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From: dcs2e@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson)
Subject: Re: Languages: Hard, Harder, Hardest
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Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 21:41:41 GMT
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In article <4t052p$cm@sjx-ixn2.ix.netcom.com>
matts2@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein) writes:

> dcs2e@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) wrote:
> 
> >In article <4squgi$318@dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com>
> >matts2@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein) writes:
> 
> >> It is my understanding that all human languages are equally complex. They
> >> all have the ability to talk about the world and to add new words when
> >> needed. I can't post a reference for this, but I have few ideas to
> >> illustrate it. People have been able to translate the Bible into every
> >> language they have tried. If nothing else, the Bible is sufficiently long
> >> and complex to act as a good test case. This shows that every language is
> >> capable of making at least that statement. I have been told, but don't
> >> have any reference for this, that each of these translations are roughly
> >> the same size. This would also seem to support the equal complexity
> >> issues. If laguage A were more complex than language B then the
> >> translation should be much smaller.
> 
> >It must be pleasant.  Are you allowed visitors in there?
> 
> It is possible I am wrong. I am only arguing from my reasoning rather than
> authority and study and so on. But I doubt that I am so obviously wrong
> that there is no need to bother to point out where the mistakes are. From
> your post I assume you hold all of the following to be true:
> 
> 1) Human languages have different complexities
> 2) There are languages they can't translate the Bible into
> 3) The Bible is not a sufficient test case
> 4) The existant translations vary greatly in size
> 5) Size of translation has nothing to do with complexity
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> 
> What is the scariest line you know? Mine is:
> 
> Hi, my name is Number 6, what's yours?


1 YES
2 YES, there are those into which some translation is worthwhile, and
others where it's futile
3 How the hell could someone hold both 2 and 3?
4 YES, depending of course on how great is "greatly"
5 NO, I wouldn't say that



Mine's Excuse me, are you a philosopher by any chance?




David

"Heideggerian hope comes into question." J.D.
