Questions and Answers

Copyright © September 2009 by Tienzen (Jeh-Tween) Gong

Page 6

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:

  1. Day one --- Summary of questions and critiques
  2. Day two --- Is a universal language possible?
  3. Day three --- What are the criteria for a universal language?
  4. Day four --- The history of finding the universal language root word set
  5. Day five --- The choices of roots for the universal language
  6. Day six --- Theoretical framework of a universal language
  7. Day seven --- Test procedure for validating a universal language
  8. Day eight -- The fuzzy logic and the PreBabel root word set
  9. Day nine --- Are all natural languages isomorphic among one another?
  10. Day ten --- PreBabel root word set is invented, not discovered
Page 2:
  1. Day eleven --- Private Language Thesis (PLT) and the types of language
  2. Day twelve --- Can any language be without verbs?
  3. Day thirteen --- The regression encoding procedure (REP) for PreBabel
  4. Day fourteen --- The attractor theorem and a universal language
  5. Day fifteen --- The innate meaning of a word token (of PreBabel) vs its semantic meaning
  6. Day sixteen --- Is English a universal language?
  7. Day seventeen --- A premise must be testable
  8. Day eighteen --- The method of handling any chaotic system, such as the system of natural languages
  9. Day nineteen --- Via PreBabel to learn any second language is to learn two instead of one, then, why do it?
  10. Day twenty --- A true Emperor cannot be discredited by any disbelieving person

Page 3:
  1. Day twenty-one --- Is Esperanto a universal language?
  2. Day twenty-two --- The strategy of constructing a universal language
  3. Day twenty-three -- Should PreBabel words be intuitive? And, the PreBabel a, b and c.
  4. Day twenty-four -- Can PreBabel (language x) be learned easier than the language x itself?
  5. Day twenty-five -- About "words and concepts of one language are grouped differently in another language.
  6. Day twenty-six -- The PreBabel process is as easy as 1, 2 and 3.
  7. Day twenty-seven -- How and when can PreBabel (Proper) emerge?
  8. Day twenty-eight -- more about intuitiveness.
  9. Day twenty-nine -- about memory anchors on learning a language.
  10. Day thirty -- about tests for PreBabel.

Page 4:
  1. Day thirty-one -- about PreBabel (Chinese).
  2. Day thirty-two -- the debut of PreBabel (Chinese) at AP Annual Conference 2007 (CollegeBoard).
  3. Day thirty-three -- traditional Chinese etymology vs PreBabel (Chinese).
  4. Day thirty-four -- the first constructed language, the Lii character set.
  5. Day thirty-five -- phonological reconstruction vs PreBabel (Chinese).
  6. Day thirty-six -- more about the construction of the Lii character set.
  7. Day thirty-seven -- Published works on PreBabel (Chinese).
  8. Day thirty-eight -- more of traditional Chinese etymology vs PreBabel (Chinese).
  9. Day thirty-nine -- PreBabel methodology I -- equivalent transformation.
  10. Day forty -- Types of conlang and more on traditional Chinese etymology vs PreBabel (Chinese).

Page 5:
  1. Day forty-one --- PreBabel epistemology: the Occam's razor.
  2. Day forty-two --- axiomatic domain, theory and system
  3. Day forty-three --- about Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
  4. Day forty-four --- About the differences among languages
  5. Day forty-five --- Reasons being in the dark
  6. Day forty-six --- about large and complex system
  7. Day forty-seven --- A constructed linguistic universe (I)
  8. Day forty-eight -- about China's language policy
  9. Day forty-nine --- Construced linguistic universe (II)
  10. Day fifty -- Constructed linguistic universe (III)
Page 6:
  1. Day fifty-one -- Constructed linguistic universe (IV)
  2. Day fifty-two -- Constructed linguistic universe (V)
  3. Day fifty-three -- Constructed linguistic universe (VI)
  4. Day fifty-four -- Constructed linguistic universe (VII)
  5. Day fifty-five -- Summary of constructed linguistic universe
  6. Day fifty-six -- Discovering the PreBabel principle
  7. Day fifty-seven -- Benefits of PreBabel
  8. Day fifty-eight -- the PreBabel procedures
  9. Day fifty-nine -- about Chinese Etymology
  10. Day sixty -- Can the parts be larger than the whole?
Page 7:
  1. Day sixty-one -- Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis revisited
  2. Day sixty-two -- The two step PreBabel procedures
  3. Day sixty-three -- Can linguistics be justified with math laws?
  4. Day sixty-four -- About heavily inflecting or agglutinating languages
  5. Day sixty-five -- Can any theory be based on only two highly atypical examples?
  6. Day sixty-six -- Can PreBabel encompass the Martian language?
  7. Day sixty-sevenCan the word Şj be dissected and decoded with the PreBabel root set?
  8. Day sixty-eight -- Comparison the PreBabel (Chinese) with some old school ways
  9. Day sixty-nine -- Comparison (II)
  10. Day seventy -- Comparison (III)
Page 8:
  1. Day seventy-one -- Comparison (IV)
  2. Day seventy-two -- Comparison (V)
  3. Day seventy-three -- Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis again
  4. Day seventy-four -- the "center of gravity" for new linguistics
  5. Day seventy-five -- the reviews and the material facts on PreBabel (Chinese)
  6. Day seventy-six -- Is PreBabel just an oligosynthetic written Lojban?
  7. Day seventy-seven -- About the flexibility of language
  8. Day seventy-eight -- About the universal grammar
  9. Day seventy-nine -- The "Large Complex System Principle" (LCSP) & the Martian Language Thesis
  10. Day eighty -- The three tiers of axiomatic system hierarchy
Page 9:
  1. Day eighty-one -- Universal grammar -- the total freedom
  2. Day eighty-two -- Spider Web Principle and the Minimum Complexity Theorem
  3. Day eighty-three -- Life system is the Totality
  4. Day eighty-four -- SULT is a language continuum




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

[quote from Trailsend] Gosh darn it, that'll be troublesome...the Chinese program at my university is still teaching simplified.[/quote]



[quote from sangi39] At least in terms of the UK high school education system a person learns the spoken and written language (speaking, listening, reading and writing) over 2 hours per week. In a given educational year a student will typically attend around 39/40 weeks of school and therefore 78-80 hours of language lessons per year totaling 234-240 hours of language lessons by the end of the pre-GCSE stage lessons at which point, assuming they were taught well and learnt well, they will be able to comprehend and use the spoken and written language to at least a basic degree.[/quote]



[quote from sangi39] Although I can't read the Chinese replies, the English replies all seem to be what Trailsend termed "polite dismissals". They all seem to follow the same general pattern of "we'll pass it on" and "it was interesting" ... there is very little suggesting they'd go further than this.[/quote]



[quote from Trailsend] I am not. (If I was, I wouldn't be quite so concerned) My understanding of the situation is limited to news stories I was able to find online, and what I was able to dig up on the English section of the Chinese government's webpage, including this article from the government's site, dated from August of this year, which didn't seem to suggest that there would be a movement back toward the traditional system.[/quote]



[quote f rom Khagan] Tienzen , I am very interested in getting your book "Chinese Etymology". Is it really $400 for the 305 page paperback though? If so, why is it so expensive?[/quote]



[quote from Khagan] If your etymology is correct and factually based, it ought to be something even amateur linguists could partially recreate. And even if they do it imperfectly, my understanding is that well less than 10,000 characters are required for general literacy in Chinese.[/quote]



[quote from Khagan] ... the $400 list price is almost certainly a guarantee of perpetual obscurity for it ... [/quote]



[quote from Khagan] How familiar are you with any language that is neither English nor Chinese? PreBabel gives the impression of heavily inflecting/agglutinating languages not having been given much thought. [quote]



Day sixty -- Can the parts be larger than the whole?