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From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Re: Artificial languages Re: Esperanto (was: Refusing to ....)
Message-ID: <CwLt2J.E2y@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <35hl1t$pun@panix2.panix.com> <CwC25v.EqM@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <35oo4r$a5c@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994 22:27:54 GMT
Lines: 56

In article <35oo4r$a5c@news.cs.brandeis.edu> jacob@max.cc.brandeis.edu ( ) writes:
>In article <CwC25v.EqM@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>>Esperantists tend to emphasise the suitability of
>>Esperanto for communication, whereas for linguists what is relevant is
>>that it is the product of conscious design, not the result of evolution,
>
>   Do you mean to say that if Esperanto sometime "naturally evolves" into
>   some descendant language, *then* that descendant language *will* be
>   interesting to linguists?

Yes.  Even at the present moment there is much to be learnt by observing,
for example, which are the rules that learners have the hardest time with
(arguably, those rules describe the features which would be the first ones
to change if the next generation of Esperantists were to learn the language
from the speech of the present one).

>   Is Modern Hebrew's phonology for example not interesting to linguists?

I'll leave this question to phonologists.  I believe, in any case, that
it is not interesting in the same way as the phonology of Tunisian Arabic
(to take a related language with a different history).

>   When a writer or a committee codifies a language or creates a
>   standard isnt that "conscious design"?

Yes, it is.

>   Are those languages unsuitable for study?

Not the languages as a whole, but the artificially codified features are.
I don't think you'd find anyone working on morphological case marking
in Modern Bulgarian, for example.  (I'm referring to the distribution
of the full and the short form of the definite article in the written
language, which is governed by an artificially created rule.)

>   Are you gonna refuse to study modern French or at least try to "separate"
>   the artificial "conscious design" effects from the "natural" effects.

The latter, as far as possible.

>   I think linguistic evolution is a cultural phenomenon
>   that has lots more in common with say the diffusion and
>   evolution of a technology than the biological evolution of living
>   organisms and that therefore it is very hard and probably futile to try
>   and separate "natural" effects from "artificial" effects.

Okay, I don't mind adopting that analogy instead.  Is there a point in
observing the diffusion and evolution of technologies?  Yes, if one
assumes that those processes follow certain laws that one wishes
to find about.  Ditto for the development of languages.

-- 
`Pilate, tryin tae be clever, said, "So! -- whit is truth?"'  (The G-- G--)
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk, iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,   Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
