Mimimum number of words for a language

[lorb]

covers everything necessary for at least basic survival and recreation

not even that. even if we were to accept is a language you could not warn someone else of a danger that is not immediately present. Besides that: you can't even say "yes" or "no"? or how do you ask a question?

[eSOANEM]

I see no reason why it couldn't work.

There are several.

1. It can only refer to things which are present or can be mimed.

2. It can only talk about objects not abstract nouns such as the properties of objects.

3. The only thing you can do to objects is add them, they can't be taken away and you can't tell people to move things/themselves.

1 & 2 don't strike me as preventing something from being a language. There are many sorts of things that English cannot be used to talk about (events happening outside of time, for example), but it's a language. Now, the things my hypothetical 3-word language can't discuss are way more important than the things English can't discuss, but I can see it being sufficient to get by. It allows you to communicate a wide range of things, and covers everything necessary for at least basic survival and recreation. It'd be a terrible pain, but it could be done. However, maybe just barely allowing you to cover survival needs isn't enough to technically qualify as a language. I don't know. If a form of communication needs to be capable of expressing abstract thoughts or faraway objects to qualify as a language, then this certainly wouldn't qualify as a language.

3 isn't true. My example sentence was about moving an object, and after saying, "defining thing oneplus" while shuffling to the left, and "defining thing oneplus oneplus" while non-verbally indicating the listener, emphatically saying, "thing oneplus thing oneplus oneplus" would mean "you should shuffle to the left."

We clearly have a very different definition of language than each other. Also, as for "events outside of time", I'm not entirely sure what it means, but it sounds very much as if you mean an event with no time co-ordinate (or that doesn't sit in any time interval) in which case such a thing is for one thing not realisable and for another, can be descried, have you read the restaurant at the end of the universe or seen any of the several episodes of doctor who dealing with such things?

Okay, you can tell someone to move. You can still only have one "thing" defined at any time.

Imagine the following situation:

You have three towers each with one guard, the towers are close enough that you can shout between them, but the streets below are too noisy for you to shout to the furthest tower. You're the guard on top of one of the end towers and you see that the guard on the far tower has his banner flying the wrong way round. Because there's an inspection soon and you know you'll all be punished if anything's wrong, how do you tell the guard on the middle tower to tell the other guard to turn his banner round in a way which could not be accomplished just as easily through mime?

The point is, your language cannot actually communicate anything at all, it is only the mime and context which allows communication.

[MinotaurWarrior]

I'm not sure what information "defining" adds at all that is unclear from the non-verbal communication. I also don't think "thing" has much utility either. What is the difference between "thing oneplus" and just "oneplus" when compensatory miming is already necessary to establish what thing is? How much of the sentence "lift the set of dumbells I pointed to earlier!" is actually transmitted by "thing oneplus oneplus thing oneplus!" and how much is inferred by miming and context? Can every word be replaced with "ook" and still be equally understood?

"defining" is needed because it allows you to say non-defining sentences while doing things. Though I suppose it could be replaced by a simple rule saying "things cannot be re-defined within a situation". "Thing" or some other such symbol (a pregnant pause, or stressing the first "oneplus") would be needed to distinguish "thing oneplus thing oneplus oneplus" from "thing oneplus oneplus oneplus".

The language is only a slight improvement from human body language, but it does allow some advantages. For example, say I'm a village leader, commanding my people. I could say, "defining thing oneplus" while pointing at a sort of whicker basket-backpack all my people use to carry gathered goods. I could then pick up one type of fruit that grows to the north while saying "defining thing oneplus oneplus". Then I could indicate a sort of root vegetable that grows in the south, and say "defining thing oneplus oneplus oneplus" . Then, I could mime looking for the hide of one of the fearsome beasts I slayed to become leader, and say, "defining thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus". Then I could mime suddenly noticing it and running away, saying "defining thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus". Then, I could mime getting backed into a corner, and stabbing at it with one of the spears all my villagers carry, saying "defining thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus". Then, I could indicate Then, I could separate my villagers into two groups. To one, I could indicate some meat, and say "defining thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus." then, I could mime placing something in the basket, and say, "defining thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus."

Then, I could split my villagers into two groups, and say to the first, "thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus thing oneplus oneplus thing oneplus. Thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus. Thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus. Thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus. Thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus thing oneplus" Meaning, "place northern fruit in the basket. Look out for dangerous beasts. If you find one, run away. If you're backed into a corner, stab it with a spear. Place meat in basket." To the second group, I could say, "thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus thing oneplus oneplus oneplus thing oneplus. Thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus. Thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus. Thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus. Thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus thing oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus oneplus thing oneplus" meaning "place southern root vegetables in the basket. Look out for dangerous beasts. If you find one, run away. If you're backed into a corner, stab it with a spear. Place meat in basket." This involves marginally less gesturing than would be needed to express the following ideas with just body language. It is still totally inconvenient.

covers everything necessary for at least basic survival and recreation

not even that. even if we were to accept is a language you could not warn someone else of a danger that is not immediately present. Besides that: you can't even say "yes" or "no"? or how do you ask a question?

I'm not sure if you need to ask questions to live. And as for hidden dangers, you could simply indicate the neccessary course of action, such as running in the opposite direction. If the warned trusted the warner, they'd survive. The language would appear to require a whole lot of trust and agreement though. Probably super-human amounts of both. I don't think it'd be possible to explain your reasoning or argue in the language.

We clearly have a very different definition of language than each other.

Is yours at all more legitimate than the laymans? If so, I'll easily accept it and support you in declaring my three-word abomination as a non-language. If you got that definition from sitting in on a single linguistics class while heavily sleep deprived and looking for a place to snooze, I'd still probably accept that as being more legitimate than the sources I used to acquire my definition of language.

Also, as for "events outside of time", I'm not entirely sure what it means, but it sounds very much as if you mean an event with no time co-ordinate (or that doesn't sit in any time interval) in which case such a thing is for one thing not realisable and for another, can be descried, have you read the restaurant at the end of the universe or seen any of the several episodes of doctor who dealing with such things?

Certainly yes to the first, and probably yes to the second (I don't pay much attention to the television while "watching" Doctor Who), but any attempts to do so fall short, because all verbs in English denote a time co-ordinate and most also denote some sort of causal relationship. What Douglas Adams did was akin to saying, "There are no jaws or teeth or mouths or anything like that in this scene. Mark bit Larry."

Okay, you can tell someone to move. You can still only have one "thing" defined at any time.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. You can have an infinite number of "things" defined at one time. Basically "oneplus" means "1+", so "oneplus oneplus" means "1+1+" otherwise known as two. In this way, you can make all the counting numbers, and have a number of things defined equal to the number of counting numbers (thing 1, thing 2, thing 3, and so on)

Imagine the following situation:

You have three towers each with one guard, the towers are close enough that you can shout between them, but the streets below are too noisy for you to shout to the furthest tower. You're the guard on top of one of the end towers and you see that the guard on the far tower has his banner flying the wrong way round. Because there's an inspection soon and you know you'll all be punished if anything's wrong, how do you tell the guard on the middle tower to tell the other guard to turn his banner round in a way which could not be accomplished just as easily through mime?

The point is, your language cannot actually communicate anything at all, it is only the mime and context which allows communication.

Okay, the tribal example kinda wore me a bit thin on actually typing out every step exactly as it is done, but what you'd need to do is either simply indicate & define the far flag, and mime & define re-orienting a flag, and shout both combined to the middle guardsman, who would then realize that the best way to accomplish his new goal would be to communicate with the far guardsman. Or you could say "defining thing oneplus" and then fake-shouting (spurting gibberish, for example), then indicating some things like what direction he should face and what side of his tower the middle guard should be standing on, then command the middle guardsman to tell the far guardsman to re-orient his flag.

And all languages rely on mime and context for their meaning. How did you learn what "apple" meant? Someone probably pointed to an apple and said, "apple" to your infant self. The only difference between that, and this language, is that meaning fades once a situation has passed. You can define "thing oneplus" as making an oarstroke, and then say "thing oneplus" like you would say "row" for a while (synchronizing everyone's movements), but because "thing oneplus" doesn't intrinsically mean "row" the language can shave down the number of words, making it (if it is a language) a good candidate for the language with the minimum number of words, imho.

[gmalivuk]

The "thing oneplus" language could in principle be built up to communicate any information, since it's just numbers. It's how we're communicating right now, underneath, and it's how porn is transmitted, as per the quote in my sig.

But of course the other thing the OP mentioned was having a *usable* language. Which this certainly isn't in any sense of "usable" that's tighter than "logically possible".

[eSOANEM]

Okay, you can tell someone to move. You can still only have one "thing" defined at any time.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. You can have an infinite number of "things" defined at one time. Basically "oneplus" means "1+", so "oneplus oneplus" means "1+1+" otherwise known as two. In this way, you can make all the counting numbers, and have a number of things defined equal to the number of counting numbers (thing 1, thing 2, thing 3, and so on)

Ah, I misunderstood the use of "oneplus", I thought it meant to add one of "thing". Given this, I see how this does satisfy any definition of language which includes things like sign language. It is still, as gmalivuk says by no means usable.

[MinotaurWarrior]

But of course the other thing the OP mentioned was having a *usable* language. Which this certainly isn't in any sense of "usable" that's tighter than "logically possible".

Ah, good point.

[lorb]

The "thing oneplus" language could in principle be built up to communicate any information, since it's just numbers. It's how we're communicating right now, [...]

no? because any number-based communication requires a strictly defined set of rules that guide the interpretation of the numbers. Usually (for languages) we call that grammar and/or syntax and the "thing oneplus" lacks that.

[gmalivuk]

I was under the impression that we've only really been told so far about the language's semantics. That doesn't mean it lacks syntax, only that syntax hasn't yet been described.

(From the first post about it, it seems at least to have VO ordering, and if I felt like decrypting the long strings given in further examples, I could probably come up with some other syntactical rules MinotaurWarrior is implicitly assuming.)