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From: dcs2e@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson)
Subject: Re: Languages: Hard, Harder, Hardest
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Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 10:54:02 GMT
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In article <4t9heh$m08@dfw-ixnews7.ix.netcom.com>
matts2@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein) writes:

> >> 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
> 
> 
> >1 YES
> Please explain the standards for complexity and how the languages were
> analized.


First of all, I haven't analyzed anything.  I'm just talking out of my
. . . keyboard.  I had in mind first and foremost vocabulary size,
which is not equal even for, say, the more common West European
languages, much less ALL languages.


> 
> >2 YES, there are those into which some translation is worthwhile, and
> >others where it's futile
> Do you have named examples?


Take some language in which you can only count to four, and have only
three color words, etc...  How ya gonna do it?



> 
> >3 How the hell could someone hold both 2 and 3?
> Easy, you could say that even if 2 were true, 3 would be false.



I guess what I'm missing is what the test case is testing FOR.  That
would help me understand what you're talking about.


> 
> >4 YES, depending of course on how great is "greatly"
> That is a good question. If they use an alphabet I would compare the
> written work. But I would expect a spoken version to be with-in 50% in
> size.


Well, we've been throwing around the number 30%, so you're safe so far.


> 
> >5 NO, I wouldn't say that
> I  got one right? If I could be 20% correct in life all the time I would
> be thrilled ;-)
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> 
> What is the scariest line you know? Mine is:
> 
> Hi, my name is Number 6, what's yours?


David

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