Re: unnatural languages


"Herman Rubin" <hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:et46vo$1cfq@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <NeoZCgPtfT9FFwX$@baesystems.com>,
Richard Herring <richard.herring@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In message <et2dtb$n0i@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Herman Rubin
<hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
In article <oMxwWCEMCT8FFw6e@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Richard Herring <richard.herring@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In message <esproe$1r8a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Herman Rubin
<hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
In article <1173354137.155781.136980@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Jens S. Larsen <jens_s_larsen@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Herman Rubin skribis:

Jens S. Larsen <jens_s_larsen@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
phoglund@xxxxxx:

I can see no reason why one needs to know a "natural language"
to learn a more structured one.

How do you suppose that the teacher is going to communicate with the
student, if they don't have some common means of communication?

Why cannot the common means be the structured language?

You are suggesting that teacher and student should communicate using the
language _you_ are advocating, which the student doesn't yet know? And
you don't perceive any difficulties with this approach?

If a community adopted a structured language, why should
the student know any other language than that of the
community? If someone grew up with Esperanto, and the
teacher used Esperanto, where would there be a problem,
not that I think Esperanto is that well designed.

Nor can I see a reason why
one needs to learn a natural language first.

Whether one "needs to learn" is irrelevant, since it's practically
impossible to stop a child acquiring (not "learning") the natural
language in its environment.

Why cannot the environmental language be structured?
That the present "natural languages" are not is no
hindrance; there are reasons to "start over", as
mathematics did in the late 16th century.

It's readily imaginable that a community of adults could decide to use an artificial "structured" language, as Esperanto is supposed to be. Undoubtedly, with sufficient motivation, they could succeed. However, the children in this Esperanto-speaking community wouldn't acquire the language of their parents. They would convert it into a natural language (creolise it), changing its grammar in various more-or-less subtle ways. The language they acquired wouldn't be the Esperanto of their teachers. No doubt said teachers would attempt to convert them to "proper" Esperanto when they went to school, with, I expect, mixed results.

A modest proposal indeed! That would truly be a Language with a capital
L. Whose army and navy will you use?

A version of Latin was the scientific language until
the 19th century. No army and navy made English the
modern lingua franca. I have heard that Swahili is
the lingua franca of a large part of Africa; force
has nothing to do with it.

Force has quite a lot to do with it.

In the nineteenth century, Swahili was spread by the "Arab" slave traders working out of Zanzibar. In particular, Tippu Tip ruled over a large part of the upper Congo in the late nineteenth century, which is why a somewhat creolised variety of Swahili is widely spoken in SE Congo (mostly as a second or third language).

In Tanganyika, it was the policy of the German colonialists to make Swahili the language of administration throughout the country. After decolonialization, it was made the language of primary education throughout Tanzania, and the government worked quite hard to force everyone to learn it, and to eliminate the use of local languages.

In Kenya and Uganda, the British made Swahili the language of the military (the East African Rifles), but made no serious effort to enforce its use among the general population, education being in English or the local languages. Force indeed has little or nothing to do with its current widespread use in Kenya.

[...]

John

.

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