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polymathwannabe comments on Linguistic mechanisms for less wrong cognition - Less Wrong Discussion
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Should languages be designed for language students?
For natural languages it's a moot question, but conlangs are inescapably intended for the use of people who are already inclined to study languages.
Indeed they are, but the more serious kind of conlang is surely intended to be usable as an actual practical means of expression and communication. If some design decision makes things better for students one way and for actual users another way, it's surely better to choose the latter.
(Of course we don't know that the present situation is like that. It's entirely possible that the success of English hasn't been in any way helped by its heavy use of context for disambiguation, or by advantages that that somehow enables.)
The success of English, you ask?
(cough) British Empire (cough)