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From: alderson@netcom21.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Re: Genderless languages
In-Reply-To: tokoono@zeus.es.co.nz's message of Mon, 13 Jan 1997 09:39:44
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References: <5av4vf$mmt@news.snni.com> <32D5559D.2DFD@qualcomm.com>
	<tokoono.24.0009A9DD@zeus.es.co.nz>
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 1997 01:49:31 GMT
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In article <tokoono.24.0009A9DD@zeus.es.co.nz> tokoono@zeus.es.co.nz
(Lachlan Paterson) writes:

>In article <32D5559D.2DFD@qualcomm.com> Holoholona <" bmoore"@qualcomm.com>
>writes:

>>By the way, what is a "primitive" language?

>I would have thought by now that linguists would realise that one language is
>no more primitive than another, other than lacking complex scientific/techni-
>cal vocabulary (which can either be loaned or created).

*Linguists* _do_ realize this fact.  Mr. Moore's rhetorical question was
directed at a non-linguist's use of the term "primitive language" as a Socratic
goad.

Sheesh.
-- 
Rich Alderson   You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
                of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
                logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
                know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
                as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
                what not.
                                                --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@netcom.com                               _The Notion Club Papers_
