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I like the idea of minimal English, but you can't eliminate essential complexity, only push it around, like marbles under the carpet. It ends up like technical

I like the idea of minimal English, but you can't eliminate essential complexity, only push it around, like marbles under the carpet. It ends up like technical writing, where specific repeated phrases have specific meanings (I'm thinking legal writing and also Smith's The Wealth of Nations). Or Lisp written by Java programmers. Galileo looked at the stars not like other people looked at them before. Because of this, he could see them well, not like people could see them before. When he was looking at them, he was holding something of one kind near his eyes. When someone holds something of this kind near the eyes, this someone can look at some places very far from the place where this someone is. A thing of this kind is called “a telescope.” When Galileo looked at the sky at night like this, he could see some places very far from the Earth well. There are people who say "nay". I am one of those people. While recognizing its key goal of translatability, is it really true that many non-English languages lack abstract concepts? Sounds an anglo-centric proposition.

InitialLastName 5y ago
Other languages don't lack abstract concepts, but the abstract concepts are frequently more culturally or contextually dependent (and thus more difficult to reliably translate from one language to another) than concrete concepts. I can translate the word "exorbitant" to Spanish, but it's likely that the translation I pick in one context will be incorrect in another. On the other hand, my translation for 'cat' is likely to be reliable across a large range of contexts (barring its slang usage to represent an abstract concept). There's a reason that many loan words in English from other languages express concepts that are difficult to express naturally in English, e.g. 'schadenfreude', 'ennui'.
- elless 5y ago
  Yep, exactly this.
- hyperpallium2 5y ago
  I was thinking of the lack of conjunctions in the sample, which increases the complexity IMO - like a variable for each operator result in an algebraic expression, or CFG without BNF. It's needlessly tedious, it doesn't map to the concepts in mind - and I can't believe non-English speakers lack these mental concepts (nor that their languages lack them). And this line: [non-cross-translatable words]. These include key words of Anglo culture, such as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘fair’ and ‘rude’, ‘fact’ and ‘evidence’. Like apple-eaters, do only English-speakers know right and wrong? I realize that that allusion itself imports the religous background of English; and I can believe that _precise_ definitions could vary between cultures - even legal systems differ in what "evidence" is permissible in court... but is the casual, non-technical meaning really that different between cultures? Or... am I just so immersed in English that its assumptions are transparent to me, like a fish who can't understand "out of water"? I guess I would like to see specifically how some of those 6 examples are non-cross-translatable...
  - elless 5y ago
    If you're up for some reading, I can highly recommend Wierzbicka's Imprisoned in English which addresses most of the examples you've mentioned https://www.amazon.com/Imprisoned-English-Hazards-Default-Language/dp/0199321507 https://www.amazon.com/Imprisoned-English-Hazards-Default-La... It's not that speakers of other languages necessarily lack the concepts (we can think of things which we don't have words for), but that the concepts map differently in the language. Wierzbicka often uses the example that in Polish, there is no exact equivalent for the English 'and' - there are several words which can be used in the same contexts, but they have overlaps with other English concepts such as 'or', 'but', etc.
    - hyperpallium2 5y ago
      Thanks, sounds interesting.
hliyan 5y ago
This is what I felt as well. My native language is non-European (Sinhalese) and I have a very rudimentary grasp of Latin and German. This is the form that I feel is the simplest -- simple, subject-verb-object sentences without multiple clauses: A "telescope" is a tool. A telescope makes distant things seem near. Galileo looked at stars. Galileo used a telescope to look at stars. etc. Edit: on second thought, maybe not. In my native language, "tool" can also be read as "weapon".
- elless 5y ago
  Thinking of minimal languages as 'simpler' might not be the best way to think about it. The words are simpler words, but we hope to still express the complexity of the concept, while staying as close as possible to cross-translatable concepts. In this particular case, 'tool', 'distant', 'seem', 'use' might not be so cross-translatable, but we could use simple structures for a simpler explanation. e.g. a telescope is a thing because of a telescope, we can see things that are far from us (but this doesn't tell us *how* we use a telescope) Goddard's original explanation could also be revised for different audiences - the beauty of minimal languages is that they are flexible.

InitialLastName 5y ago

Other languages don't lack abstract concepts, but the abstract concepts are frequently more culturally or contextually dependent (and thus more difficult to reliably translate from one language to another) than concrete concepts. I can translate the word "exorbitant" to Spanish, but it's likely that the translation I pick in one context will be incorrect in another. On the other hand, my translation for 'cat' is likely to be reliable across a large range of contexts (barring its slang usage to represent an abstract concept). There's a reason that many loan words in English from other languages express concepts that are difficult to express naturally in English, e.g. 'schadenfreude', 'ennui'.

elless 5y ago
Yep, exactly this.
hyperpallium2 5y ago
I was thinking of the lack of conjunctions in the sample, which increases the complexity IMO - like a variable for each operator result in an algebraic expression, or CFG without BNF. It's needlessly tedious, it doesn't map to the concepts in mind - and I can't believe non-English speakers lack these mental concepts (nor that their languages lack them). And this line: [non-cross-translatable words]. These include key words of Anglo culture, such as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘fair’ and ‘rude’, ‘fact’ and ‘evidence’. Like apple-eaters, do only English-speakers know right and wrong? I realize that that allusion itself imports the religous background of English; and I can believe that _precise_ definitions could vary between cultures - even legal systems differ in what "evidence" is permissible in court... but is the casual, non-technical meaning really that different between cultures? Or... am I just so immersed in English that its assumptions are transparent to me, like a fish who can't understand "out of water"? I guess I would like to see specifically how some of those 6 examples are non-cross-translatable...
- elless 5y ago
  If you're up for some reading, I can highly recommend Wierzbicka's Imprisoned in English which addresses most of the examples you've mentioned https://www.amazon.com/Imprisoned-English-Hazards-Default-Language/dp/0199321507 https://www.amazon.com/Imprisoned-English-Hazards-Default-La... It's not that speakers of other languages necessarily lack the concepts (we can think of things which we don't have words for), but that the concepts map differently in the language. Wierzbicka often uses the example that in Polish, there is no exact equivalent for the English 'and' - there are several words which can be used in the same contexts, but they have overlaps with other English concepts such as 'or', 'but', etc.
  - hyperpallium2 5y ago
    Thanks, sounds interesting.

hliyan 5y ago

This is what I felt as well. My native language is non-European (Sinhalese) and I have a very rudimentary grasp of Latin and German. This is the form that I feel is the simplest -- simple, subject-verb-object sentences without multiple clauses: A "telescope" is a tool. A telescope makes distant things seem near. Galileo looked at stars. Galileo used a telescope to look at stars. etc. Edit: on second thought, maybe not. In my native language, "tool" can also be read as "weapon".

elless 5y ago
Thinking of minimal languages as 'simpler' might not be the best way to think about it. The words are simpler words, but we hope to still express the complexity of the concept, while staying as close as possible to cross-translatable concepts. In this particular case, 'tool', 'distant', 'seem', 'use' might not be so cross-translatable, but we could use simple structures for a simpler explanation. e.g. a telescope is a thing because of a telescope, we can see things that are far from us (but this doesn't tell us *how* we use a telescope) Goddard's original explanation could also be revised for different audiences - the beauty of minimal languages is that they are flexible.