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From: dcs2e@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson)
Subject: Re: Languages: Hard, Harder, Hardest
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Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 14:18:44 GMT
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In article <4tceq5$req@dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com>
matts2@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein) writes:

> >In article <4tb53s$mj0@dfw-ixnews9.ix.netcom.com>
> >matts2@ix.netcom.com (Matt Silberstein) writes:
> 
> >> That is why I posed the translation test. It bundles up the whole
> >> language together. If you can translate something as large, varied, and
> >> complex as the Bible into a language that suggests you can translate
> >> anything into that language. If the translation is close in size that
> >> suggests the languages are equally efficient. 
> 
> 
> >What is this sanguine "can"?  As we all know, translations are never
> >"perfect," and most are disappointing.  What degree of disappointment
> >equals "failure" you have not explained.
> 
> If you don't like the sanguine "can" change it to "do". People do
> translate from one language to another. And they do it reasonable well.

What?  Always?  OK, I know when I'm being teased.  Good joke. Ha Ha. 
Let's move on now.

> Of course translation are never perfect. But you know what, we have
> significant problems when all concerned have the same native language.

Problems with what, hunger, poor taste in clothes, what?


> The problem is with human language itself, not translation nor the
> particular language being examined. 


"The problem"?  Sounds pretty serious.  I only wanted to discuss more
frivolous stuff.


> >> 
> >> I suggest two other areas of thought. If you accept that children has a
> >> language aquisition mechanism, do you think different people have
> >> different mechanisms? And do you think different human languages were
> >> developed to solve different problems.
> 
> 
> >Yes, of course.
> 
> You think that Maori, for instance, have a different mechanism than do
> Italians? Germans than Russian? I don't think you intended that. And I
> think that all human languages were developed to allow people to
> describe the world we live in.
> 

I replied, as you are well aware, to your last (albeit unmarked)
question.  A "mechanism" is whatever's universal if you define it as
"whatever's universal."  I would read "the world we live in"
analogously.



> >> 
> >> (I would also like to suggest that all human languages are
> >> "sufficiently" complex the way Godel systems must me "sufficiently"
> >> powerful. But referencing Godel on the net is like referencing Hitler,
> >> it tends to degrade the conversation.)
> 
> 
> >Not to me.  It's just over my head.  Either that or you're talking
> >nonsense.
> 
> Somehow I think those are the only choices. For instance, I suspect I
> could talk nonsense that was also over your head ;-) Seriously, human
> languages must be "sufficiently" complex. They all must have the ability
> to add new words, to reference themselves, to distinguish between the
> speaker and other people and things. And much like formal mathamatical
> systems, there is a change when you get that complex and there is a deep
> similarity between those that are that complex. Note, I am not claiming
> that human languages are formal systems.
> >> -----------------------------------------------


Translation: for something to count as a human language it must be able
to grow, "refer to itself," and have a word for "I."  Um, OK, if you
say so.  I can't imagine that the first of these criteria is doing any
exclusionary work.  The second needs to be explained.  The third may or
may not be excluding anything.  If it is, one can only wonder why.

David

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