Return-Path: Message-Id: <9205211153.AA20071@relay1.UU.NET> Date: Thu May 21 11:27:38 1992 Reply-To: Edmund Grimley-Evans Sender: Lojban list From: Edmund Grimley-Evans Subject: further response to Edmund Grimley-Evans To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann Status: RO X-Status: X-From-Space-Date: Thu May 21 11:27:38 1992 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN > Our best hope, in my mind, is to convince the community of linguists that > as simplified languages, the ALs may show things more clearly that can then > be looked for in natural languages. Otherwise, we have to wait for a new > generation of linguists that is more interested in broader questions of > language use then the basic one of why human beings have language and are > able to communicate successfully with it. Let us hope that the new generation of linguists will soon appear. However I suspect that we will never understand language properly without trying to construct languages ourselves. Linguistics should be more experimental!