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Cool. There's a similar project put forth by linguists in the early 70s called Natural Semantic Metalanguage, with about 70 "primes" that all other words can be

Cool. There's a similar project put forth by linguists in the early 70s called Natural Semantic Metalanguage, with about 70 "primes" that all other words can be factored out as, like you would have to do if you wrote a dictionary without circular definitions. Unlike Toki Pona or the other languages mentioned in the article, Natural Semantic Metalanguage is mostly used for thought experiments and to analyze existing languages for ambiguities and double meanings.* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_semantic_metalanguage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_semantic_metalanguag... *"Double meanings" may not be the right word, but is there a word to describe what happens when a system is non-orthagonal and the same piece winds up with multiple responsibilities?

mintplant 11y ago
Overloading?
- zachrose 11y ago
  Totally, perfect!
  - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
    For us geeks :-) others know such words as 'homonyms'.
    - zachrose 11y ago
      But within NSM scholarship, overloading is probably more descriptive than words that happen to sound the same but have well-known distinct meanings. In blurb form: "This book is based on two ideas: first, that any language--English no less than any other-represents a universe of meaning, shaped by the history and experience of the men and women who have created it, and second, that in any language certain culture--specific words act as linchpins for whole networks of meanings, and that penetrating the meanings of those key words can therefore open our eyes to an entire cultural universe. In this book Anna Wierzbicka demonstrates that three uniquely English words--evidence, experience, and sense--are exactly such linchpins. Using a rigorous plain language approach to meaning analysis, she unpacks the dense cultural meanings of these key words, disentangles their multiple meanings, and traces their origins back to the tradition of British empiricism. In so doing she reveals much about cultural attitudes embedded not only in British and American English, but also English as a global language." http://www.amazon.com/Experience-Evidence-Sense-Cultural-English/dp/0195368010/ref=pd_bxgy_14_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1ME4VECZ3R26YBX27A6Z http://www.amazon.com/Experience-Evidence-Sense-Cultural-Eng...

mintplant 11y ago

Overloading?

zachrose 11y ago
Totally, perfect!
- oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
  For us geeks :-) others know such words as 'homonyms'.
  - zachrose 11y ago
    But within NSM scholarship, overloading is probably more descriptive than words that happen to sound the same but have well-known distinct meanings. In blurb form: "This book is based on two ideas: first, that any language--English no less than any other-represents a universe of meaning, shaped by the history and experience of the men and women who have created it, and second, that in any language certain culture--specific words act as linchpins for whole networks of meanings, and that penetrating the meanings of those key words can therefore open our eyes to an entire cultural universe. In this book Anna Wierzbicka demonstrates that three uniquely English words--evidence, experience, and sense--are exactly such linchpins. Using a rigorous plain language approach to meaning analysis, she unpacks the dense cultural meanings of these key words, disentangles their multiple meanings, and traces their origins back to the tradition of British empiricism. In so doing she reveals much about cultural attitudes embedded not only in British and American English, but also English as a global language." http://www.amazon.com/Experience-Evidence-Sense-Cultural-English/dp/0195368010/ref=pd_bxgy_14_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1ME4VECZ3R26YBX27A6Z http://www.amazon.com/Experience-Evidence-Sense-Cultural-Eng...