Questions and Answers
Copyright © September 2009 by Tienzen (Jeh-Tween) Gong
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After the inception of the PreBabel site on July 14, 2009, it has caught many people's interest. An in-depth discussion on the PreBabel took place at "conlanger bulletin board." Many great questions and critiques were discussed there. The following is a brief summary of those discussions.
Page 1:
- Day one --- Summary of questions and critiques
- Day two --- Is a universal language possible?
- Day three --- What are the criteria for a universal language?
- Day four --- The history of finding the universal language root word set
- Day five --- The choices of roots for the universal language
- Day six --- Theoretical framework of a universal language
- Day seven --- Test procedure for validating a universal language
- Day eight -- The fuzzy logic and the PreBabel root word set
- Day nine --- Are all natural languages isomorphic among one another?
- Day ten --- PreBabel root word set is invented, not discovered
Page 2:
- Day eleven --- Private Language Thesis (PLT) and the types of language
- Day twelve --- Can any language be without verbs?
- Day thirteen --- The regression encoding procedure (REP) for PreBabel
- Day fourteen --- The attractor theorem and a universal language
- Day fifteen --- The innate meaning of a word token (of PreBabel) vs its semantic meaning
- Day sixteen --- Is English a universal language?
- Day seventeen --- A premise must be testable
- Day eighteen --- The method of handling any chaotic system, such as the system of natural languages
- Day nineteen --- Via PreBabel to learn any second language is to learn two instead of one, then, why do it?
- Day twenty --- A true Emperor cannot be discredited by any disbelieving person
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- Day twenty-one --- Is Esperanto a universal language?
- Day twenty-two --- The strategy of constructing a universal language
- Day twenty-three -- Should PreBabel words be intuitive? And, the PreBabel a, b and c.
- Day twenty-four -- Can PreBabel (language x) be learned easier than the language x itself?
-
Day twenty-five -- About "words and concepts of one language are grouped differently in another language.
- Day twenty-six -- The PreBabel process is as easy as 1, 2 and 3.
- Day twenty-seven -- How and when can PreBabel (Proper) emerge?
- Day twenty-eight -- more about intuitiveness.
- Day twenty-nine -- about memory anchors on learning a language.
- Day thirty -- about tests for PreBabel.
Page 4:
- Day thirty-one -- about PreBabel (Chinese).
- Day thirty-two -- the debut of PreBabel (Chinese) at AP Annual Conference 2007 (CollegeBoard).
- Day thirty-three -- traditional Chinese etymology vs PreBabel (Chinese).
- Day thirty-four -- the first constructed language, the Lii character set.
- Day thirty-five -- phonological reconstruction vs PreBabel (Chinese).
- Day thirty-six -- more about the construction of the Lii character set.
- Day thirty-seven -- Published works on PreBabel (Chinese).
- Day thirty-eight -- more of traditional Chinese etymology vs PreBabel (Chinese).
- Day thirty-nine -- PreBabel methodology I -- equivalent transformation.
- Day forty -- Types of conlang and more on traditional Chinese etymology vs PreBabel (Chinese).
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- Day forty-one --- PreBabel epistemology: the Occam's razor.
- Day forty-two --- axiomatic domain, theory and system
- Day forty-three --- about Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
- Day forty-four --- About the differences among languages
- Day forty-five --- Reasons being in the dark
- Day forty-six --- about large and complex system
- Day forty-seven --- A constructed linguistic universe (I)
- Day forty-eight -- about China's language policy
- Day forty-nine --- Construced linguistic universe (II)
- Day fifty -- Constructed linguistic universe (III)
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- Day fifty-one -- Constructed linguistic universe (IV)
- Day fifty-two -- Constructed linguistic universe (V)
- Day fifty-three -- Constructed linguistic universe (VI)
- Day fifty-four -- Constructed linguistic universe (VII)
- Day fifty-five -- Summary of constructed linguistic universe
- Day fifty-six -- Discovering the PreBabel principle
- Day fifty-seven -- Benefits of PreBabel
- Day fifty-eight -- the PreBabel procedures
- Day fifty-nine -- about Chinese Etymology
- Day sixty -- Can the parts be larger than the whole?
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- Day sixty-one -- Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis revisited
- Day sixty-two -- The two step PreBabel procedures
- Day sixty-three -- Can linguistics be justified with math laws?
- Day sixty-four -- About heavily inflecting or agglutinating languages
- Day sixty-five -- Can any theory be based on only two highly atypical examples?
- Day sixty-six -- Can PreBabel encompass the Martian language?
- Day sixty-sevenCan the word Ēj be dissected and decoded with the PreBabel root set?
- Day sixty-eight -- Comparison the PreBabel (Chinese) with some old school ways
- Day sixty-nine -- Comparison (II)
- Day seventy -- Comparison (III)
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- Day seventy-one -- Comparison (IV)
- Day seventy-two -- Comparison (V)
- Day seventy-three -- Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis again
- Day seventy-four -- the "center of gravity" for new linguistics
- Day seventy-five -- the reviews and the material facts on PreBabel (Chinese)
- Day seventy-six -- Is PreBabel just an oligosynthetic written Lojban?
- Day seventy-seven -- About the flexibility of language
- Day seventy-eight -- About the universal grammar
- Day seventy-nine -- The "Large Complex System Principle" (LCSP) & the Martian Language Thesis
- Day eighty -- The three tiers of axiomatic system hierarchy
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- Day eighty-one -- Universal grammar -- the total freedom
- Day eighty-two -- Spider Web Principle and the Minimum Complexity Theorem
- Day eighty-three -- Life system is the Totality
- Day eighty-four -- SULT is a language continuum
Day twenty-one
Question -- Is the Esperanto a universal language?
Answer -- I already showed that English is far from a true universal language after over 400 years of economical and political domination. The only chance for English to become a true universal language is by PreBabel-lizing itself. And, this is also the case for Esperanto.
I am not an Esperanto speaker. As a great linguist, I am able to notice some genetic defects of the Esperanto.
- It is a phonetic language. For human, the phonetic memory is tremendously weaker than the visual memory. Furthermore, the human tongue is just a piece of muscle, and its flexibility is limited. After that muscle memory is set with a certain language, it is very difficult to acquire the second set of muscle movements which is, often, required for speaking a second language. Thus, for a phonetic language, if it is not a mother tongue, it can be acquired only after tremendous amount investment of memory energy.
- The "... learning two instead of one issue" is a fatal blow to any language which attempts to become a universal language if it cannot get around this issue. This is not an issue for PreBabel, as the PB (target language) is simply a constructed dialect of that target language. The different part between the dialect and the target language is not a burden but is a help, as memory anchors for learning the target language. Esperanto could be a dialect of Slavic language family but is very much foreign to the Big Five.
- The "lacking of speaking group issue" is another fatal blow. With one to two million speakers, Esperanto has, indeed, done some wonders, but no cigar. That number practically means nothing, not even a peanut. Yet, the entire speaker of a target language are the speakers of PreBabel (target language).
I am sensing that Esperanto is trying to domesticate some speakers who speaks aboriginal languages. Superficially, this looks to be a good strategy, but it is not. There is a big reason that they stayed as aboriginal. They cannot be brought out to the bigger world from their trap of aboriginality easily. Even if they can be domesticate with Esperanto, they carry very little importance in the world stage.
There is a saying, "Failure is the mother of success." It means that after a failure we learned a lesson of which pathway is a dead-end, and we try a new path. After enough new paths are tried, one will eventually turn out to be the highway to success. By walking on a failure-path million times will not turn it into a highway of success. Those kinds of failure will never become the mother of success.
This is my opinion alone, "that the only chance that Esperanto can become a universal language is by PreBabellizing itself asap."
Day twenty-two
Question -- What is the strategy of constructing a universal language?
Answer -- Up to this point, I have mainly talked about PreBabel. As this is a conlanger site, I would like to talk about the conlang (constructed language) in general now.
What is a conlang ? Perhaps, you all know this better than I do. Yet, what is the "fate" for a (or any) conlang? It is destined to be one of the two outcomes.
- A playful game, among some conlangers.
- A universal language.
After 140 years of great efforts from many great people, Esperanto tried to claim to be a universal language, but it is more of a claim than a reality. Seemingly, Esperanto has the beef to be a useful communicative language. Yet, it failed in China, again in Iran. That is, its fate is hanging on the skin of other people's tooth, depending on other's mercy. However a great wonder that Esperanto has done, it did not truly break out the cocoon of a playful language. Why? There are two "almost" un-surmountable obstacles for any conlang.
US1 -- learning two instead of one
US2 -- lacking of meaningful sizable speaking community
Then, is there any chance for a conlang to overcome these two mountains. Of course, there is an 100% chance.
I have outlined a theoretical framework about the existence of a universal language. I also gave out a detailed description of an implementation mechanism for such a universal language. Now, I am going to show the strategy of how to overcome these two mountains. The US1 can be easily resolved with a "Pin-Ying" strategy. Before 1950s, for five thousand years, not a single Chinese ever heard about Pin-Ying. It takes about 10 to 20 hours for a new student to learn Pin-Ying. Today, not many persons (native Chinese or foreigner) think about that learning Pin-Ying is an additional thing to learning Chinese but see it as a pre-requisite before learning Chinese.
The US2 can also be easily overcome. We just need simply to bring all natural languages (at least, the Big five or six) to their knees. Yes, to their knees, but not to kill them nor to replace them, as they are already immortals and cannot be killed nor replaced. How? Simply, to posses them, constructing a dialect for each one of them and following each forever.
Both strategies can be implemented with a single approach, the PreBabel pathway. In my discussion on the spider web, I pointed out that the final shape of a spider web is defined by three anchoring threads. In the same way, constructing a language web needs also three threads.
Th1. A set of vocabulary.
Th2. A set of sentence formation rules (the grammar)
Th3. A set of phonemes.
In order to catch all natural languages into this web, I have kept Th2 very flexible and Th3 completely open, although I do have strong preferences for both of them. Yet, I need to see the direction of the wind before anchoring them. As a conlang, Esperanto could be a good candidate to fit the both bills of Th2 and Th3.
Can we truly possess a natural language? The answer is a big YES. Almost every natural language (including the aboriginal one) is a result of collective intelligence of a group of people. That is, it is the result of an evolution process. So, its body contains two souls.
So1. a group of people with shared history
So2. arbitrary and chaotic, as the direct consequences of two diverging "forces", many people and an evolution process.
The So2 is the weak point, the opening for us to possess it. I have discussed a "shadow theorem"; that for every chaotic system, it is a shadow of an ordered system. We can construct that ordered system to possess it. When a language is possessed, it becomes a much easier language to learn. The US1 and US2 are resolved by this single possessing process.
In my paper, "The new Paradigm of Linguistics"
http://www.chinese-word-roots.org/nparadi.htm
states, "the axiomatized language is much, much easier to learn than the chaotic ones." Yet, seemingly, only constructed language can be 100% axiomatized as the natural language is always under a great diverging force, the evolution. Although there are truly signs of evolutionary marks and scars, the Chinese written system is, in fact, an 100% axiomatized set. There are many more evidences to show that it is really a constructed language by a very small group of people, perhaps a ruling clan. Yet, not a single Chinese person today truly know that its own written language is an 100% axiomatized system. However, if we conlangers do not study the only 100% axiomatized language in the real natural language world, we cannot truly know how to move a conlang from a playful game to be a universal language.
Day twenty-three -- Sould PreBabel words be intuitive? And, the PreBabel a, b and c.
Question -- from "imploder" -- I think this post of Trailsend is
asking the right questions and pointing to clear flaws in the logic of
this project. Why didn't you answer it, tienzen? To keep any useful
discussion, these have to be resolved.
Answer -- In the above quote, there are two issues, Trailsend's
questions and flaws in the logic of the PreBabel. If the logic is
flawed, we can fix it. If the logic is wrong, no further discussion is
truly needed.
Twenty some years ago, there was a very popular software, Lotus
123, which makes very complicated spreadsheet task becoming very easy,
as easy as 1, 2 and 3. In fact, the "PreBabel abc" is much easier than
the Lotus 123. The PreBabel logic has only three points.
Point a: All nature languages are difficult to learn, even for the
native speakers, let alone to be a second language. With the modern
education system, every country still has a sizable illiterate rate
(ranging from 10% to 60%). The term "illiterate" means that one is able
to speak a language but is unable to read or to write in that language.
Point b: There is a newly discovered linguistic law -- the Law 1.
Law 1: Encoding with a closed set of root words, any arbitrary
vocabulary type language will be organized into a logically linked
linear chain.
Thus, "with a PreBabel root word set," every nature language has a
PreBabel dialect, such as, PreBabel (English}, PreBabel (Chinese),
etc..
Then, we get a "PREDICTION" from this law.
-
b.1 -- Learning Chinese (as the first language or as the second
language) via PreBabel (Chinese) is 10 or 100 times easier than the
traditional way (without PreBabel).
- b.2 -- Learning English (as the first
language or as the second language) via PreBabel (English) is 10 times
easier than the current K1 to K12 program and the current ESL program.
- b.3 -- for all other nature language, PreBabel (Russian), etc..
Point c: There is a newly discovered linguistic law -- the Law 2.
Law 2: When every natural language is encoded with a universal set
of root words, a true Universal Language emerges, the PreBabel
(Proper).
Indeed, indeed, just this simple, PreBabel a, b and c. Nothing to it.
As the PreBabel logic is supported by laws, it must be verifiable with
tests, not with the argument of tongue in cheek. The "point c" is a
future tense; so, its verification must wait until, at least, two
PreBabel (languages) are completed. This will take about 3 years from
now.
The "point a" is not an absolute statement but is a relative statement.
In fact, we cannot define "point a" in an absolute term. It is relative
to the "point b". So, there is no logic about "point a" in this
PreBabel logic.
The key and the vital point of PreBabel logic is "point b",
especially its PREDICTION. If "point b" is wrong, no further discussion
is needed for this PreBabel project.
Question -- from "imploder" -- Why is (dot, divide horizontal) "above"?
Why is (divide horizontal, dot) "below"? What about coming before the
divide instead of after is supposed to intuitively make me think
"above" instead of "below"?
Why should (dot, stop) mean "at"? When I think of a person "looking at his friend" I don't think of any stopping going on at all.
Why should (dot, holding) mean "of"? In the phrase "I was thinking
of you," I see no holding going on. Someone somewhere may think it's
perfectly intuitive because I was "holding" you in my brain, but all
manner of other people would never make that leap.
Why is (man, below) "foot" and not "leg"?
Why is (sun, ready to fall) "sunset," and not "afternoon"?
Why is (sun, flow) "time," instead of "day"?
Why is (moon, flow) "month," instead of "night" (especially in light of the previous example)?
Why is (man, seeing) "front"? The mental picture those roots give me is either "looking" or "visible," certainly not "front."
Why is (eye, brain) "know," of all things? The "mental image" that forms for me is "recognize," perhaps.
This is what I am (and have been) trying to say. You cannot expect
all the world's people to think identically. They are not isomorphic.
Therefore, this idea:
[quote]...each root is an idea or a mental image of an action, an
object, a quality or a state of a situation. Every word of its
vocabulary is also a mental image which expresses the meaning of that
word directly. With the mental image as the memory anchor, each word
can be memorized without any effort.[/quote]
is rubbish. One people group may look at the root encoding (man,
below) and "directly" understand that the word means "soil." Another
people group may look at the root encoding and "directly" understand
that the word means "horse." The notion that this encoding actually
means "foot," while perfectly sensible to you, would have to be memorized in spite of intuition by these people, and thus, it would be no more of an "I told you so" token than the word f-o-o-t.
I went scarcely twenty seed words down your list, and the vast majority
of them were not "direct" images for me at all. I would have to
memorize individually (the same way I have to do for Japanese, Spanish,
Mandarin, Hindi...) what each encoding was intended to mean. It would
not be any easier for me than just memorizing a word to match the
meaning.
And this doesn't even scratch the surface of what you would do
with words that are culture specific. How would you encode the Japanese
notion of ??? Or the Hindi concept of aum?
These are things about which whole books have been written. Even native
speakers of the languages in which they occur have to build up their
understanding of these concepts over time. How are you going to
"encode" them in a few logograms so that all people everywhere will
intuitively understand what they mean?
I'd like to see these problems addressed rather than derailing to a
"how many % of earth's population is proficient in English" flame. So
far I agree with Trailsend: PreBabel is not the amazing solution you
claim it to be; it looks problematic to use it even as a completely
ordinary language (no better than others).
Answer -- In "b.1", I stated, "...Learning Chinese (as the first
language or as the second language) via PreBabel (Chinese) is 10 or 100
times easier than the traditional way (without PreBabel)." The term
"100 times" is a trap, a decoy, trying to bait the attacks. If this
bait is successful, the attacker has failed to truly understand the
issue. Even if it were only 10% better, the PreBabel logic is still
valid. However, I will stick to the claim of 10 times better, and this
number is not a bait but a genuine target. You can shoot it with all
your bullets.
Not only is "b.1" testable, but now has many verifiable PreBabel
(Chinese) students. In fact, you can test it yourself if you are not
already well-versed with Chinese written language.
Chinese written language is viewed (by both Chinese and Westerners) as
one of the most difficult language to learn in the world. It takes over
10 school years (10th grade) for a native Chinese students to learn
about 3,000 to 4,000 Chinese words and about 6,000 words for college
graduates. Yet, with PreBabel (Chinese), an American who knows not a
single Chinese word (both verbal and written) can acquire 3,000 words
in six months. This not only is my statement but is my guarantee. No
argument is needed on this. Arguing over a testable issue without
concerning the tests or the test results is simply wasting of the time.
Of course, Trailsend's questions are about PreBabel (English), not
PreBabel (Chinese). However, as long as the "point b" is a testable
issue, his questions are not relevant to the issue. Furthermore, I do
not truly understand his questions. Are they simply questions, such as
a classroom question to the teacher? Are they critiques, trying to lead
to a conclusion, a flawed or doomed PreBabel logic? Without knowing the
answer, I must do some guesses.
Case one: Trailsend does understand and agree with the PreBabel
logic but is unhappy about the Tienzen encoding; (man, below) should be
a leg, not foot. Well, if everyone thinks this way, then we change it.
As long as the Law 1 remains valid, everything is just fine.
Case two: Trailsend's questions are trying to lead to a conclusion with a hidden logic.
- Why is (man, below) "foot" and not "leg"?
-
If (man, below) can mean foot, leg, butt, toe, earth, ant and million
other things, the PreBabel encoding is also arbitrary and is not easier
than the code (f,o,o,t) = foot. Thus, the PreBabel's claim to be an
axiomatized system is false.
- As the way of people's thinking is very
much different from one to the other, no one can intuitively knows that
(man, below) is foot, not dust. So, this (man, below) = foot encoding
is wrong, not acceptable.
- As this simple encoding [(man, below) =
foot] is wrong, the process of encoding English with a set of root
words is impossible. Thus, there is no such a thing as PreBabel
(English).
- Without a PreBabel (English), the PreBabel "point b" is, of course, wrong. No test is needed for it.
Case three: There is no remedy of any kind for the case two.
- Why (f,o,o,t) = foot is correct? Because it is, go and check any English dictionary.
-
Why (man, below) = foot is wrong? Because, it can also be Earth, dust,
ant, etc.. No one can agree that (man, below) must be "foot".
- ...
As I have said, I do not understand Trailsend's question. What is his point? The three cases above are my guesses.
The theory and the method of constructing a true Universal Language can be viewed at
http://www.prebabel.info/bab001.htm
This post is, now, long enough. I will answer these three cases in my
next post, squarely and head-on. In the mean time, if Trailsend can
clarify his point, I will answer it too, then.
Day twenty-four -- Can PreBabel (language x) be learned easier than the language x itself?
question -- from "Trailsend" -- I'm sorry if my argument appeared hidden, tienzen. I shall attempt to clarify.
Firstly, I'm a little perplexed by your wording here:
[quote]Point b: There is a newly discovered linguistic law -- the Law 1.
Law 1: Encoding with a closed set of root words, any arbitrary
vocabulary type language will be organized into a logically linked
linear chain.[/quote]
The wording of the law itself seems rather imprecise. By "Encoding with a closed set of root words," do you mean:
A: "Any arbitrary vocabulary type language can be encoded using any
closed set of root words into a logically linked linear chain."
I presume not, as that's somewhat preposterous. This would imply
that using the root set {humus}, you could represent all the world's
languages. Perhaps you mean:
B: "There exists some closed set of root words such that any arbitrary
vocabulary type language can be encoded using the set into a logically
linked linear chain."
That at least looks feasible, but I don't believe it holds. My
arguments heretofore have been aimed at showing why. Lastly, maybe you
meant:
C: "For every vocabulary type language, there exists some closed
set of root words such that the entire language can be encoded using
the set into a logically linked linear chain."
This, I think, is perfectly true, so long as you freeze
the language in question. That is, at any specific instant, there
certainly exists such a set of root words. (To be quite trivial, you
could theoretically label every word in the language's lexicon as a
root word, and then with some predicate logic and a few somersaults,
you're done.) However, I don't believe such a root set would remain
valid if the language were not frozen. As the language grew and
interacted with its environment, the root set would not necessarily
still be able to represent the entire language.
In looking at your material on PreBabel and listening to you argue
for the idea, I think you're banking on the fact that possibility B is
true. I don't believe it is, which is why I think a "universal
language" of the type you're proposing could not be constructed.
Your "Case two" interpretation of my argument was more or less
correct. Because different people think differently (sometimes very
differently), you will not find a single root system capable of
"directly" (I would use the word intuitively) representing all ideas
for any given people group. Now, you would have an easier time focusing
on only one language. As I've mentioned, at any given point in time,
there is at least one set of words which "spans" the language--that
being the trivial case of the language's entire lexicon. However, there
are intricacies to every language that you would have to take into
account.
For example, as mentioned earlier, I did not find your encoding of the English word at to provide me with a "mental image which expresses the meaning of that word directly" at all. But then, the word at
means a good many things in English. "I looked at him," vs. "I threw
something at him," vs. "I studied at such-and-such university," "I left
at noon," and on and on. The word "at" has many different "mental
image" equivalents, depending on its context. Will you use a different
encoding for each one, or will you use only one encoding and expect
your learners to memorize that (dot, stop) is meant to represent "in
the direction of," "at the location of," "at the time of," and all
others?
If you do take this approach of using only one encoding for all uses of at,
then even if you did manage to represent the entire English language,
you're going to have a horrible time moving from there toward a
universal language. (First and foremost, because you have set the
requirement that every natural language must first be encoded
with your root set. With that, all hope of practicality goes out the
window. But! Let us remain in the realm of the theoretical...).
They would eventually, of course, figure it out. They would figure out
the ways that (dot, stop) behaves differently in PB (Japanese) than it
does in PB (English), and they would learn to use it appropriately.
This is what we call learning a new language, and it is exactly what they would have had to do if they had simply started learning English in the first place.
For this reason, I find this claim false:
[quote]b.2 -- Learning English (as the first language or
as the second language) via PreBabel (English) is 10 times easier than
the current K1 to K12 program and the current ESL program.[/quote]
From the outset, it seems dubious that you are putting a numerical
quantity on difficulty. Are you measuring difficulty by the average
number of hours of study required to attain fluency? Even that is not
quantifiable--what is "fluent"? But for the sake of argument, I will
assume that some quantifiable measure of difficulty has been agreed
upon.
b.2 implies that a native Japanese speaker who wishes to learn
English would find the process 10 times easier if she learned English
"via PreBabel (English)." So.
Let the difficulty of learning English from Japanese via traditional methods be 10.
The total difficulty of learning English from Japanese via PB should be 1.
Step 1: Our Japanese speaker learns PreBabel (Japanese). (Difficulty X.)
Step 2: Our newly-fluent PB (Japanese) speaker learns PB English. (Difficulty Y.)
Step 3: Our now tri-lingual speaker learns English. (Difficulty Z.)
For b.2 to be true, X + Y + Z must equal 1. But as I showed above,
even learning PB (English) from PB (Japanese) would be tremendously
difficult. Most likely, it would not be quite as difficult as going
directly from English to Japanese, because the grammar would presumably
be identical. However, learning all the reshuffling of encodings (as
demonstrated with the problem of at and ?) would take a great deal of effort.
This doesn't even take into account the problem of learning PB
(Japanese) from Japanese in the first place. In looking at your
website, it is apparent that the grammar of PB (English) is certainly
not identical to the grammar of English, so I assume PB (Japanese)
would not match up with Japanese either. This means that our
hypothetical Japanese speaker would have to learn not only all of PB
(Japanese)'s encodings of Japanese words (which would take a good deal
of effort), but also a new system of grammar.
With both of those together, even being very generous, I can't grant
the Japanese to PB (Japanese) step any lower "difficulty measure" than
5 (measured relative to our given "difficulty" of learning English,
10). Presumably learning English from PB (English) would also be
approximately 5. Now, considering that the PB (Japanese) to PB
(English) step does not require learning grammar, I will give it a
value of 2.
Thus the total "difficulty" of learning English from Japanese via PreBabel is 5 + 5 + 2 = 12.
So, it would not be 100 times easier, not 10 times easier, not even 10% easier--but 20% harder.
These numbers are, of course, very rough and horribly estimated.
(But I suppose any system you use for "difficulty" will be.) They are
simply meant to demonstrate what I think a lot of folks who posted in
this thread were concerned about.
So! I hope that makes my argument clearer.
Answer --
Summary of your points:
- Why is (man, below) "foot" and not "leg"? ( an issue of arbitrariness, lacking of a precise logic)
- I did not find your encoding of the English word
"at" to provide me with a "mental image which expresses the meaning of
that word directly" (an issue of intuition or intuitive logic)
- Because different people think differently
(sometimes very differently), you will not find a single root system
capable of "directly" (I would use the word intuitively) representing
all ideas for any given people group. (an issue of universality)
Seemingly, these are three core issues which lead you to the
objection on PreBabel. From them, there arose more fringe issues which
are, often, muddy up the core issues. Thus, it is better to clean up
those fringes first.
[quote="Trailsend"] "I looked at him," vs. "I threw something at
him," vs. "I studied at such-and-such university," "I left at noon,"
and on and on. The word "at" has many different "mental image"
equivalents, depending on its context. Will you use a different
encoding for each one, or will you use only one encoding and expect
your learners to memorize that (dot, stop) is meant to represent "in
the direction of," "at the location of," "at the time of," and all
others?
If you do take this approach of using only one encoding for all uses of at,
then even if you did manage to represent the entire English language,
you're going to have a horrible time moving from there toward a
universal language. [/quote]
English word is a pattern of temporally ordered sound types, and
meaning of a word does not attach to particular activities, sound,
marks on paper, or anything else with a definite spatiotemporal locus.
The meaning of a word is agreed by a linguistic community.
There is a small difference between the PreBabel (English) word and
the English word. The PB (English word) does have an innate meaning.
Why (a,t) = at? This is a meaningless question. Simply, it is. Why are
"look at" and "study at" as they are and be different? Again, simply,
they are as they are and as be different.
Now, I encode PB (dot, stop) = at. Why PB (dot, stop) = at?
Because, I defined it. What is the problem, about "look PB (dot, stop)"
and "study PB (dot, stop)"? At this level, the PB (dot, stop) is simply
a substitution for the word token "at". There is no change of any kind
about "at" except a simple token substitution. If there is no benefit
for this substitution, I am simply wasting my time, but no harm is
done. Of course, this substitution will give some great benefits in the
long run.
What is the "original" meaning for "at"? Can we infer a meaning for
"at" from its coding (a, t)? In addition to being an assigned word
token, its meaning is hinged on its usage. On the contrary, the PB
(dot, stop) does have an innate meaning, a dot stopped right here. So,
for any PB word, it has three types of meaning.
- the innate meaning:
(dot, stop) means a dot stops right here.
(sky, water) means water of or from sky.
(above, mountain) means above the mountain.
etc..
- the assigned meaning:
(dot, stop) = at, Why? It is assigned as such.
(sky, water) = rain, not cloud, not fog, etc..
(above, mountain) = sky, not air plane, not birds, etc..
- the semantic meaning, the meaning of its usages.
at (dot, stop): look (dot, stop), study (dot, stop), ... ,(dot, stop), etc.
...
Every English word does have b and c. Yet, "a" is unique
from PreBabel. Is this a small and useless difference? This is the
issue, here. This issue will determine that whether PreBabel is useful
or not.
In conclusion, the English word token (except those having root
words) does not have any "internal dynamics" or an innate meaning while
its life (meaning) is hinged on the "external dynamics," its usages.
Yet, for PreBabel (English) word, it does have an internal dynamics
while it inherits "all" the external dynamics from the English word.
Perhaps, we do not see any importance about the internal dynamics of
one or two words. Yet, the accumulative power of internal dynamics of
every English word will change the English system completely. This is
the issue which must be addressed.
Question -- form "Trailsend" -- In looking at your website, it is
apparent that the grammar of PB (English) is certainly not identical to
the grammar of English, so I assume PB (Japanese) would not match up
with Japanese either. This means that our hypothetical Japanese speaker
would have to learn not only all of PB (Japanese)'s encodings of
Japanese words (which would take a good deal of effort), but also a new
system of grammar.
Answer -- I think that you get this idea from the web page, "The
PreBabel Grammar" which discusses the grammar for the PreBabel
(proper). The grammar of PreBabel (Japanese) is identical to the
grammar of Japanese. It is the same for the PreBabel (English), not one
bit difference from the grammar of English. I repeated this point a few
times in the paper "The theory and the method of constructing a true
Universal Language" which outlines the foundation of PreBabel, and it
can be reviewed at,
http://www.prebabel.info/bab001.htm
Day twenty-five -- About "words and concepts of one language are grouped differently in another language.
Question -- from "Trailsend" -- When I said that different languages are not isomorphic, I was trying to get at this idea:
There is a certain group of concepts which are all represented by the English word at.
However, these concepts are not grouped identically in all languages.
For example, depending on the situation, the correct Japanese
equivalent for "at" could be ? (ni), or it could be ? (de), or it could
be achieved using some entirely different structure. Furthermore, ? is
used in Japanese to mean many things which are not equivalent to any of
English's meanings of at. (For example,
??[color=red]?[/color]?????, "I met a friend.") How will you encode ?
for PreBabel (Japanese)? Will you still use (dot, stop)? If so, when
someone who knows PreBabel (Japanese) attempts to learn PreBabel
(English), they will be struck with a slew of problems and
inconsistencies. The (dot, stop) they knew is suddenly being used for
all kinds of things that make no sense with their "mental picture" of
it, and it is not being used for many things which do fit their
picture.
Answer -- Indeed, this is the key issue for the PreBabel.
In fact, all questions or critiques posted to this thread so far
were contemplated during my writing on PreBabel. Yet, they were not
problems for PreBabel. I simply wanted to "cover" them in the paper; so
the paper will not be criticized. However, seemingly, none of you truly
read the paper "The theory and the method of constructing a true
Universal Language." Of course, I cannot demand any of you to read it;
so I answered them in this forum again from some different angles for
those questions.
However, this issue of Trailsend's was, indeed, a problem during the
construction of PreBabel. As the PreBabel was intended to be the
universal language, then it will be the ideal for two different natural
languages to share a same set of PreBabel vocabulary, at least, sharing
a partial set. That is, if Japanese (word x) is equivalent to English
(word y) in translation, then J(x) and E(y) can and should have the
same PreBabel coding. I did know that some concepts which are
represented by one language are not grouped identically in other
languages. But, seemingly, the concrete words (such as, book, apple,
etc.) should not have this problem. Of course, this is not the case.
"Book" is as concrete as any item can be. Yet, its usage is not
concrete at all, such as, a book, book value, book a ticket, etc..
Thus, there is no point of trying to get J(x) and E(y), which are
equivalent in translation, to have the same PreBabel coding. Then, will
the PreBabel project fail if this is the case? After a detailed
analysis, this problem is not truly relevant to the PreBabel. We will
encode English for PreBabel (English) without concerning about any
other language. We will encode Japanese for PreBabel (Japanese) without
concerning about any other language.
So, PreBabel (English) is a pure dialect of English.
PreBabel (Japanese) is a pure dialect of Japanese.
E(y) has many usages in English, E1(y), E2(y),..., En(y).... In my last
post, I stated that there needs only one PreBabel (E(y)) for all these
En(y).
In the case, E(y) = J(x) in translation. Then, PB (E(y)) and PB (J(x))
are synonyms while they might not have the identical PB codes.
In the case Jn(x) cannot be translated with any of the En(y) but must
use the word E(z). The PB (Jn(x)) and PB (E(z)) are synonyms.
Of course, both PreBabel (English) and PreBabel (Japanese) are parts
(dialects) of PreBabel (Proper). When (above, mountain) = sky in PB
(English) while (above, sea) = sky in PB (Japanese), there is no
conflict on this. They are simply synonyms in PB (Proper). If (above,
sea) = ship in PB (English), then it is simply a homonym in the PB
(Proper).
As the PB (English) and PB (Japanese) are constructed
independently, the issue of difference in culture among different
languages is not really an issue. The synonym and homonym issues can be
resolved in the PB (Proper).
Day twenty-six -- The PreBabel process is as easy as 1, 2 and 3.
Question -- from "Thakowsaizmu" -- So... it isn't so much a
universal language as it is some sort of ciphering of the parent
language?
Answer -- Indeed, it is. But, what is the point? If it means that
the PreBabel logic is wrong and the PreBabel process is dead at the get
go because it is just some sort of a ciphering of the parent language,
then I am deeply sorry for wasting your precious time (three big long
months). However, I am quite innocent for your suffering as the
ciphering (as you are seemingly preferring to use this word) was,
indeed, one of the key pillar of the PreBabel process, and it was
clearly outlined in the paper (The theory and the method of
constructing a true Universal Language, http://www.prebabel.info/bab001.htm ) which was the first file uploaded to the web.
I have said that the PreBabel logic is very simple, as simple as a, b
and c. The PreBabel process is also very simple, as simple as 1, 2 and
3.
Point 1 -- the goal: to construct a universal language with linguistics
principle, not with the power of political and economical supremacy.
Point 2 -- the strategy and the methodology: to create a dialect
for every nature language (at least, the big 5) with a universal root
word set, such as, PreBabel (English), PreBabel (Spanish), PreBabel
(Chinese), etc..
Point 3 -- the design criterion: the PreBabel (language x) must be
much, much easier to learn (as the first language or as the second
language) than the language x itself.
And, this is it. The point 3 is, in fact, the hinge point. If point
3 failed, the PreBabel process will certainly fail in a practical
sense, even while the point 2 is successful. In the past, many issues
were discussed in this thread, such as, why is there horse head, not
horse? why is there a root for "bone without meat?" etc.. Although they
are genuine issues, they are, in fact, marginal and not important at
all. If horse is better than horse head, then we simply change it. What
is the big deal? On the contrary, the point 3 is "the" issue.
If point 3 is successful, the PreBabel process has succeeded regardless
of how people calls it, the ciphering or the whatnot. If point 3
failed, the PreBabel process will fail with it regardless of what good
name that we have given it. It is just simple like this, nothing to it.
Day twenty-seven -- How and when can PreBabel (Proper) emerge?
Question -- from "Trailsend" -- Wait, wait. Do you see how
many problems this will cause? As you stated earlier, a truly
"universal" form of PB cannot emerge until you have encoded all natural
languages into individual PB ciphers.
...
Now, granted, I'm exaggerating a little. Technically, this
only says that learning PB (Proper) would be equivalent to learning the
lexicons of all of the world's languages.
Answer -- Law 2 states: When "every" natural language is encoded
with a universal set of root words, a true Universal Language emerges.
Yet, in reality, when two natural languages are PreBabelized, the
PreBabel (Proper) will begin to emerge. Thus, the learning PB (Proper)
will not be equivalent to learning the lexicons of all of the world's
languages. I am making a simplified scenario below.
Mr. A (an American, knows not PreBabel (English)) is learning Japanese via PB (Japanese).
Mr. J (a Japanese, knows not PreBabel (Japanese)) is learning Chinese via PB (Chinese).
Mr. C (a Chinese, knows not PreBabel (Chinese)) is learning French via PB (French).
[quote="Trailsend"]But as I showed above, even learning PB (English) from PB (Japanese) would be tremendously difficult.[/quote]
No, we do not need to know PB (English) in order to learn PB
(Japanese) or PB (Chinese). If I did not make this point clear in my
previous writing, I want to make it clear now. Many American kids are
learning Chinese via PB (Chinese) while the PB (English) is not done
yet, let alone for them to learn.
After those learning, Mr. A and Mr. J can converse via Japanese.
Mr. J and Mr. C can converse via Chinese. Yet, for Mr. A and Mr. C, the
only possible pathway for their communication is by using PB (Japanese)
by Mr. A and PB (French) by Mr. C. Yet,
in PB (Japanese), (above, sea) = sky
in PB (French), (near, heaven) = sky
As an individual word, Mr. A might not know that (near, heaven) = sky
at a first glance. Yet, in a context, he can figure it out very soon.
There is a difference between learning and figuring out. Something
which is needed to be learned is often not able to be figured out by
oneself. Something which is able to be figured out by one is often
needing no learning. In fact, PreBabel needs no learning at all. After
a person is familiar with one PB (language x), he can figure out the PB
(Proper).
I did not and still do not ever envision that the PB (Proper) is
learned as the "first" language. It is just a "come along" language
after someone has learned one PB (language x). While the PB (language
x) is a constructed language, PB (Proper) is an emerged language. So,
your calculation below is not a good representation to the case of the
PB process.
[quote="Trailsend"]
Step 1: Our Japanese speaker learns PreBabel (Japanese). (Difficulty X.)
Step 2: Our newly-fluent PB (Japanese) speaker learns PB English. (Difficulty Y.)
Step 3: Our now tri-lingual speaker learns English. (Difficulty Z.)
[/quote]
Day twenty-eight -- more about intuitiveness.
Question -- from "Trailsend" --
- Why is (man, below) "foot" and not "leg"?
- I did not find your encoding of the English word
"at" to provide me with a "mental image which expresses the meaning of
that word directly"
- Because different people think differently
(sometimes very differently), you will not find a single root system
capable of "directly" (I would use the word intuitively) representing
all ideas for any given people group.
Answer --
Why is (man, below) "foot" and not "leg"?
Why is (f,o,o,t) foot, not hand?
Why is "Trailsend" you, not Tienzen?
These are the same type of questions. In fact, for "every" (no
exception) axiomatic system (logic system), it is "always" arbitrary
defined by some initial points (its definitions and axioms).
Arithmetics is a perfect axiomatic system. Yet,
when 1 + 1 = 2, then 2 + 1 =3
when 1 + 1 = 10, then 11 + 1 = 100
when 7 + 1 = 10, then 17 + 1 = 100
etc., etc.,
Again, geometry is also a perfect axiomatic system, Yet,
when parallel axiom has a value 1, it is Euclidean geometry.
when parallel axiom has a value 0, it is Elliptic geometry.
when parallel axiom has a value infinite, it is Hyperbolic geometry.
In physics,
If an item's mass is greater than 100 hydrogen atoms, it behaves according to Newton's law.
If an item's mass is smaller than 100 hydrogen atoms, it behaves according to Quantum Mechanics.
If a particle's velocity smaller than 50% of the light speed, it behaves according to Newton's law.
If a particle's velocity higher than 50% of the light speed, it behaves according to Relativity Theory.
In logic,
if function T (truth value) has only two values (0, 1), it is a formal logic.
if function T (truth value) has more than two values, it is a fuzzy logic.
In fact, we can write this into a law,
Law of axiomatic system
(logic system): For "every" axiomatic system (logic system), it is
"always" arbitrary defined by some initial points (its definitions and
axioms).
Why is (man, below) "foot" and not "leg"? Why not? What is the problem?
One thing about an axiomatic system is that after some initial
arbitrary defined points, a pathway (logic) emerges. This is also the
case for PreBabel. After some initial vocabulary, the arbitrariness for
the later words is getting smaller, such as, (sky, water), etc..
I am a bit surprised that my "three thread spider web analogy" did not get this point (arbitrary and logic) across.
[quote="Trailsend"] I did not find your encoding of the English
word "at" to provide me with a "mental image which expresses the
meaning of that word directly" [/quote]
What kind of mental image that the code (a, t) gives to you
for expressing the meaning of the word "at"? Does the code (a, t) give
any kind of mental image, "at all"?
(dot, stop) does give some kinds of mental image, if not for the
mental image of "at". One simple example, a very beautiful girl Nancy
has a small birth mark on her left cheek. With that mental image of the
birth mark, I was able to remember her name is Nancy while I was and
still am very bad about remembering names. Is that mental image
expressing the meaning of the word token Nancy?
[quote="Trailsend"] I did not find your encoding of the English
word "at" to provide me with a "mental image which expresses the
meaning of that word directly" [/quote]
I do not find this question or critique which has any
relevancy to PreBabel. As "every" axiomatic system is a "pathway"
building process, the later words of PreBabel will be closer and closer
to provide a mental image which expresses the meaning of that word
directly, such as, (talk, box), (movie, box), etc.. This is, in fact,
the driving the cattle process, with a few strategically placed cowboys
to move a herd of cattle to a certain direction.
[quote="Trailsend"]
Because different people think differently (sometimes very
differently), you will not find a single root system capable of
"directly" (I would use the word intuitively) representing all ideas
for any given people group. [/quote]
How so true it is! People are all different, indeed. Then,
must we re-write Newton's law because that people are different?! If
anyone wants to "learn" Newton's law, he must learn the "basics" of the
system regardless of how different he is from the others. If anyone
wants to learn PreBabel, he must learn the "basics" of the PreBabel,
and whatever difference he has from the others matters no more. The
basics of the PreBabel will lead all people to a pre-determined
direction regardless of how greatly different they, indeed, are.
In (or by) all means, you do not have to take my words. In addition
to as a new philosophy of linguistics, the PreBabel is testable. The
tests, the test plans and the test results are the final judgement for
its verdict. If the PreBabel fails the tests on the point 3 (the
criterion), all the above good reasons are simply talking talks. During
the previous posts, I did make many test plan suggestions and did
report many test results. Yet, you "all" conveniently over looked them.
Let's begin talking about the real issue, the test plans and the test
results (many of them are already done and available and were reported
in some previous posts).
day twenty-nine -- about memory anchors on learning a language.
Question -- from "Khagan" -- Tienzen, Is one of the core ideas of
PreBabel to provide speakers of different languages with a common
"orthographic vocabulary", and thereby enhance their ability to
comprehend other languages in their PreBabelized form?
Answer -- Indeed, this is one of the core idea.
Question -- from "Khagan" -- If so, I think it is plain to see that (at
least with simpler phrases) the knowledge of the arbitrary orthographic
vocabulary means that reading another language in its prebabelized form
requires only a reasonably basic grasp of the grammatic rules of that
language.
Answer -- Indeed, this is one of the important consequence of the PreBabel.
Question -- from "Trailsend" -- Really? In order to learn PB (English),
the learner would still have to learn all of those "arbitrary" English
pronunciations which mapped to the PB encodings, except now without the
(albeit meager) aid toward the pronunciation provided by the English
spelling (which you have replaced with a logographic representation
which is still, judging from every example you have provided, quite
arbitrary--I mean, "peach" = (tree, east)???)
Learning PB (English), then, is either exactly as difficult as learning
English, or (more likely) more difficult.
Answer -- PreBabel has revolutionized the way of language
learning. Language acquisition is about to acquire a set of linguistic
data set (vocabulary and the way of their usages). Thus, the management
of memory for that acquisition becomes important in the language
learning. One of the way to manage the memory is by using the memory
anchors, such as, association, brutal force anchoring, repeated drill,
etc..
For a first language, the verbal language is the memory anchor for
learning its written language. For learning second language, there is,
often, without a help from already having the verbal language as a
memory anchor. Thus, in general, people feel more difficult to learn a
second language while their mental maturity are much higher than the
time of their learning their first language. Yet, PreBabel changes all
these.
For an American to learn Chinese via PreBabel (Chinese), he needs
to learn neither its pronunciations nor its usages during the initial
PreBabel (Chinese) learning. For reading a current Chinese newspaper, a
student needs to know about 3,000 Chinese characters. For a native
Chinese kid (with the benefit of already knowing the verbal), he needs
about 5 to 10 school years to learn 3,000 Chinese characters. Yet, with
PreBabel (Chinese), any 10 year old American kid who knows not a single
Chinese word at the beginning can acquire 3,000 Chinese characters with
only 300 hours of good study (about 6 months, 90 minutes a day). This
is a fact. Many American kids have succeeded. I have mentioned this a
few times in my previous posts. Yet, all they met are blind men and
went into deaf ears. If anyone of you is interested in facts, there are
many case studies which are available. Or you can try it out yourself.
If this is just a talking group, then, everything is just fine.
With PreBabel, the language acquisition is turned upside down. The
written language is learned first without the burden of learning the
phonetics and grammar. Then, the written language becomes the memory
anchor to learn phonetics and grammar. In fact, after knowing 3,000
Chinese characters, not only can Chinese grammar be grasped very
quickly, but most of it can simply be "figured out." Again, after
having the written words as the memory anchors, their pronunciations
become the rippled fruits which fall into the basket almost by
themselves.
If I change the word "English" in your statement below to "Chinese", then your statement is simply wrong.
[quote="Trailsend"]
Learning PB (English), then, is either exactly as difficult as learning English, or (more likely) more difficult.
[/quote]
I do not have an actual case for PreBabel (English). The following is my prediction.
Prediction: After learning a fine-tuned PB (English) vocabulary set
(about 1,000 words, without the concern of neither the pronunciations
nor the grammar), the ESL student can then drop the PB (English) and
pick up the natural English with ease.
In fact, some simple tests can give some indications on this. Now,
there are about 250 PB (English) vocabulary in the PreBabel site.
Test A:
- Find two young kids who know not any English.
- One study those 250 words via the old school way for one week.
- The other study those 250 words via the PreBabel way for one week.
- Test two students and to see who have learned more words.
Test B:
- Find one young kid who knows not any English.
- Let him study those 250 words via the old school way for one week.
- Let him study those 250 words via the PreBabel way in the second week.
- Ask him that which way he prefer for his study.
I am doing these tests now. You can try them yourself too.
Day thirty -- about tests for PreBabel.
Question -- "sangi39" -- Also, on the note of "tests", I wasn't very
impressed by one of the proposals. IIRC, it was something along the
lines of 3 people who didn't know any Chinese (assuming Standard
Written Mandarin here), 3 people who did know Chinese and 3 people with
an intermediate grasp of Chinese alongside a control group of 3
physicists, all of whom would speak the same language, IIRC this case
it was General American English.
Answer -- This "test" refers to a test which was submitted to Dr.
Steven B. Sample (the President of USC, University of Southern
California Los Angeles), and it was given to Dr. Howard Gillman, Dean,
College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, USC. The details are available
at
http://www.chinese-etymology.com/interplay.php
Question -- from "sangi39" -- After this test the scale would have
to be increased to include people speaking around 5 different
languages, say English, Spanish, Russian, German and French, from
different geographical regions within those languages areas and from
different socioeconomic backgrounds, so say 5 people each from each
background per 5% of the area where those languages are spoken all of
which have no abilities in Mandarin and no previous experience trying
to read it. This should be done twice, once through PB and once through
a more traditional method meaning you'd need two test groups of this
size.
Answer --Sure, we can always design a better test plan. Test is the final say for any testable issue.
Question -- from "sangi39" -- I'm not sure, but this kind of test would
give around several thousand results and since PB seems more to be an
intended teaching option rather than a true universal language, it
would likely be used with several thousand people, so it would be a
mini-test of its final and intended use across linguistic, social,
economic and cultural areas.
Answer -- Seemingly, the issue of "universal language" and the
issue of "how easy to learn a given language" are not related. Yet, I
made a link between them with my own choice. Even while a universal
language can be constructed theoretically, it will be practically
useless if it is too hard to learn it. Thus, I made two criteria for
PreBabel. (please visit, http://www.prebabel.info/bab001.htm ), - Criterion one (C1): Its scope and capacity must be in par, at least, with one natural language.
-
Criterion two (C2): It must be mastered to a literacy level similar to
the language skill of a 12th grader on his/her mother language by an
average person in 100 days with 3 hours of study a day, that is, a
total of 300 hours of study.
The C2 is not a statement but is a self imposed criterion. If PreBabel
fails to meet C2, it has failed by definition even while it is, in
fact, a universal language.
Thus, I am here to defend neither Tienzen nor PreBabel. I am here
to request everyone's help to check out these two criteria (C1 and C2).
If anyone who is able to show that the PreBabel is able to meet neither
C1 nor C2, he has done me a great favor, giving me a great gift which I
was unable to get myself. As soon as I know that where is the problem,
I am very confident that I can fix and repair it. That is, a bad
PreBabel will become a good one. Yet, most of you did not truly study
my works, neither about PreBabel nor about PB (Chinese) which I
published two books.
Chinese Word Roots and Grammar (US copyright # TX 6-514-465)
Chinese Etymology (US copyright # TX 6-917-909)
I was very surprised with the news that Trailsend knows almost nothing
about my works while he argued from all directions in his posts.
Regardless of whether my PreBabel is true or not, it is a very
important issue. If it is true, not only can thousands hours of kid's
life be used to learn other things but it has a supreme political
importance. Which country can PreBabelized her language first, her
language will eventually become the universal language of the world,
with linguistic force, not with political power.