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eternal_neophyte comments on Crazy Ideas Thread - Less Wrong Discussion

22 Post author: Gunnar_Zarncke 07 July 2015 09:40PM

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Comment author: polymathwannabe 08 July 2015 03:08:12PM 3 points [-]

A single world language should be designed and promoted. Previous attempts have been too Eurocentric to take advantage of all useful grammatical features that are available.

Alternative option: English is already a de facto world language, and it is well suited to borrowing foreign terms when it needs to, but humanity should be ashamed that it conducts its main scientific, commercial and diplomatic operations in a language with such a defective writing system. Spelling reform (or a completely new, purely phonetic alphabet) is urgent. I would advocate adapting Hangul for that purpose.

Comment author: eternal_neophyte 08 July 2015 09:29:55PM 2 points [-]

As long as this international english is restricted to diplomacy, commerce and science. I retch at the thought of literature written in a dry, unidiosyncratic, flavourless language with the charmless consistency of an office clerk.

Comment author: polymathwannabe 09 July 2015 05:46:23PM 4 points [-]

Even if you design a perfectly dry and insipid language, you can always count on poets to make it more complicated than it needs to be.