Re: Responding to a challenge

From: Raymond S. Wise (mplsrayNOSPAM_at_gbronline.com)
Date: 08/16/04 

Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2004 23:38:27 -0500

Jacques Guy wrote:
> Raymond S. Wise wrote:
>
>> Now, I wish once again to make the point that I am talking about one
>> sort of complexity only. In another sort of complexity (for which I
>> have used the expression "ability to express complex ideas"), all
>> languages are equally complex.
>
> Mmmm... it is fairly easy to express "elliptical orbit" in English.
> To express the same in, take your pick, oh, almost any will do, take
> my favourite, Sakao, just a run-of-the-mill Austronesian language,
> and let's try. Sakao hasn't a word for "orbit", it hasn't a word for
> "elliptical" (nor for "circular" either). So...? Unconvinced? How
> about "colour balance" then? Sakao hasn't a word for "colour" (I don't
> think it has one for "balance" either, but I couldn't swear it).
> Looks to me that expressing "colour balance" in Sakao is a lot
> more complex than ... yes, why not, even Esperanto.

That is not what linguists mean when they speak of this sort of complexity.
One way of expressing it, as I did in an earlier post, is to say that any
language could, relatively easily, be turned into a standard language. That
is, when speaking of any complete, natural language, there is nothing
inherently "defective" about some languages as compared with others, as
people once naively believed.

So, if Sakao, for example, were to be made a standard language, and thus
were to have a need for "elliptical orbit," that term could simply be
created, either out of words already existing in the language itself or by
adopting "elliptical" and "orbit" directly from a language which has those
terms, such as English. (There is still another possibility: You could
simply assign two arbitrarily created roots--arbitrary except that their
pronunciation does not violate Sakao phonology--the meanings "elliptical"
and "orbit.")

If you reflect on the matter you will realize that one or more of those
processes happened with *every* standard language now in existence, no
matter how they came to be standard. Consider, for example, the history of
English, Russian, Nynorsk, Ivrit (modern Hebrew), and Tok Pisin. 

-- 
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com

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