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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!morgan
From: morgan@uicsl.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Sanskrit (actually natural l
Message-ID: <12300004@uicsl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Oct-84 16:49:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uicsl.12300004
Posted: Wed Oct 31 16:49:00 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Nov-84 07:43:38 EST
References: <189@scc.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:scc:-18900:uicsl:12300004:000:2058
Nf-From: uicsl!morgan    Oct 31 15:49:00 1984


Interesting though this topic is, I'm almost sorry I brought
it up, since it seems to be close to
clogging up net.ai and probably should be moved to net.nlang.
But before it goes I should say that none of the putative examples of
expressive deficits offered here are persuasive.  They are all based
on somebody who knew somebody, and/or on conclusions formed from very
superficial and impressionistic evidence.
A claim that there is something one language
can express and another can't--and I mean CAN'T express, not just
can't express as economically--is a very important claim indeed,
barring trivial cases where one culture can't say anything about
some topic (e.g. VLSI) because they never heard of it.  Such a claim would
therefore have to be backed with serious evidence based on intensive 
systematic investigation.  So far I haven't seen anything like that.
I'm also skeptical of claims that some cultures have no
metaphor, based on the fact that they find it strange to say somebody
runs like the wind.  Metaphor (probably not really a linguistic problem
anyway) can vary from culture to culture, as reflected in judgements
of natural vs. unnatural metaphor, so differences can't be taken as
evidence for the absence of metaphor.

That is not to say that there are not fascinating systematic
differences between languages that reflect important differences
between cultures; there clearly are.
And it may be that language A offers the user a more
efficient means than language B to communicate certain kinds of messages,
whereas B is better for some other kinds.  But there is no reason
to suppose that there are languages (other than pathological cases
like pidgins and dying languages) that are on balance expressively inferior
in comparison with other languages.  There have been claims to that effect
in the past, but they were based on racism and/or ignorance, not on fact.
One can't rule out the possibility that eventually such evidence might
emerge, but as far as I know there is none now; and personally I doubt
that there ever will be.