Re: Language superiority, improvement, etc.

Nik Taylor wrote:

> Gerald Koenig wrote:
> > I hope your are correct, otherwise I am a damned fool for trying to make
> > NGL a better language than English.
>
> First off, you're dealing with an artificial language.  A sword is far
> better than a naturally sharp stone.  Secondly, it's only better by your
> values.  As Douglas Koller pointed out, is Japanese "better" than NGL
> because it encodes the relative status of speaker and addressee?  Is it
> "worse" because it makes you do that?  Just because a language is better
> in some aspects, doesn't mean it's better overall.  It also contains
> features that are worse.  And besides, any language, even NGL, encodes a
> specific worldview.  I may think that the worldview encoded in NGL is
> inferior to that in English, or I may think it's superior, but that
> doesn't make it inferior or superior.  Since there's no objective
> measure of superiority/inferiority for languages, we have to assume that
> they're roughly equal.
Since, as you mention above, artificial languages are generally the topic of
conlang and auxlang. So, if the discussion is kept to that category, then is
there not such a thing as one being "better" than the other(s)? The question
seems to be, "which of these AIL's are capable of being used for communication
across the most natlang barriers with the greatest of ease in learning time,
the simplest grammar, etc.. Certainly if a certain language could communicate
across, let's say, a half dozen or more language barriers with virtually no
previous study by the participants, versus a language that required lots of
study and could only cross one language barrier at a time and only to someone
who had studied that AIL in particular, then do we not have here a criteria
for "better"? i.e. Better at fulfilling the job hoped for, i.e.: to bring ease
of communication to the most people at one time across the most language
barriers possible at one time. One, let's say, that could right now reach
upwards of a billion people with written and spoken messages, would be better
in that category over one that could reach maybe 10-50,000 people who are
students only of that AIL. Such a language exists today, but for some reason
it is ignored. Sometimes something can do too good a job since it seems to be
human nature to resist anything categorized as "good, better, best". But, if
it does exist, is it not "better" if it fulfills that job better than any in
use or on the drawings boards now? But, if we say, well it does not sound as
good as French or Italian, than that becomes a personal preference which
cannot be classified as "better" for everyone.

But, to compare Japanese against English, for example, as a means of
communication with the Japanese, then obviously, Japanese is "better" than
English. On the other hand, which language do you suppose would be better in
communicating with Americans, Australians, Englishmen, or some South Africans?
Why, English would be "better".

Is not the real question "better at doing what?" versus better because of
"sonal quality, size of vocabulary, number of grammar rules, number of
speakers, etc.?

Hope all is good for you,
Bob, x+