Comment on First human brain implant malfunctioned, Neuralink says
LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 7 months agoI can tell you only speak one language, or maybe another Latin based language in addition to English. If you’d learned something like Mandarin, you’d understand how complex, regional, and historical language is. It’s based on layers and shifts constantly. Sometimes, that’s specifically because people don’t want to be understood by everyone.
I really recommend reading academic books about this topic if you are curious. My favorite is Neurolinguistics and Linguistic Aphasiology, by David Caplan. You may also enjoy Chomsky’s works because he talks about commonalities in language or universal language.
There’s no need to formally codify those hand gestures, because we innately already understand and make them. Making eating motions (which may look different depending on regional utensils) is pretty universal right? But it looks different in different places.
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
I am familiar with the regionality of language. I don’t understand your point, you’re simultaneously saying that you can’t have universal understanding, but we have gestures we instantly understand instantly so there’s no need to codify them, but they look different.
I think you’re wildly overestimating the scope of my proposal.
LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 7 months ago
You are simply moving goalposts. My point is that I disagree with your idea of making sign language universal or formally making even a rudimentary universal sign language. I think that would be impossible if you understand language itself. I gave you resources so you could educate yourself about why.
Yes, the sign for eating would look different in China vs Ethiopia vs the US. So what sign are you going to have it be to imitate eating in your formal language? Do you see how this can perpetuate colonization?
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
My goalposts are in precisely the place they started: a collection of basic international gestures to facilitate the most basic communication. Where are you jumping to colonization? Where did I say that my cultural group gets to decide what the signs are? You’re, again, wildly overestimating the scope of my proposal and jumping to ridiculous, unsubstantiated conclusions.
You get a group of signers from around the world to develop an international pidgin (like they already do informally at international gatherings) and come to consensus based on commonality. When the majority agree on a sign, use it. Where there’s little agreement, choose a new sign. No finger spelling, no complex abstract concepts, just a formalization of gestures most people could probably figure out anyway. I fail to see how that perpetuates colonization unless that’s what you’re setting out to do with your methodology.
LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I didn’t provide a conclusion, I asked you a question - how do you pick the official, global sign for eating? What will it look like?
If you can’t understand the colonization aspect, then please read the books/authors I listed previously. Having a majority decide language for others/everyone is pretty classic colonization. That’s part of why native Americans were forced to learn English (many of your arguments are very similar to why colonizers believed English should be established as a global lingua franca)