Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2019 July 30

= July 30 =

Is there any constructed language that eliminated all fallacies related to how language works?
Is there any constructed language that eliminated all fallacies related to how language works, that made extinct all fallacies that could be made extinct by creating a language from scracth to avoid them?

Some example of those fallacies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Verbal_fallacies 201.79.56.26 (talk) 01:17, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The "no true Scotsman" thing is not a fallacy of language.
 * What constitutes a "fallacy of language"? Arguably it is, based on deliberately or inadvertently confusing the definition (or conflating different definitions) of "Scotsman", and/or of "true", and/or of the phrase "true Scotsman". Iapetus (talk) 09:08, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Such a hypothetical language would have to somehow make "Scotsman" and "true Scotsman" the same word. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:18, 30 July 2019 (UTC)


 * The OP may be interested in our articles on Loglan, Lojban and logical languages. Loglan and Lojban do eliminate syntactic ambiguity, but eliminating semantic ambiguity and other "language fallacies" is likely impossible. For example, James Cooke Brown argues in Loglan 1: A Logical Language that all noun phrases involving a modifier are metaphors whose exact meaning cannot be determined from the meaning of the constituent words. Thus the meaning of a seemingly simple phrase like "blue house" cannot be determined unless the speaker knows what people generally mean by that phrase. A Martian hearing the phrase could not know that a blue house doesn't necessarily have blue windows, a blue roof, or blue walls and floors in the interior. Similarly one has to have knowledge of the real world to know that a "water pump" moves water, but a "bicycle pump" moves air, not bicycles. CodeTalker (talk) 14:46, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Likewise that a can with a picture of a salmon on it has salmon inside it, and a can with a picture of peas has peas inside it, though a can with a picture of a baby... Language has always been in the world, and always has a presumed context among the interlocutors. Wikipedia does have an article on Context-free language but it's written in rather arcane symbols and doesn't really explain itself well (rather ironically), and doesn't seem to apply to any actual in-use human languages, but rather on highly theoretical ideas.  In practical terms, humans will always invent novel communication where none yet exists to adequately describe a situation; that's the downfall of any perfectly constructed language: humans will use it, and will change it up to suit their needs over time, introducing their own meaning to fit their own context, and thus ambiguity.  "Wouldn't it be great if we could introduce a perfect language that allowed for no ambiguity or contradictions or fallacies and thus could always perfectly communicate every idea without error"  You could, until you taught it to two people and they started using it among themselves, and then it would quickly all go to shit.  -- Jayron 32 15:30, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I only buy all-natural organic baby oil, made from real babies! On a more serious note, expanding on your response, readers may be interested in the concept of qualia. When you think of "red", how do you know that's the same thing everyone else thinks of? What does someone born red-green colorblind think of when asked to think of "red"? Human language tries to encapsulate the whole big universe and fit it inside the squishy stuff inside your skull. Some ambiguity is always probably going to be inevitable. Perhaps there is some link here with Gödel's incompleteness theorems. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 11:05, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * For a fictional treatment, you may be interested in the language of the Sheliak, in the Star Trek universe: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sheliak https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sheliak_language. Any such language would need to have far more words, and we would need to keep adding to the list. For example, a "window", meaning the thing that lets flies and burglars into the house, would be a separate word from that in "window of opportunity". The Windows operating systems would need a new name, and the individual windows that pop up on the screen to sell you crap would also need a new name. SinisterLefty (talk) 17:52, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Another fictional example would be Newspeak, which was specifically designed to (among other things) remove ambiguity by ensuring every word had only one meaning, and every concept had only one word for it. Iapetus (talk) 08:25, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Babel-17, one of the better known sf stories based on this. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:49, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Notices at the start of an escalator: "Dogs must be carried", "Shoes must be worn"; mean completely different things. -- SGBailey (talk) 07:57, 2 August 2019 (UTC)


 * And stray dogs, which have worn out their welcome by getting carried away with barking, must be shoed away. SinisterLefty (talk) 09:22, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Or "shooed". Dogs equating to shoes? In America, at least, "dogs" in that alternative sense means feet, not shoes. (And there's also the dreaded passive voice on that sign, but that's another thing.) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:48, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Signs for No shoes, no schnauzer, no service outside every store. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:44, 3 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The stray dogs which got carried away to Barking would have to be shooed away as that's the end of the line (I just disembarked from the Barking train to make this observation).2A00:23C5:CDAD:6500:B91C:4165:4F1C:483C (talk) 16:10, 2 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I seem to recall a set of criteria in psycholinguistics (I forget whose criteria or exactly what they were) that are posited as distinguishing factors between the ability to communicate and the ability to use language. One of those key factors is the ability to deceive. It strikes me that a language that was constructed to make ambiguity, closely related to deception, impossible would require a brain incapable of deception... and in turn might render that "language" a non-language. Put differently, I would argue that the ability to make ambiguous statements is a defining aspect of language, at least as we understand it. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 09:53, 2 August 2019 (UTC)


 * They could also come at it from the other direction, by first identifying the combinations of sounds which can form unique sounding words, to avoid all forms of homonyms and near homonyms, and then assign those meaning. So, we could avoid confusion of "led", "lead" (the metal), "lead" (opposite of follow), and "lede", for example. One result, however, would be that different languages so constructed would have just about every word in common with each other (the sounds, not the meaning). SinisterLefty (talk) 09:30, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Help identifying a princess in a photograph
A discussion at Featured picture candidates/Sikhanyiso Dlamini has stalled because one of the subjects in the photograph can not be identified. Who is the princess on the right? We know she is a member of the royal family because of the red feather crown she is also wearing. --- Coffee  and crumbs  14:30, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Possibly Tiyandza Dlamini, but I haven't found a definitive source. Keep in mind that the photo was taken in 2006. 107.15.157.44 (talk) 19:49, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Not a "reliable source", but potentially helpful: —107.15.157.44 (talk) 21:13, 30 July 2019 (UTC) 107.15.157.44 (talk) 21:13, 30 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Unlikely. Most likely Temtsimba if you care to investigate.--TMCk (talk) 22:07, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * , FYI. --- Coffee  and crumbs  03:45, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I have sent her an email. cheers, Amada44   talk to me 11:02, 5 August 2019 (UTC)