Re: Language superiority, improvement, etc.

Christopher Palmer wrote:

> > 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
>
> Of course not all languages are the same in their ability to communicate
> specific things effectively -- it depends on the community of speakers.
> Languages are like organisms in that they evolve in reaction to their
> environment -- their environment is the semantic demands their speakers
> put on them. I think it's quite safe to assume that humans of all cultures
> face problems of roughly equivalent complexity, and they need a language
> capable of dealing with that.
But I think that this explanation is wanting some, in that it's not so much
the languages that are lacking in ability to communicate, as it is the people
with whom the language is associated that, because they live in a society
where a given concept might not be known or conceived of.  It is the people's
lack of experience, or rather lack of desire to express a certain experience
in language, that causes a _language_ to be lacking in a certain word, not
the language causing the people to lack an experience.

=======================================================
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
========================================================