LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.14 (03) [E]

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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.13 (06) [E]

> From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
> Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.13 (04) [E]
>
> But now, dear Scotsman- I do not agree with you, as well as I don't
> with Ron.
>
> Sandy:
> > Idiomatic resolution aside, perhaps one problem here is the
> obsession
> > with grammatical gender that occurs in some language groups?
> > ...
>  > What should we discard in inventing a world language?
>
> >    o    gender: pointless;
>  >   o    plurals: useless;
>  >   o    verb tense: worse than useless;
>  >   o    word inflections: too complicated;

> So, if I am on the correct path, you tend to erase the greater part of
> grammar which our ancestors created 'with huge strenghth'? Are you
> sure you want to 'bomb' our modern languages back to any Neandertaler
> stammering? (You don't need to bomb; a kind of suicidal process
> already has begun!)

As you see above, I was talking about what we should discard in
inventing a world language, not about re-inventing existing languages.

I brought up the subject of inventors of world languages to illustrate
how people tend to think the features of their own languages are
necessary to expression, when they're not.

> Perhaps you should allow me to mention that there is one of the most
> straight languages, in name Old Latin, since more than 2,000 years  an
> established part of our Western society. Pupils of -zig generations
> had the plague to be forced to become more or less familiar with a
> communication facility that once enabled the preeminence of the Roman
> Empire.

I don't think Latin was any more logical than any other language, and I
don't see how the form of the language used makes any difference to a
society's tendency towards imperialism.

>
> Where can we find any examples that societies with a simple, nature-
> or agricultural orientated language without that 'weird' grammar which
> we have to deal with in our western cultures influenced the modern
> world sustainably?

The Romans started out as agriculturalists attempting to defend their
land, didn't they?

Are you saying that complex grammar is somehow the basis of military
power or cultural influence?

> And, Sandy, sorry for you: I fear in cases like these you wouldn't get
> along with Sign Language exceptionally, but you would have to use the
> written word.

I don't know what you're referring to here, could you explain further?

>
> Please don't tell me, that this is just a result of the suppression of
> minority languages and weak, adynamic societies!
> No, gentlemen, if you want to deal with modern, evolutionary
> scientology you are forced to be enabled to rely on a dependable
> standard, may be called 'system', as we find in physics and
> mathematics. But the same valids for languages- with any diffuse
> banana-mixture you won't get forward at all. (Please, bear in mind
> that I named and included Low Saxon as a part of the European/German
> hemisphere *g*!)

I don't think the same is valid for languages. Expressiveness in natural
languages doesn't arise from the logicality of the grammar, but from the
use of metaphor, and I'd say that can be used in any language. Unless
you think there are languages which render their speakers incapable of
making comparisons!

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

•

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