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diputsmonro 15 days ago

An interesting perspective on this is that language is just another tool on the job. Like any other tool, you use the kind of language that is most applicable and efficient. When you need to describe or understand weather conditions quickly and unambiguously, you use METAR. Sure, you could use English or another natural language, but it's like using a multitool instead of a chef knife. It'll work in a pinch, but a tool designed to solve your specific problem will work much better.

Not to slight multitools or natural languages, of course - there is tremendous value in a tool that can basically do everything. Natural languages have the difficult job of describing the entire world (or, the experience of existing in the world as a human), which is pretty awesome.

And different natural languages give you different perspectives on the world, e.g., Japanese describes the world from the perspective of a Japanese person, with dedicated words for Japanese traditions that don't exist in other cultures. You could roughly translate "kabuki" into English as "Japanese play", but you lose a lot of what makes kabuki "kabuki", as opposed to "noh". You can use lots of English words to describe exactly what kabuki is, but if you're going to be talking about it a lot, operating solely in English is going to become burdensome, and it's better to borrow the Japanese word "kabuki".

All languages are domain specific languages!

corimaith 14 days ago | parent | next [-]

I would caution to point of that the Strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is debunked; Language may influence your understanding, but it's not deterministic and just means more words to explain a concept for any language.

diputsmonro a day ago | parent [-]

Sure! I like to think of it as observing the same scene from different vantage points. Languages develop to describe the world around them, so different languages may treat the same subject differently depending on how those the speakers of those language interact with those subjects.

thaumasiotes 15 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> You can use lots of English words to describe exactly what kabuki is, but if you're going to be talking about it a lot, operating solely in English is going to become burdensome, and it's better to borrow the Japanese word "kabuki".

This is incorrect. Using the word "kabuki" has no advantage over using some other three-syllable word. In both cases you'll be operating solely in English. You could use the (existing!) word "trampoline" and that would be just as efficient. The odds of someone confusing the concepts are low.

Borrowing the Japanese word into English might be easier to learn, if the people talking are already familiar with Japanese, but in the general case it doesn't even have that advantage.

Consider that our name for the Yangtze River is unrelated to the Chinese name of that river. Does that impair our understanding, or use, of the concept?

card_zero 15 days ago | parent [-]

The point is that Japanese has some word for kabuki, while English would have to borrow the word, or coin a new one, or indeed repurpose a word. Without a word, an English speaker would have to resort to a short essay every time the concept was needed, though in practice of course would coin a word quickly.

Hence jargon and formal logic, or something. And surfer slang and txtspk.