|
|
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 655
addict
|
addict
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 655 |
BTW, all languages are constructed. It's just a question of how many there are on the committee and whether there's a final arbiter to declare the project done. I'd like to hear you expand on this idea. Particularly, are you using "constructed" to imply intentional and active development toward some envisioned end, or are you using it in a more technical, linguistic sense? Also, I understand a committee to be a subgroup - usually a relatively small subgroup - of some larger population. Are you using it in that way, or are you suggesting that the committee may be the entire population speaking a particular language?
"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 655
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 655 |
I for one would like to find out. I want to know exactly who first said it (whatever it was) and when. And I'll say it again: I would prefer that there be one Authority somewhere who would say definitively what IS and IS NOT right, re: spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. No "alternative spellings" for me, tyvm. [nod to Max, for the tyvm] I'm afraid this is never going to happen. Language is not like a coin collection, where every element exists somewhere in a static and genuine form, and all we have to do is find and preserve each to be done with it. Language is like every other element of the living world. It does not succeed without diversity wrought by innumerable changes. Every individual uses language to meet his or her own needs, not to comply with a set of rules. Poets, scientists, rhetoricians, gang members, religious organizations - all of us - do this ("tyvm" is a perfect example,) and the modifications so generated may or may not find their way into general use.
"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
"constructed"I'm not sure about languages being constructed, but they are conventional (I side with the nomos side of the Cratylan argument rather than the physis one. Linguists have a feel for the drift of a language, i.e., how they change over time, but few can agree on how they came about. Chomsky posits that Universal Grammar is part of the human brain. I tend to think of language (i.e., a kind of symbolic calculus) as an extension of pattern recognition in other kinds of animals. committeeThe Académie française, founded by Cardinal Richlieu in 1635, is not really a committee, and the number of its members is 40. They are a little out touch with reality and their latest exploit was opposing constitutional recognition of regional languages ( link).
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 655
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 655 |
Chomsky posits that Universal Grammar is part of the human brain. People who study human prehistory are beginning to agree with him in principle. Something happened to humans about 40,000 years ago in the Near East or eastern Europe. Many believe it involved a leap in language ability. Some call it the "Great Leap." Ideas about what it may have been include 1) the "invention" of grammar (more likely a genetic change that allowed the concept of grammar to be realized,) 2) the development of the conditional tense, 3) and others, all related to language, that I don't recall offhand. Whatever happened marked the emergence of Modern Humans, with whom we could probably converse and share any complex thoughts we may have. Art and other symbolism, the concept of an after-life, and other features of humanity all appear in the blink (a geological blink, that is) of an eye.
Last edited by beck123; 02/27/10 05:45 PM.
"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
Something happened to humans about 40,000 years ago in the Near East or eastern Europe. Many believe it involved a leap in language ability.
Of course, it's possible, but as writing is only about 5000 years old, we do not know for certain that other hominids did not have language.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 655
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 655 |
Correct, we don't know for certain. (I'll preface the following by saying that human prehistory is not my field, so I'm certain to be missing the subtleties and may even have some of the big pieces wrong.) Language, being a symbolic construct, is thought to be associated with other manifestations of symbolic thinking. The only other hominid species around at the time of the Great Leap were the neandertals, and there is still some debate as to whether or not they were capable of human language, the general consensus being that they were not.
There is no archeological evidence that they engaged in any symbolic thought: no art, no definite burials, no evidence of ritual, etc. There are discoveries that suggest that neandertals, just before their extinction, interacted with modern humans and may have borrowed some of the non-language, symbolic behaviors that they saw in modern humans. A seashell, recently discovered at a neandertal site, shows traces of paint on it, for example. Because of the dating of this type of discovery, viz., only after the two species were in contact with one another, adornment of this sort is considered by most to be borrowed and not indicative of symbolic thought.
"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154 |
Shades of "Quest for Fire"
And whether or not Esperanto ever becomes a primary language (by which I mean that at least 2 generations are raised in a community where it is the language spoken in the home and on the street) it still makes as much sense to me as learning Klingon or Tolkein Elvish.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,918 Likes: 2
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,918 Likes: 2 |
I think I'd prefer Elvish or Klingon. They seem to be more "in"
though less 'academic'. Tolkien's Elvish was based on Finnish,
I believe. Klingon: who knows? I like the "Quest for Fire"
analogy.
----please, draw me a sheep----
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
'academic' ... Klingon: who knows?Klingon was created by a linguist, Marc Okrand. He got his PhD (I have read his 1977 dissertation, Mutsun Grammar) from UC Berkeley. There are numerous linguistic in-jokes in Klingon. Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford and worked on the staff of the OED, mainly on etymologies. L Zamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto, was a Russian ophthalmologist. The language in Quest for Fire was designed by the author (and linguist) Anthony Burgess. Not all conlangers are linguists. One of my favorite conlangs is the Real Character language created by Bishop John Wilkins, a founding member of the Royal Society. [Edit to fix URL.]
Last edited by zmjezhd; 03/01/10 12:29 AM.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 655
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 655 |
This is all illuminating to me. I knew of Esperanto, and I always considered it a serious attempt at unifying elements of various European languages into one common tongue that would be similar to many and, so, easily learned. I knew Klingon was somehow based on the mechanics of genuine language and not just made-up noises. As for all the rest? I had no idea there were so many serious attempts at creating language de novo. (I almost said, "...creating an artificial language...," but it struck me as redundant.) I'll be googling these things all night.
"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,351
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
775
guests, and
0
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
