[...]
The difference I have in mind is probably situated more on the pragmatical
level.

In Japanese, I have the concept of an arbitrary number of objects. In
English, I don't have that concept, I only have singular and plural.

When I say: "There are books on the table", I imply that there are at least
two of them. The corresponding sentence in Japanese doesnt imply that, it
could be one single book.

Herman Rubin wrote:

In article
1c904e83-22e2-4ce9-846e-6f170a8cc8e1@b1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
blackhead <larryharson@softhome.net> wrote:

What would be the properties of a cutting edge language if all the
best linguistists got together and created one?
Which language today most closely approaches this?


Thanks


Consulting linguists will not be adequate; users will have to be
consulted first. I know of no language in
which I would be able to express "everything".


What can't you express in English?

In article <fuijte$va0$02$2@news.t-online.com>,
Joachim Pense <snob@pense-mainz.eu> wrote:


But as you note, it's still an issue of measurement, and personally, I
prefer to say that languages are "incomparable" for certain
properties, and I do generally try to be careful to express it that
way.

I wouldn't have objected to that.

This is indeed how most careful linguists would phrase it. But in a
semi-informal setting like Usenet, "equally complex" is a convenient,
if somewhat inaccurate, shorthand for the longer descriptions needed
to explain why complexity isn't even measurable to begin with.

"Herman" == Herman Rubin <hrubin@odds.stat.purdue.edu> writes:

"Nathan" == Nathan Sanders <nsanders@williams.edu> writes:

No, I think the problem is largely that we have no remotely
accurate words is the problem. If we had them, we could
still disagree, but we could discuss the situation far more
intelligently than we can now.

I believe that politicians
would not want such words, so that they would have to make
things clear, instead of being so vague.

I for one native speaker have never been able to find the words to
answer my wife when she asks me what something tastes or smells like.

I don't think those things can always be expressed in any other language
either. Even a "cutting edge" one.

'Language' is an everyday concept. Most people are familiar with a
handful of things they call 'languages', and they include only those in
their enumeration. Given any specific example not in the list, they can
see if it fits in or not, but its only slowly that such examples may
become part of their perception of the concept.

So, 'nothing hinders us', but that's not relevant.

You spend your time doing this. You assume that reality can be described
by a small set of rules;

then you extend those in a way that seems consistent to you; then you
complain that reality doesn't behave according to your extended rules.

In practice, what you're doing is trying to fit everything into a simplistic model.

When that happens to other people, they realise their model is crude and
needs tweaking and even then will never be perfect.

You, on the other hand, presume that reality must be inherently simple,
so tweaking is really cruft only.

Well, yours is a game most people just don't find that interesting to play..

António Marques:

Jens S. Larsen wrote:
But in order to compare languages, you have to establish that there
are more than one. How do you know that what we commonly know as the
English and the German language, aren't just dialects of one and the
same language called Human?

Because 'human language' is, in part, a set defined by enumerating known
elements of it, and two of those enumerated are 'english' and 'german'.

But nothing hinders us in enumerating further down to Scots and
Cockney, Platdüütsch and Bayerisch

-- indeed down to the individual
speaker. Indeed, there is no reason not to enumerate all six named
"languages" at the same level. They are hardly mutually understandable
anyway.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

But as you note, it's still an issue of measurement, and
personally, I prefer to say that languages are "incomparable"
for certain properties, and I do generally try to be careful to
express it that way.

I wouldn't have objected to that.

This is indeed how most careful linguists would phrase it. But in
a semi-informal setting like Usenet, "equally complex" is a
convenient, if somewhat inaccurate, shorthand for the longer
descriptions needed to explain why complexity isn't even measurable
to begin with.

It really shouldn't be used. Saying "equally complex" implies that I
accept comparability, which I actually want to deny. It is not just
somewhat inaccurate.

"blackhead" == blackhead <larryhar...@softhome.net> writes:

blackhead> The usefulness of already existing symbols is being
blackhead> extended; Anyone that can read English and is familiar
blackhead> with numbers will know what l8 means without being
blackhead> formally taught to do so.

Really? Do you know what "l10n" means, then?

--
Lee Sau Dan $BM{<iFX(B ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page:http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee

António Marques:

'Language' is an everyday concept. Most people are familiar with a
handful of things they call 'languages', and they include only those in
their enumeration. Given any specific example not in the list, they can
see if it fits in or not, but its only slowly that such examples may
become part of their perception of the concept.

But languages are not discrete like that. Any kind of list will be
full of examples that are halfway in, halfway out. Anyway, if you
begin to list everyday concepts, that's the first step in taking the
everydayness away from them.

So, 'nothing hinders us', but that's not relevant.

You spend your time doing this. You assume that reality can be described
by a small set of rules;

No, only a small subset of reality, and the set of rules is not
supposed to be small, but as small as possible.

then you extend those in a way that seems consistent to you; then you
complain that reality doesn't behave according to your extended rules.

Yes, and then I change, add or delete a rule and reiterate the process
to see if it works better. Normal procedure of scientific theory-
building.

In practice, what you're doing is trying to fit everything into a simplistic model.

No, I'm not doing practice here. I'm doing theory.

When that happens to other people, they realise their model is crude and
needs tweaking and even then will never be perfect.

I guess I realize that too. I'm not expecting progress to come to an
end anytime soon.

You, on the other hand, presume that reality must be inherently simple,
so tweaking is really cruft only.

I'm not sure what "cruft" means,

but anyway I can't imagine how
tweaking scientific theories would be "only" something. Science can be
utterly unimportant at times, maybe even most of the time, but
tweaking the theoretic rules within a science is always a grave matter
for the relevant science itself.

Well, yours is a game most people just don't find that interesting to play.

Sure, most people prefer crackpot theories.

Really? Do you know what "l10n" means, then?

No, but it may have been constructed by someone lacking socially
intelligence and so the word may lack the ability to be understood by
most of the population.

'...constructed by someone lacking socially intelligence and so the word
may lack the ability to be understood by most of the population'? Now
here's a joke of a sentence if I've ever seen one.

21 Apr 2008 15:47:36 -0400: hrubin@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman
Rubin): in sci.lang:

No, I think the problem is largely that we have no remotely
accurate words is the problem. If we had them, we could
still disagree, but we could discuss the situation far more
intelligently than we can now.

Too much accuracy can and will turn into a disadvantage, because then
you can no longer talk about general concepts, tendencies, no
summaries are possible, no assumption, possiblities and hypotheses
could be discussed.

I believe that politicians
would not want such words, so that they would have to make
things clear, instead of being so vague.

True. But that is certainly not the only area where impreciseness is
needed.

Suppose you had no words for green, red and blue, but could only
specify a colour by an accurate spectrogram?

that be better and more usable? No cold and warm and shivering, but
only accurate temperatures and ranges with specific tolerances?

the same for feelings, impressions, intentions?

Brave New World?

--
Ruud Harmsen
http://rudhar.com