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Re: Language superiority, improvement, etc.

From:charles <catty@...>
Date:Tuesday, October 13, 1998, 19:41
On Tue, 13 Oct 1998, Matt Pearson wrote:

> Charles wrote: > > >I consider the "all languages are equally good" argument > >very silly. Unless someone defines criteria that are capable > >of independent analysis, there is no scientific basis for > >this belief. > > Nor, by the same token, is there any scientific basis for > the belief that all languages are NOT equally "good" (whatever > "good" means). In fact, it's precisely when one starts to consider > exactly what criteria should be taken as the basis for comparison > that the whole "equal versus unequal" debate begins to seem pretty > rediculous. As I see it, debating whether language X is better > or more logical or more complex than language Y makes about as > much sense as debating whether language X is taller than language > Y, or darker, or more bashful.
Since use of the word "good" means we are into value judgements, it will be necessary to define some criteria; even so, many people really dislike making value judgements at all. But language as a tool is eminently judgement-worthy.
> >By every set of criteria, languages do differ > >in utility, beauty, simplicity, etc. > > What criteria do you refer to? What is utility? What is beauty? > What is simplicity? (No offense, you understand. I'm not trying > to taunt you here with sarcastic rhetorical questions. I just think > you need to define your terms.)
No offense taken. Saying "lang X is simply better than lang Z" is certainly an incomplete specification. "Lang X typically requires 40% more syllables to say the same thing" is still rather fuzzy, but one can work with that.
> In what sense are human languages "different in every respect" > from each other? Personally, the more I study different languages, > the more similar to each other they seem. One question that I > ask myself constantly in my research is: "Why are languages not > MORE different from each other than they appear to be?" In other > words, why do languages NOT seem to display the full range of > logically possible structural variation? It's an interesting > question...
It's a matter of degree maybe, along several dimensions; dimensions can be defined and degrees can be quantified. One cannot logically maintain that "value judgements are bad" ...