/10/98 EDT, you wrote:
>Leo Moser adds some comment:
>
>In a message Mike Farris wrote:
>
>>  Actually there is no conflict. As a practicing linguist, I can say the
>>  following: All natural languages are of more or less equal complexity and
>>  efficiency in their sum total.
>
>I know this is the perceived wisdom. And it was surely an important
>attitude after the 19th Century tendency to talk of "primative languages"
>etc. Yet I find it hard to believe in theory. Let's imagine that some dialect
>area of Japan had had a different political history (we could take Okinawa
>or an imaginary "independent state of Nagano") and had opted to go with
>romanization. Wouldn't the resultant language be "of less complexity"
>than that of the rest of Japan?
>
>>  However, each language tends to do some things better than others. In other
>>  words, anything you can say in one language, you can say in any other.
>
>Only in a most general sense. I'm not sure everything is really
>translatable.
>
>>  But
>>  what's easy and elegant to say in one language, is convoluted and difficult
>>  in another (and vice versa). The two spoken languages I know best
>>  (American)English and Polish definitely have different strengths and
>>  weaknesses, but overall which is better??? The question is meaningless,
>>  you'd have to define "better" first (and if you think that's easy, just try
>>  it).
>
>Fully agree.
>
>>  One might point out the fact that English doesn't have adjective agreement
>>  (for number and gender and case in Polish) or cases (six or seven in Polish
>>  depending on how you count) or grammatical gender (five, six or seven,
>again
>>  depending on how you count). This might make English look simpler, more
>>  efficient etc. But (big but) Polish is easier in some important ways than
>>  Enlgish, esp. in complementation (how you put more than one verb in a
>>  sentence) and in subordination (how you join sentences together).
>>
>>  Also I constantly have the perplexing experience of being asked for an
>>  extremely useful word in one language for the other and have to confess
>that
>>  there is none or finding that a clever turn of phrase in one language
>either
>>  sounds dumb or just makes no sense in the other.
>
>Yes.
>
>>  A curious by-product of this is I often find it difficult to describe Poles
>>  using American vocabulary and also find it difficult to describe Americans
>>  with Polish vocabulary (another American living in Poland who could also
>>  speak Polish once told me she had the same problem).
>>
>>  So, in summary. Every language handles some things well and other things
>>  less well, but when you add up the plusses and minuses, they come out
>pretty
>>  even.
>>  Amikel,
>>  Mike Farris
>
>I've said much the same in the past, but now have doubts. Do we
>say this on the basis of empirical data, or on the basis of
>logical theory?
>
>This would be very difficult to establish empirically.
>
>In terms of logic, I have serious doubts we can say this.
>
>Let's split English into two imaginary (theoretical) languages.
>They are different only in one spells a word "through," the other
>spells it "thru."  Is not the latter going to be slightly "better" i.e.,
>more efficient and more logical?
>
        You're speaking of spelling here, not of language. That's not the
same thing at all. Spellings are decided inventions of people, so we can put
them on a scale of efficiency. Languages are different, they aren't decided
inventions (except conlangs, but we're speaking here of natlangs), so our
scales of qualities don't apply here.

>Or say there are two imaginary versions of English, one has
>the word "tomato" the other calls the same fruit "poison-apple."
>Would not the latter be an "inferior language," because it would
>foster a tendency not to use a valuable dietary product?
>
        To call a sort of fruit 'poison-apple', you must have a reason.
Here, we speak of vocabulary, more exactly (for 'poison-apple') conscious
invention of vocabulary. Obviously 'poison-apple' isn't good to name
tomatoes, but it can't be anything else than a consious invention, so it's
not language.

>Or imagine versions of English where:
>1.  The word "awful" did not have contradictory meanings --
>2.  "Tag questions" were no more complex than in French
        Complexity doesn't mean difficulty. I'm French and don't use the
tags only because I don't use 'n'est-ce pas ?' in French, not because they
are difficult (in fact, their formation is logical).

>3. The past and present of "to read" were not spelled the same.
        It's only a historical accident, maybe it will change into a century.

>4. Plurals were as regular as in Spanish.
        Regular plurals in Spanish are contrabalanced by complexity of
conjugations. If you compare languages on small details, some are more or
less logical, more or less regular, etc... But if you compare languages on
the whole, can you say the same thing? I'm not so sure. You can compare how
near they are from one another, but not their 'efficiency' (how could you
define it by the way?). Finally, even on small details you can't sometimes
compare languages. For example, which language is more 'efficient': Spanish
with a regular plural or Mandarin with no plural at all? It can't be
compared. Languages can't be compared in terms of efficiency, only in terms
of proximity from one another.

>  ... etc.
>
>If small matters CAN lead to differences in language ease and
>efficiency,  it seems likely that we are being inaccurate to say
>all languages are the same in their usability in effective communication
>
>Best regards,                          Leo Moser
>
>
                                                Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

homepage: http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepage/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html