Thank you, Donna. You are the only person on this list who has understood what I am trying to say.
Thank you for the Roberto Trotta link. I have bought his book and look forward to reading it. I don't feel qualified to say anything more until I have. On Fri, 2 Nov 2018 at 20:20, Donna Y <[email protected]> wrote: > > Donna Y > [email protected] > > > > On Oct 19, 2018, at 1:39 PM, Ian Clark <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > For Dr XXY, English is a second language. One of many. His first language > > has never been studied, let alone learnt, by an outsider: it is spoken by > > hardly anyone outside his village, but they've all saved up to send him > to > > Harvard. > > I was reminded of a language I as introduced to when studying Linguistics— > Lusi was spoken by only about 1000 people in Papua New Guinea. > > Lusi is a simple language in the sense that a > Pidgin (a lingua franca to communicate between speakers of other languages) > and Creole (a language that originated as a mixed language) > languages are simple--structurally simple. There are no exceptions to the > rules. > There is a smaller lexicon. > > Languages are said to become progressively simpler as they approach the > ideal of a one-to-one correspondence between form and meaning. > A well-designed computer language is unambiguous but all known natural > languages exhibit the property of ambiguity. > > Tok Pisin developed post European contact and is an English-based > creole—in a > land of more than 500 mutually unintelligible languages Tok Pisin became > an > official language of PNG > > One thing that makes APL simple is a consistent syntax. J was designed as > a simplified, more elegant version of APL. > You can learn a small subset of APL or J that serves your need without > mastering the entire language. > > English and other native languages develop all kinds of complexities and > yet a child can master them--babies are voracious statistical learning > machines. > > > Your friend wants to learn more English to be able to discuss particle > physics and cosmology at Harvard. See: > > > Roberto Trotta, an astrophysicist, tells the history of the universe using > only one thousand most-used words in the English language in a book called > "The Edge Of The Sky.". > > > Big ideas don’t always need big words > > > > Roberto Trotta: "The Edge of Sky" | Talks at Google > > > > http://robertotrotta.com <http://robertotrotta.com/> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
