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Re: Language superiority, improvement, etc.

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Wednesday, October 14, 1998, 5:28
Charles wrote:
> OK, there is a real political problem with that line > of thought; races really are equal. Nonetheless ...
But how do you know?
> 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.
> 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 with the opposite conclusion (especially the speakers of the "inferior" language)
> 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. -- "It's bad manners to talk about ropes in the house of a man whose father was hanged." - Irish proverb http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files ICQ: 18656696 AOL: NikTailor