User:Marjan Tomki SI/Language problems

Some of text below relates to particular problem in WP, an article, a set of articles, a policy etc. The relation should be at least mentioned (if possible linked).

Some of Wikipedia tools to help with languages

 * Usefull Templates: lang, trans, ill
 * Links:
 * Typo Team/moss - related to SW supported effort of detection and cleaning of typos and several other different reasons for difficult understandability of contents; heavily related to Manual of Style

How I got to problems with languages
I wanted to propose addition to some data about scientific method to Article about Descartes (mainly reference to a piece of his work in Project Gutenberg) and got into problem with language.

There are also several sets (and/or cathegories) of languages, and problems around them (and hierarhies are not good enough representation to communicate them).

On types of languages

 * sets of types of languages (verbal/non verbal, human/machine, natural/artificial/constructed/hybrid...); languages in mathematics etc. (symbolic language might be verbal or nonverbal)
 * mathematics of language - general problems often benefit from being looked at by suitable tools, and mathematics is often a good tool to use on general problems
 * language of an idividual (her/his/it's means to act, think etc. - everything any(one/thing) does can be seen and thought of as language)

Languagees change with time
Applies to any language (and language type) I am aware of. Nature, events, types of changes, relevant factors for change etc., possible ways to look at are all to be discussed. If/when language becomes too static, it usually becomes obsolete, and usually dies off. It seems that both maxime "Life is change", and "No life without change" apply not only to living creatures, but to languages too.

Verbal languages change with time
Most languages (all verbal I know enough about, and most others I am aware of) - change with time. There are some I know, where I am not quite sure; on several I knowm I also know I have insufficient data; that's why "most" and not "all" above.

Background
From my early linguistic training (and my native Slovenian and total immersion in several other closely related slavic languages, and bits of German, when I was even preschool, and also a almost as early exposure to Latin), practical comparative linguistics became natural and automatic for me. Some would call part of it flolklore etyimology, but I didn't form intuitively, but only hypoteses about what is possible and interesting to find out if it's true. I used such hypoteses to intuitively and automatically build "mind-patterns" of relations between symbols and their sets of possible (often chains of) meanings in different contexts and times. Formal training in latin exposed me to preclasic, clasic and medieval versions of Latin (of evolution of how it was written, spoken, and how meanings of words changed), and variance between Romanic languages when I got exposed to them, showed similar pattern. Formal training in my native Slovenian and then-known history of how it developed did the same for it and the pattern about Slavic languages. I later saw similar pattern of similarities in glimpses of Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic, between Indian languages (Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali...), and from a bit of glimpse about some languages that use types of writing based on Chinese (I worked with Japanese made mainframe computer and operation system Facom for a good decade, and used their manuals of which some were not traslated to English, and worked with Japaneese support people and trainers). Another similar (and different, of course) set of sets were constucted languages, most of those I encountered and "spoke" computer related. A good general tool to describe and predict general problems seemed mathematics, and when I became aware of that (that it is not something "I had to learn to get good scores" but a usefull tool) I applied it to languages too (what academically trained linguists of my age I met at the time didn't do yet do).

The Name of the Rose of Umberto Eco as a great introduction to Semiotics made me even more aware of birth, life and extinctions of meanings of symbols (of course, a Cosmos of nonverbal types too), and induced me to refine a bit more the mathematic I used with that, too.

I was not a linguistic researcher with goal to publish results of my research to peer reviewed publications, I used practical linguistics to search for solutions for practical problems, which almost always included miscommunication (not allways, but often, intentional) too.

Languages in sources, and in Wikipedia
When I was solving problems (which was very often my assigned task), that usually happened when someone else (or several someones else) failed before. So I went deep, and assumed nothing in advance as far as I could. Because that method proved (very) succesfull, that part of the method(s) became automatic (as I described above for languages).

When I got to that level and e.g. became aware of the statement how Newton was wrong, I got a feeling that he was maybe not wrong, but was misinterpreted. Because his work Principia Mathematica (in Latin) was available in Project Gutemberg, I looked into it. I found Newton was right in his main thesis - that mathematic can be used to describe and predict phenomena in nature. Of what I translated then (I had no dictionary available, and was out of practice for medieval Latin), I got the impression that other statements were in essence arguments to support that thesis. I saw how he had to introduce mass and inertia as principles with roudabout descriptions because words for that concepts didn't seem to exist in Latin... And at that time, data that would let him know where he would need to refine his model (about relativistic speeds etc.), were unavailable (and possibly unmeasurable by technology available).

I later read Feynman's address of several aspect at some physicists convention and saw, that he (one of the top physicists of the time) told them he accepted 99% result modelled as true for the model's sake, and the audience seemed to accept that as a matter of fact (and common sense). As far as I can see, Newton did no worse (under Occam's Razor - for me problematic - principle). For me, aproximations are part of engineering, because BMI (by my experience) they are often wrong (Murphy's Law), and when something goes astray all such assumptions must be rechecked at troubleshooting.

So when I got to a problem when some such assumption got under suspicion, I went to see Descartes' time's meanings of some of the critical words and meanings in his work in Wikipedia, and got neck deep into troubles by principle of verifiability. I had to go to source (Descartes' work), and what I found out there and what I found to be true to the problem, and different to what I found in WP article, couldn't be corrected, because current accepted sources cited seem to understand some pieces of that wrong. I don't recall, which bit bothered me, but I can fid out again.

It is as with a lot of religious people, that often accept that holly scriptures (of whichever religion) were literally true. Whole scholastics was about citing to reliable sources, and those whose tractats were not agreed on (by hierarchy, and Pope) could be declared heretics and persecuted, and their works put on index of forbidden book (not alowed to be read by people of that religion).

Wikipedia is better at that, and worse. Here no prosecution happens to editors, but does to what they write.

Verifiability got to mean verifiability to published accepted sources (for pragmatic reasons - that can be verified reasonabily easily, and would be massively violated without following that policy), not to reality (even as an alternative)(which is often much harder to do). But because of that e.g. (exempli gratia) can't get accepted (I proposed the change, didn't do it yet because it was opposed) correctuing of the :sl:Wikipedia article on planning boat, Slovenian named, which currently discribes a hydrofoil ship (such as were in use about 1960-ies in Adriatic), because other editors (with no nautical experience) insist on dictionary definition, which hadn't been updated to include now massively predominnt planning boats named by word yet. I might succed to cause both that update to standard dictionary, and understanding of the editors (including by taking them to a ride on a planning boat and looking into boat's documets to see what is defined in in Slovenian law on marine traffic), but Covid-19 restrictions seem bo be slowing down or even preventing necessary communication, so I might not live to see it done. There is enough of such examples that I think this problem has to be adressed, too, and, with time, I intend some other types of such examples too.

This part expanded Marjan Tomki SI (talk) 08:50, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Search for a tool - etymology
The closest to a suitable tool for that seemed to be etymology. One of the tools to do that seemed to miss a connection I saw and there didn't see to be an easy way to discuss if that connection is valid (and if it is, to add it. So I went to see if wiktionary could do better, and it seemed it might. To work with that, to login there seemed to be useful, and to learn basic rules and techniques there, too. But learning that I found out there is a much more general problem (that is probably over the stated domain of wiktionary, too).

Brainstorming

 * language as a means of communication (needs to un-degenerate comunicology)

example
Word un-degenerate seem illogical; guys from computer science logics would collapse it to generate. But un-degenerate implied that something degenerated (from comunicology from science and practice about reliably communicating and troubleshooting when failure in communication was detected, to science and practice about how to lie convincingly in a way, that can't easily be prosecuted). If somebody (or a programed/heuristic/AI process/system/individual) removes dual negation that meaning gets lost (and we have a miscommunication). Marjan Tomki SI (talk) 07:20, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Points of view missed
At Talk:Errors in early word use I would consider to mention

Not only human children learn
Probably ability to learn (to react and adapt to environment and it's changes) is a defining property of life (as is growth and procreation etc.) in general.

The way biological life develops includes a lot of languages
by which components of living creaturs coordinate, and communicate. Within humans, most popularized are neural and hormone communication systems, but a set of other languages seem also to exist within the cell. Probably best populrized of those is the genetical code (DNA/RNA), that is known to code proteins that our cells building factory reads to build cells stuffs and mechanisms. A lot of those proteins (and other chemicals within cells) can also function as messages and so also seen as language (with probably similar problems (communication errors, interpretation errors... - and when such problems emerge, probably manifest as illnesses).

Things learned from the way human language skills develop
were implemented in hevristic programs (that "learn") and similar (same?) logical errors were encountered. Also, similar problems were encountered in (large number) of artificial langages in general, including matematical (a lot of them), programing languages, data description languages, signaling and communication protools, and their initial conception, troubleshooting and development.

Philosophy and mathematics for general linguistics
There probably already exists some philosphy and mathematics for general lingusitics, that includes probably all aspects I mentioned, and a cosmos of others. When apropriate sources for WP are found, developmental errors in general, and in possibly by language group if a group has group specific problems, should be represented somwhere around here (this article or some disambiguated from here. --Marjan Tomki SI (talk) 21:01, 14 March 2021 (UTC) I seem to have initiated improvement of the Max Talmey article (by adding a point of view or two, and supporting source or two, both in article and on talk page), and Artem.G took from there, and he seems to run with it towards GA level. That includes sourced contents on Talmey's role in linguistics, including constructed languages. It seems Talmey was even more a kind of guy I like and respect then I felt, and Artem.G found more sources to confirm it. Talmey was interdisciplinarily competent, so he understood mathematics and several languages thoroughly, and also wrote several books about learning and teaching (and constructing) languages. That's one person (and set of sources Artem.G found and listed) I intend to let known about to students of linguistics I know.

Translations in Wikipedia
I was interested in multilingual Wikipedia and tried to support it by Wikidata, but got into problems described around my user page there. I also tried a translation tool on Batch file to translate to Slovenian and got nowhere and let go for almost a year. Now I was reminded that the started translation will expire (eligible to be deleted). I would have requested it to be removed (and if I was current on current Slovenian language of informatics) I would try the translation again.

I still don't find where to abandon the started translation. Edit: I found where to abandon the obsolete translation, but I had to do it before I clicked the one stated (to see what was the contents); in there I found no way to abndon nor to get back to the list. Material to review before next try:
 * https://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ContentTranslation?from=en&to=sl#suggestions
 * Internal link to sl:Special:ContentTranslation?from=en&to=sl fails with no such special page found; link there to existing here: sl:Posebno:PosebneStrani
 * Translation
 * mw:Content translation
 * Talk:Content translation