[Note: crossposted from https://tsvibt.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-possible-shared-craft-of-deliberate.html.]

Words are good. Making more good words is good. Being better and faster at making more good words would be more good. Maybe we can get better and faster at making more good words by working together.

Prefatory notes

Disclaimers

Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen.

(Whoever doesn't know foreign languages, knows nothing of his own.)

——Johann Wolfgang von Goethe^[1]

Since I only speak English, my perspective is English-centric and more generally Indo-European-centric, and this essay will fail to integrate huge regions of the possibilities of language. Since I'm not a linguist, there will be errors and incompletenesses in this essay. Since I work on AGI alignment, recent examples of language of creation will be drawn from people working on alignment.

This essay is speculative, and emphasizes a vision that's exciting to me.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Rafe Kennedy and to TJ for useful conversations about lexicogenesis. Thanks to Sam Eisenstat for spiritually related conversations. Thanks to Daniel Filan for comments on a draft.

Random access essay

Sections and some subsections of this essay can be read out of order without losing much. It's a long essay, so I'd encourage looking around for something interesting.

Synopsis

Lexicogenesis is the creation of new words. People do lexicogenesis when they have to talk about something new. When people have to think difficult new thoughts, they need new language. By working together, people could help each other make new language, and could develop a craft of lexicogenesis that people could use to come up with suitable new language. If you have ideas that might need new words to carry them, or if you want to help people come up with words, or if you want to make a shared craft of lexicogenesis, maybe say so in the comments or join this Zulip group (EDIT: actually go to the discord: https://discord.gg/RYtn95EasW).

Condensation

Extended table of contents:

Rhapsody of words: Humans carry the world——outer and inner, object and thought——with them, in their Words.
What is lexicogenesis?
- Creating words: Lexicogenesis is the creation of words.
- Language production in general: Lexicogenesis stands in for all forms of creating new language.
- Language makers: In all new periods and realms, people have

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