Re: Language superiority, improvement, etc.

Michael A. Rouse wrote:

> If the ultimate point of language is to convey information and > communicate,
Please define "communicate".

> then the best language for an individual is the one that allows him, in the
> finite span of his lifetime, to communicate and receive the maximum amount
> of information.
Doesn't language have other, *very* important functions? ["Nice weather,
isn't it?""Yes, it certainly is."] exchanges, IMHO, don't really convey
a whole lot of information beyond stating the obvious, but they do serve
a definite, useful purpose in fostering social cohesion. People in
emotional stress often need to "talk it out" - the message itself may be
totally illucid, convoluted, and devoid of any real "information" -
indeed, the receiver of the "message" hardly need do anything other than
*be* there to "listen" - but language plays a crucial psychological
function here. Or in a similar vein, prayer. Logically speaking, you
don't need to *say* a prayer since God ought to know the scoop already,
and yet people pray aloud or mouth the words - where is the "transfer of
information" or "communication" here? Talking to oneself. Talking to an
animal. Talking to an inanimate object ("Damn you, start!"). Und so
weiter.

>To
> be fair, an equally valid definition would be: The best human language is
> the one that maximizes the probability of survival of the human species at
> each point in time.
One wonders what women on the list think of these definitions.

> Now, if we could only prove that the set of "swiftest communication" and
> the set of "most survivable communication" have an overlapping subset --
> that's the area *I* would claim contains the best language around.
> the same time being as concise as possible for fluent native speakers of
> the language, would go a long way to making an extremely good conlang, even
> if not exactly perfect.
In some of the above examples I've given, I don't see where swiftness,
survivableness, and concision serve any purpose.

Kou