LL-L "Language varities" 2011.04.13 (02) [EN]

[Lowlands-L List]

=====================================================
L O W L A N D S - L - 13 April 2011 - Volume 02
lowlands.list at gmail.com - http://lowlands-l.net/
Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org
Archive: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-08)
Language Codes: lowlands-l.net/codes.php
=====================================================



From: "dealangeam" <atdelange at iburst.co.za>

Subject: LL_L "Language varieties" [EN]



Dear Lowlanders,



Ron wrote:

“Personally I am not in favor of constructed languages, despite their
supposed neutrality. Esperanto and Interlingua and even Mondlango (whose
creators are Chinese) are anything but neutral; they are based on dominant
European languages. Similarly, Volapük is based primarily on German, English
and French and in addition uses sounds (/ü/, /ö/) that are difficult for
speakers of many other languages to pronounce.”



There are about twenty constructed languages intended as a lingua franca
which I know of. Whatever their good and bad features, none of them have
become a lingua franca like English or Spanish. Even English or Spanish can
not function as a lingua franca in all countries of the world. It is as if
the tower of Babel (4,000 years ago) stands in the way of this ideal.

Biological evolution (BE) is now generally accepted, except by religious
fundamentalists. Thus they have become the object of scorn of most modern
thinkers. However, one should never conflate the theory of something with
the thing itself. The theory of BE with Darwin as its founding father is not
a fundamentalist theory like the electromagnetic theory of Maxwell. The
reason is that the latter rests upon empirical, fundamental and universal
laws. These laws can be tested at any time and any place in the universe.

Some biologists have pointed out some strange properties of BE as a
phenomenon and not a theory. Since these properties cannot be derived from
the Darwinian theory, those who pointed them out have almost become outcasts
in the biological community. I will give two examples:

(1) Dollo’s observation - Nature never backtracks its steps, neither follows
the same route twice [= irreversible].

(2) Gould’s observation - Nature changes very slowly even for long periods
of time until a rapid speciation occurs [= punctuated equilibrium]



Many linguists have tried to apply the Darwinian theory to Language
Evolution (LE). It never had any significant application. Yet LE begs for
some theory. The fact is that the “time tree of speciation” of biological
species and lingual “species” are extremely similar, The important
difference is that the biological time tree is some 2,000,000,000 years old
while the lingual time tree is only about 20,000 years old. Thus they differ
by a factor 100,000

The curious thing is that whereas Darwin’s theory of evolution applies to
only to BE, both Dollo’s and Gould’s observations also apply to LE. I
believe that it is for these observations that a lingua franca (omniglot)
will never become real. Even reducing it to an omniglot for a language
family will not do.

For example, take the omniglot “Folkspraak” for all Germanic languages.
After studying some of it, finding it easy to learn, it has never taken
favour among Germanic speaking peoples.

I think the solution to communicate in any two languages. is way by of
translation through IT evolution. Meet and extend evolution by evolution.
Should it become acutely important, it will take some 20 years to become
available on cell phones of a complexity like the Black Berry. A nice name
for them would be “omniglot phones”. This name can be translated into
Afrikaans by “volkspraak fone”



Best wishes

At de Lange



=========================================================
Send posting submissions to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.
Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
Send commands (including "signoff lowlands-l") to
listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or lowlands.list at gmail.com
http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/group.php?gid=118916521473498
===============================================================
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20110413/bea5e2d7/attachment.htm>