Re: Language superiority, improvement, etc.

Nik Taylor wrote:

> Quite true.  Try translating "wishful thinking" into another language,
> for example.  I read of a contest once to find an adequete translation
> of that into Italian.  There was no adequate translation.  Sometimes
> words can be translated roughly, like schadenfreude (sp?) = "malicious
> pleasure", but it's not quite that.
But the only reason Schadenfreude is only roughly translated as"malicious pleasure" is
that English speakers are not accustomed to
making the subtle distinction the word presupposes. How often
do we talk about a person as taking "shameful pleasure" in something?
Not that much, as we have other close, but not identical, meanings
to attach to such people.

> Okay, it's not true that all languages are identical, BUT, since there
> are no languages or dialects that are differ in only a few things, you
> can't say that one language is superior or inferior, because there's no
> objective basis.  Let's say that all languages are in the same range of
> complexity/usefullness.  How's that?
I would say rather that  it is not possible to determine at all one way or
the other.  We might assume that all languages are roughly equally
complex, but we have no means by which to evaluate our assumption.
It will stand as just that.  It is merely a working hypothesis, like gravity,
which happens to fit the data better than otherwise (just like gravity explains
more methodologically than Aristotelian physics and its "inate tendencies"
does).


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

"Why should men quarrel here, where all possess /
as much as they can hope for by success?"
 - Quivera, _The Indian Queen_ by Henry Purcell
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