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An amateur linguist loses control of the language he invented (2012)

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Re: An amateur linguist loses control of the language he invented (2012)

#81

Post by gsnedders »

gabemart wrote: post #61

I found this article fascinating and satisfying. I'm curious about the desire to reduce ambiguity, which seemed to be emphasized as a motivation for the creation of Ithkuil and some of the other languages mentioned. Is it desirable to completely eliminate ambiguity? I can see why it would be desirable in a scientific paper or a public political debate. But in everyday interactions, (intentional) ambiguity plays many…

To quote Levinson (2000): "inference is cheap, articulation expensive, and thus the design requirements are for a system that maximizes inference". All natural languages [citation needed] rely heavily on inference — simply because it allows one to minimize what's said. That's not to say that everything maximally relies on inference — politeness phenomena clearly demonstrate otherwise, often being "needlessly" verbose.

Re: An amateur linguist loses control of the language he invented (2012)

#82

Post by estebank »

smsm42 wrote: post #51
MichaelDickens wrote: post #2

Ithkuil seems like what a language should be: as the article said, it is both precise and concise. It looks the way Esperanto ought to have looked. I find Quijada's effort deeply impressive. I don't know much about designing human languages, but I know how hard it is to design a decent programming language (see http://colinm.org/language_checklist.html ), and building a serious human language seems orders of magnitud…

Language should not be concise. Redundancy is built into the language for a reason - language communication is extremely noisy and if there's two-bit-error distance between "I love you" and "I killed and ate your dog" then the usage of this language by humans would not be comfortable. Moreover, people communicating are imperfect. So if you have a language which is very precise and concise, you would have to spend a l…

Case in point, the Turkish I problem has had tragic consequences: http://gizmodo.com/382026/a-cellphones-missing-dot-kills-two...

Re: An amateur linguist loses control of the language he invented (2012)

#83

Post by krisgee »

StavrosK wrote: post #79
Fastidious wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be atrocious! You need to flavour and enjoy the reading, just the same you enjoy a nice drink, or a good cup of coffee, or you take the time to make coitus a never-ending engagement. Just enjoy it.

Sometimes I need a quick snack, for the calories.

To be fair there are lots of "snack food" articles around these days but few three course meals. I try to appreciate the long form articles that I find interesting for what they are.

Re: An amateur linguist loses control of the language he invented (2012)

#84

Post by dunmalg »

yepguy wrote: post #26
rodgerd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ithkuil seems like what a language should be: as the article said, it is both precise and concise. Language should be useful and expressive for its users. Human languages designed by the kind of people who prize simplicity and regularity above all other qualities tend to fail for much the same reason programming language designers are hurt and disappointed to discover C is still popular.

Ithkuil is not simple. It's so ridiculously complex that it is just not possible for anyone to learn to speak fluently. It never stood any chance of being adopted in the way Esperanto has. I'm surprised that it found any use at all, but people without linguistics training seem to find it useful for discovering nuances in their own languages that they hadn't considered.

>people without linguistics training seem to find it useful for discovering nuances in their own languages that they hadn't considered.

Learning any foreign language will tend to do that, though. It's a function of being forced to consider your native tongue as a language, rather than just speaking it. Plus if you learn a foreign language, you will have the advantage of being able to talk to an established base of people who speak it.

Re: An amateur linguist loses control of the language he invented (2012)

#86

Post by csirac2 »

ejr wrote: post #65
lloeki wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ithkuil does not use the concept of zero Interesting. How is one supposed to talk about math without a concept of zero?

It's a fascinating problem. It makes me wonder, without zero, what paths mathematics would have taken. There have been civilisations that used math extensively without zero and I hope Ithkuil-fluent mathematicians some day would continue exploring this.

"Zero: The Bibliography of a dangerous idea" was quite a memorable book for me, and goes into some good detail on those very points - even trying to guesstimate just how damage to progress of civilization by the numerous rejections of zero at several points in our early history. http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Zero.html?id=obJ70nxV...

Re: An amateur linguist loses control of the language he invented (2012)

#87

Post by JohnTHaller »

knieveltech wrote: post #29
_9hey wrote: post #28

another hacker news TL;DR article

Too bad. It's a pretty good read.

It's a very interesting article. But it's done in old journalism/academic paper style where it takes 5 pages to get to the point and has huge multiparagraph asides that the reader is often uninterested in. I already know the history of esperanto... most people won't even care about it. I don't care at all that George Soros learned it as his first language, it's unrelated nonsense. Tell me about the topic of the article. If you want interested people to be able to learn more about Esperanto, link to a side article. We can do this today.

Re: An amateur linguist loses control of the language he invented (2012)

#88

Post by Uncompetative »

mchaver wrote: post #40
MBCook wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a great episode. This has also happened with the language Lojban[1], which was 'forked' from Loglan[2] when the creator starting making copyright complaints so the community could maintain control. Such an odd concept that someone could 'own' a language, but I guess if you created it I can see why you would want to. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loglan

I think it's a great lesson for any creator. Just because you have invented something does not necessarily mean you have the right or are capable of dictating how people use it. I seem to remember Umberto Eco mentioning that he does not offer his own interpretations of his novels for a similar reason, but I can't find the quote.

I can recommend his book.

The Search for the Perfect Language - Umberto Eco - 2010

Re: An amateur linguist loses control of the language he invented (2012)

#89

Post by igravious »

gabemart wrote: post #61

I found this article fascinating and satisfying. I'm curious about the desire to reduce ambiguity, which seemed to be emphasized as a motivation for the creation of Ithkuil and some of the other languages mentioned. Is it desirable to completely eliminate ambiguity? I can see why it would be desirable in a scientific paper or a public political debate. But in everyday interactions, (intentional) ambiguity plays many…

Couldn't agree more. Seven Types of Ambiguity published as far back as 1930 by William Empson launched a school of criticism called New Criticism. A definition of ambiguity is then "alternative views might be taken without sheer misreading." For Empson poetry is heavily reliant on ambiguity. And, arguably, poetry is language at its most wrought with ideas most distilled.

Re: An amateur linguist loses control of the language he invented (2012)

#90

Post by Uncompetative »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #87
knieveltech wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too bad. It's a pretty good read.

It's a very interesting article. But it's done in old journalism/academic paper style where it takes 5 pages to get to the point and has huge multiparagraph asides that the reader is often uninterested in. I already know the history of esperanto... most people won't even care about it. I don't care at all that George Soros learned it as his first language, it's unrelated nonsense. Tell me about the topic of the artic…

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