Possible word space within a given language is not so vast, and shouldn't be filled too tightly.
Do you think it's just incompetence that has led to existing languages not using every possible short combination of sounds to make words?
Do you think it's just incompetence that has led to existing languages not using every possible short combination of sounds to make words?
Incompetence would assume that the existing languages are designed to be the way they are.
English has 12 vowels (not counting diphthongs) and 24 consonants. Does that mean that English needs 296 different words with two sounds? No, but maybe 100?
Then everything is alright isn't it? The Oxford dictionary contains 100 two letters words. No, it isn't. It contains words such as aa which is Basaltic lava forming very roug...
I'm working on a conlang (constructed language) and would like some input from the Less Wrong community. One of the goals is to investigate the old Sapir-Whorf hypothesis regarding language affecting cognition. Does anyone here have any ideas regarding linguistic mechanisms that would encourage more rational thinking, apart from those that are present in the oft-discussed conlangs e-prime, loglan, and its offshoot lojban? Or perhaps mechanisms that are used in one of those conlangs, but might be buried too deeply for a person such as myself, who only has superficial knowledge about them, to have recognized? Any input is welcomed, from other conlangs to crazy ideas.