Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site sdcrdcf.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!lwall
From: lwall@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: net.ai,net.nlang
Subject: Re: natural language deficiencies?
Message-ID: <1414@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Oct-84 15:29:06 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.1414
Posted: Fri Oct 26 15:29:06 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Oct-84 06:32:14 EST
References: <12582@sri-arpa.UUCP> <12300003@uicsl.UUCP> <194@oliveb.UUCP> <619@gloria.UUCP> <801@aplvax.UUCP> <6115@mcvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: lwall@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Larry Wall)
Organization: System Development Corp. R+D, Santa Monica
Lines: 52
Xref: 2207 1944
Summary: 

In article <6115@mcvax.UUCP> steven@mcvax.UUCP (Steven Pemberton) writes:
>I find this talk of 'deficiencies' a little disturbing.
>
>A deficiency is in the ear of the listener, surely. If a language doesn't
>have a particular feature, then that is only because the speakers of that
>language don't need it. If they perceived a need for it, something would
>develop.

I find this talk of deficiencies a little disturbing too, but for different
reasons.  Almost all purported "deficiencies" indicate not that a language
cannot communicate a particular idea, but that the purported linguist has
not studied the language well enough.  Languages are not differentiated on
the basis of what is possible or impossible to say, but on the basis of what
is easier or harder to say.  That is not to say that a given language is
easier or harder than another--languages on the whole are of approximately
equal complexity, but the complexities show up in different places in
different languages.  This is known as the waterbed theory of linguistics--
you push it down one place and it pops up somewhere else.

>As an example, 'standard' English doesn't distinguish between 'you' singular
>and plural, while many languages do. Is this a deficiency of English? Most
>English speakers would probably say not because they get along fine as it is.
>However certain dialects of English apparently found it a deficiency, because
>they went and invented a plural version (y'all in USA, youse in England).

Here in California, it's "you guys".  And no, they don't all have to be male.
They don't any of them have to be male.

Of course, "standard" English has "all of you", "you folks", "you ladies",
etc., and a bunch of vocative phrases to indicate plurality.  "Gentlemen,
start your engines!"

>A similar example is the difficulty in English of saying something in a
>gender-neutral way (Chinese has a single word for 'he or she' for instance).
>Many English speakers find this a deficiency, and so are developing ways to
>express these things.

One does have a certain amount of difficulty, doesn't one?  But just because
an English speaker runs up against this problem, it doesn't mean they have to
reinvent the wheel, do they?  English already has both a formal and an
informal way to express the idea.  One doesn't have to misunderstood if they
don't want to.  Of course, if one mixes up the formal with the informal, they
very well might be misunderstood.

(For you clunches out there, the previous paragraph is self-referential.)

Larry Wall
{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!lwall