Re: All languages are equally fit
- From: Joachim Pense <snob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:22:48 +0200
Harold Johanssen (in sci.lang):
On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:27:05 +0100, António Marques wrote:
Harold Johanssen wrote:
On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:38:35 -0700, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
On Sep 27, 5:49 pm, Trond Engen<trond...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The subject looks like trolling but isn't.
In another group, when someone recently opined that some languages
are more elevated and thus more fit for abstraction, I answered that
linguists agree that all languages are equally fit to express any
thought, with the qualification that some may have a pre-existing
lexicon in a field but all are equally fit to create new terms for
anything from internal resources. I was challenged to provide support
for that, and now I realize that if I've ever seen it in print in a
linguistics book I can't remember where. Any suggestions?
Surely it's in every intro book on linguistics for the gen pub?
Anything by David Crystal or Jean Aitchison?
I would be interested to understand the status of this further. I
mean, is this something that can be proven, or are we talking an axiom
accepted without proof by the academic community?
It's not an axiom nor dogma. It's just an observation: every known
language has devices that enable it to reach 'fitness' in any given
domain. If one hadn't, it probably woulsn't be considered a complete
language.
Hmm... Let me play devil's advocate here. That comes across as
circular reasoning: All human languages are equally fit, because if there
is one that is not equally fit then it is not a human languages, for all
languages are equally fit.
Anyway, I find it acceptable that all languages spoken by people,
and studied so far, have been found to be equally fit to express any
thought potentially. It would seem, however, that what we have is
empirical evidence alone, correct?
Do we actually have empirical evidence, or do we have only results of
philosophical reasoning?
Joachim
.
- References:
- All languages are equally fit
- From: Trond Engen
- Re: All languages are equally fit
- From: Peter T. Daniels
- Re: All languages are equally fit
- From: Harold Johanssen
- Re: All languages are equally fit
- From: António Marques
- Re: All languages are equally fit
- From: Harold Johanssen
- All languages are equally fit
- Prev by Date: Re: All languages are equally fit
- Next by Date: had we had not Re: Use of "been" in English
- Previous by thread: Re: All languages are equally fit
- Next by thread: Re: All languages are equally fit
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
