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by solve 3980 days ago
I've got to wonder to what degree this approach is really hiding the "real" language in a higher-level encoding.

E.g. you can write english in morse code, but the combination of those dots and dashes is where the "real" language is, instead of the dots and dashes themselves...
3 comments
paol 3980 days ago
> hiding the "real" language in a higher-level encoding

Exactly. In the middle of the article they discuss coming up with an expression to mean "car". Of the many word combinations one might choose (they go with "tomo tawa"), one of them would have to emerge as the standard way to say "car", otherwise effective communication would not really be possible. But at that point you've just created a new word. "Tomo tawa" no longer means anything that combination of words might possibly mean - it means car.

I'd suggest there's a certain irreducible vocabulary, and its size is going to be the same no matter how many base words are used to compose it.

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pluma 3980 days ago
Basically, exactly what happens with compounds like <black> + <bird> => <blackbird> -- blackbirds are a specific sub-category of "black birds", not just any bird with black feathers.

Compound words are words too.

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tgb 3980 days ago
And it's completely analogous to every other language where we come up with words by combining "auto" and "mobile". It would be challenging to determine what an automobile was from just the word and it would be almost impossible to recreate the word had you just been given the object and asked to come up with one. Might as well say that English is a language with 26 words.

Though I imagine this makes spelling and pronunciation easier to remember.

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astrobe_ 3980 days ago
It's not really the same thing. Morse code is basically a different way to write or say letters. If you reverse the morse code, you get letters, then you have a message written in English, German, Spanish, Esperanto... (or even in Arabic or Korean, if you transliterate the original message in latin alphabet).
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_lce0 3980 days ago
Are you saying that using this approach could lead us the minimum brain wiring to make language work?

if so, I like your idea :)

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