From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Mon Dec 23 2002 - 09:42:25 MST
Hi Barry et al.
I have some comments which may be of use/interest:
No answer can be given to such a question unless (a) the notion 'learn a
(natural) language' is well defined (and there are various ways of
defining it, which would yield a wide range of answers) and (b) a
distinction is made between children and adult learners (although that
could not be a water-tight distinction). The point about degrees of
difference is also important (although sometimes it is hard to keep
similar languages apart!).
The number of languages cannot be determined precisely, even for one
specific time, as there is no clear distinction between the notions of
'dialects of one language' and 'closely related languages'.
'Common-sense' figures given are around 5,000.
On the other hand, different codings of the same language are a
different matter from different languages.
I could not comment in any detail on computer languages, which are
parasitic on natural languages and other systems (maths etc) but which
inevitably have certain special properties that distinguish them from
natural languages.
Of course, proficiency in a language centrally involves control of the
grammar, not merely vocab size. Natural languages have very varied
grammars indeed, and - like another commentator - I do not think that
the comment 'There are a few "natural" languages that have a very
different syntax -- but they are a minority' could be sustained. Which
languages are these supposed to be? (It is not unusual for
non-linguists, including proficient language-learners, to focus too much
on vocab at the expense of grammar when commenting on such matters. But
of course natural languages do also have very large vocabs.)
Machine translation is still rudimentary in many ways (look at some
examples!), but no doubt it will improve. It might improve faster if
there were progress towards an agreed & successful linguistic theory by
way of input - but there is little sign of this. (Highly optimistic
statements about rapid improvement do not take this adequately into
account.)
Many languages are dying out, but not for reasons of excessive internal
diversity; these are usually spoken by very small groups and thus, while
not standardised, show relatively little variation.
Those languages which remain strong continue to display large amounts of
variation, especially in certain respects. Eg, even with the 'global
village' effect, English is not really becoming less diverse in respect
of accents. In some respects, English and other widespread languages
are actually continuing to diverge. And indeed standardisation is a
process which applies much more strongly in certain respects than
others. The French have tried very hard to standardise their language
and indeed to have one standard for the whole francophone world, but
even in France itself this has had little effect on informal speech.
Mark Newbrook
Linguistics
Monash University
--
Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@mindspring.com >
Alternate: < fortean1@msn.com >
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