Re: unnatural languages

In article <1173824201.168578.147190@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Peter T. Daniels <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mar 13, 2:26 pm, hru...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Herman Rubin) wrote:
In article <12p4tplh1v17z$.1vdl8gg0o0vzr$....@xxxxxxxxxx>,
Brian M. Scott <b.sc...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 12 Mar 2007 15:02:57 -0400, Herman Rubin
<hru...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:et4851$2oro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> in sci.lang:
In article <1173718375.324131.311...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Peter T. Daniels <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[...]

Human infants are language-acquisition-machines, and their internal
equipment is attuned to certain types of input data -- namely, human
language.
They are knowledge acquisition machines, and there is no
evidence whatever that they are attuned to the various
types of human languages more than others.
There is no evidence that they are attuned to any linguistic
data *except* natural human language.

Has it been tried? There is no evidence that they
are not attuned to "unnatural" languages.

So you, too, are advocating child abuse?

No more than you are. Is it any more abusive to raise a
child with a "manufactured" language than a "natural" one?

If you had lived before 1865, you could have taken a slave baby at
birth and tried raising it without a human language. (No, there were
probably laws about abusing even slave children.)

Are there any laws now against raising your child in
such a manner, if one teaches any language? It is
not even required to raise a child in company with
other children of the same age group, and many are
not, without violating any laws.

Besides, how unnatural are these languages? They are
designed by people who have learned natural ones, so
their structure is affected by this, and more so
their vocabulary.

They are designed by people who share this peculiar idea of yours that
there is something wrong with the way the language capacity evolved
and the way language has been changing ever since, and therefore want
to replace the natural phemomena of language with something they think
is more "structured."

So how does raising a child with such a language
become abusive? The teachers who insist that
children be in classes with their age group, and
all learn at the same rate, are the real abusers,
as are the government people who promote that.

And educationists have proclaimed that doing anything
else is child abuse; they are opposed to home schooling
for the main reason that the children will not be like
"everyone else".
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
.

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