Messages : 22
Langue: English
sudanglo (Voir le profil) 8 juin 2013 10:19:43
Pagel draws parallels with Esperanto, the prototype universal human language. The reason it has never caught on is that it simply isn't needed.
Now to be fair, it is not absolutely clear in context whether the 'it' refers to Esperanto or to a universal programming language. But the implication is fairly clear. Mark Pagel has spotted the reason for the world shunning Esperanto.
How could we have missed such a simple explanation?
Evildela (Voir le profil) 8 juin 2013 10:28:05
efilzeo (Voir le profil) 8 juin 2013 10:36:05
fari_teon (Voir le profil) 8 juin 2013 11:02:40
Surely the vast majority of people on lernu are here for the enjoyment, not because it is needed.
This is not to take away from those who genuinely try to raise it up the reality of being a worldwide international language but it's far from being there just yet.
pdenisowski (Voir le profil) 8 juin 2013 13:18:21
efilzeo:After the "Esperanto is not a language" by Chomsky, nothing can impress me any longer in this field.Reference here
Frankly, Noam Chomsky's biggest fan is Noam Chomsky. Admittedly he made some somewhat useful contributions to the field of Linguistics a few decades ago, but now he seems to spend most of his time making statements about things he apparently hasn't researched at all (e.g. his political viewpoints).
“How it is we have so much information, but know so little?”
― Noam Chomsky
Ain't that the truth ...
Amike,
Paul
darkweasel (Voir le profil) 8 juin 2013 14:24:56
sudanglo:[sic] or not?
that it is simply isn't needed.
efilzeo (Voir le profil) 8 juin 2013 15:00:20
pdenisowski:About Chomsky I found out that part of his theory was proved false by a missionary who discovered a tribe [the url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_people]Piraha[/url]] with a language without past and future tenses nor recursion. Chomsky's response to this missionary, mister Everett was "he is a charlatan".efilzeo:After the "Esperanto is not a language" by Chomsky, nothing can impress me any longer in this field.Reference here
Frankly, Noam Chomsky's biggest fan is Noam Chomsky. Admittedly he made some somewhat useful contributions to the field of Linguistics a few decades ago, but now he seems to spend most of his time making statements about things he apparently hasn't researched at all (e.g. his political viewpoints).
“How it is we have so much information, but know so little?”
― Noam Chomsky
Ain't that the truth ...
Amike,
Paul
There's even a documentary about this man and the tribe but I forgot to take a deeper look.
Miland (Voir le profil) 8 juin 2013 18:26:11
RiotNrrd (Voir le profil) 8 juin 2013 18:49:36
Noam Chomsky:... And the same is true about the nature of Esperanto, or Spanish, on which it’s based, and so on...Oh, Noam. If you're going to publicly talk smack about something, at least try to hide your ignorance of basic facts about it. Otherwise you undermine your own credibility just a little bit.
(For the uninitiated - a group to which Chomsky appears to belong - Spanish is not officially counted amongst the source languages of Esperanto. As a large number of European languages have, I expect that it's contributed at least some roots, but it's still not a major source in any meaningful sense.)
darkweasel (Voir le profil) 8 juin 2013 20:10:33
RiotNrrd:But hey, Esperanto and español sound so similar that they have to be related!!!!!!1111Noam Chomsky:... And the same is true about the nature of Esperanto, or Spanish, on which it’s based, and so on...Oh, Noam. If you're going to publicly talk smack about something, at least try to hide your ignorance of basic facts about it. Otherwise you undermine your own credibility just a little bit.
(For the uninitiated - a group to which Chomsky appears to belong - Spanish is not officially counted amongst the source languages of Esperanto. As a large number of European languages have, I expect that it's contributed at least some roots, but it's still not a major source in any meaningful sense.)