> Mike McMaster suggests - somewhat opaquely I think - that "... a shared
> linguistic domain is one where language can become commensurable, where
> meaning can be transported across vocabularies and where differences can
> meet to create new linguistic possibilities that didn't exist before."
>
> I can't pretend to fully understand what Mike is saying here, but it
> sounds to me like a semiotic equivalent of Esperanto. In the same way
> that Esperanto has failed to become a universal tongue because it does not
> contain a "shared linguistic domain", the suggestion that language "can
> become commensurable" points to communications which are exactly the
> reverse of the the effect Mike describes - the creation of new linguistic
> possibilities that didn't exist before. These possibilities and their
> creation are, in my opinion, inherent in the gift of language itself, and
> is expressed in the "newness" of every utterance as well as the incredible
> diversity of languages that groupings of people have created. Indeed, the
> impact of our culture on human languages has been as devastating as our
> impact on the environment, and I fear that we will suffer the consequences
> of the diminution of linguistic diversity sooner and more profoundly than
> the loss of species in the biosphere.
Jack Hirschfeld speaks to the "impact of our culture on human languages",
described as "devastating". Here's a quote I like from the late Sir
Geoffrey Vickers:
"The concept of systemic relations, though not new, has been developed in
the last few decades to an extent which should be welcome, since it is
the key to understanding the situations in which we intervene when we
exercise what initiative we have and especially to the dialectic nature
of human history. It has, however, become so closely associated with
man-made systems, technological design, and computer science that the
word 'system' is in danger of becoming unusable in the context of human
history and human culture. I seek to contribute something to its rescue
and restoration. For we need it for understanding and for action in
human and social contexts far too complex and imprecise to admit of
formal modeling."
From: "JOHN N. WARFIELD" <jwarfiel@osf1.gmu.edu>