Lost languages discovered in the oldest continuously run libraries (2017)

Re:Lost languages discovered in the oldest continuously run ... by Wowfunhappy on Tuesday January 04, 2022 @11:23AM (#29796541)

Is this an unpopular opinion? I think that languages are beautiful and culture should be studied and respected—but yes, of course the world would be more efficient if we had a single universal language. (And preferably not English, since English is horrible.) There’s a reason the Tower of Babel story depicts languages as a punishment from God.

The problem is that it’s ultimately a purely academic debate, for somewhat similar reasons to why QWERTY vs DVORAK discussions never lead anywhere. I have spent my entire life practicing reading and writing in english. I have zero interest in all that away to switch to an entirely new language, much less one that none of the people around me speak. You’re just never going to develop a movement around this in a free society, so there’s no point.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Lost languages discovered in the oldest continuously run ... by mrtranscendence on Tuesday January 04, 2022 @03:06PM (#29799591)

> English is horrible.

English isn't substantially worse than any other natural language, except insofar that it is attached to a very inconsistent system of spelling. That's somewhat orthogonal to English as a language, though, and indeed it could be written with any imagined writing system (e.g. quickscript).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Lost languages discovered in the oldest continuously run ... by Wowfunhappy on Tuesday January 04, 2022 @04:26PM (#29800777)

I'm not well-versed in any foreign languages, but the little I know of Spanish grammar seems to be a lot more consistent than english. (There are footguns, there just seem to be fewer.)

And since we're talking about ideals, I don't see any reason to limit ourselves to natural languages! I am quite certain you could design a language which is much easier to learn and no less expressive.

[ Parent | on HN ]