Re: Is language a mess? (was: English is a mess.)

On Apr 18, 3:59 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Summer Institute of Languages.

The what?

Summer Institute of Linguistics. Nit-picker! I just think of it as
'SIL'.

"Development" is there exemplified as creating literacy or creating a
separate [from the standard variety] literature.

What's that got to do with anything related to what Jens was referring
to?

Jens was implying a grading between intrinsically 'higher' and 'lower'
languages. 'Developed' in the sense I've found accords with this
concept. The sociolinguistic concept of [H] and [L] does not
significantly conflict - the [H] speech form is generally more
likely to have an associated literature. Inversions would make an
interesting topic.

Richard.

.

Relevant Pages