Ceqli

In case anybody is wondering, the language the girls are speaking is a real project, not gibberish, and you can read about it here:

http://ceqli.pbwiki.com/

I just am wondering why a variation of colloquial english is not being spoken by the coeds.  I would guess that it would have something to do with the growing influence of Asia in general and China in particular in world affairs in the 21st and 22nd centuries.  Remember the Sino-Peruvian war mentioned in an previous chapter. 

I too am surprised that the Martian students aren't speaking some variant of English or perhaps Spanglish, the English/Spanish hybrid.

"The French are ticked 'cause English has become the world's 'lingua frankca'."

Actually, Ceqli, popularly known as "Texperanto," was developed by L. L. Zamenhof, who immigrated to Texas in 1879, and modified over the following years into a highly logical, easily learned auxilary language.  What put it over the top was its popularity in Japan — the Japanese found it much easier to pronounce and learn than English, as did people in general.  It's not an official language in Texas yet in 1947, but becomes so later, as more and more non-Anglophone states are admitted.  By the time of Martian colonization, all Texans speak it.

"Highly logical," eh? Some psychologists and communication theorists have maintained that our language, in large part, controls how we think. If you don't have a word for something It's hard to think about it.

So. . . I wonder if the Martians/Texans of the future are as logical as Vulcans, though without eschewing emotion? Further, if great masses of people thought logically, what technological leaps might come about? Space and time travel and energy wepons are obvious possible results from the story line. And what social benefits might occur as people are forced by their very language to recognize when they are being irrational? A lot of professionally religious people would despise it!

I don't think language can prevent irrationality.  I certainly don't see how it could.  And language might bias thought, or influence it, but hardly control it.   The 'logical' part of Ceqli is that it is not irregular in any way, uses compounds to form new roots, and has regular spelling.  In all those ways it's much like Esperanto.  Also, tho, it tries to minimize the rules of grammar, and especially attempt to make symbolic logic mirrored in the form of the language (In this it's much like Loglan).  Finally, it is minimalist, like Mandarin or Pidgin English, but has the option of much higher preciseness, for use in communication with computers or alien cultures.  See
http://ceqli.pbwiki.com/Lesson+3
"connectives" to see how the symbolic logic symbols are echoed by the set of connectives.

"A lot of professionally religious people would despise it!" 

JRL, so would a whole lot of politicians and other bottomfeeders.  The average politican depends on a lot on "illogical" human emotion to make his selling point that he (or she) is better than the other nar do well running for the same job.  If the average voter looked at what has been accomplished by said "public servant" and measured it against the monetary cost and violations of individual liberty, how often do you think that they would be getting reelected?  And don't even get me started on the "Pubklic Skol" system in this country that turns out individuals that have no knowledge or appreciation of the Constitution or Declaration of Independance.   

I don't think language can prevent irrationality. I certainly don't see how it could. And language might bias thought, or influence it, but hardly control it. The 'logical' part of Ceqli is that it is not irregular in any way, uses compounds to form new roots, and has regular spelling. In all those ways it's much like Esperanto. Also, tho, it tries to minimize the rules of grammar, and especially attempt to make symbolic logic mirrored in the form of the language (In this it's much like Loglan). Finally, it is minimalist, like Mandarin or Pidgin English, but has the option of much higher preciseness, for use in communication with computers or alien cultures. See http://ceqli.pbwiki.com/Lesson+3 "connectives" to see how the symbolic logic symbols are echoed by the set of connectives.

Zen: Based on what I've read in popular science journals and online Humans learn to think at the same time they learn the symbols and manipulation of those symbols.  A language's structure, i.e. its syntax plus the unstated assumptions that organically grew as the language developed, influences what complex symbols (think concepts like "Love") can be manipulated.  An example of this is the famous statement that in Inuit (Eskimo), there are 7-10 or more symbols (words or phrases) describing different types of snow.  For those living in an unforgiving environment like the terrestrial north polar landscape, these are survival tools.  Knowing, at an intuitive level, different types of frozen water, can be the difference between eating the seal or being eaten by the polar bear.

This concept was explored by the linguist/logician S. I. Hayakawa's in Language in Though and Action, errors of concept or reference are my own.

Sure there's a certain amount of truth to that, but it's, I think, exaggerated in importance, at least in popular conception.  Speaking of Eskimoes, see:
http://users.utu.fi/freder/Pullum-Eskimo-VocabHoax.pdf

This harks back to Orwell, and the idea that if your language has no word for 'free,' you can't have that concept.   I'll concede that it might make it harder to have the concept, but, obviously, concepts come before words and give rise to them, not vice-versa.  As concepts come into existence, or change, language accomodates them, sometimes well, sometimes awkwardly.

My notion about logic is that when the language has constructions like formal logic, statements which reduce to "A and not A" would become painfully obvious, and listeners would hoot down the speaker as a fool.

I wonder how the Athanasian creed would work in Ceqli. . . It would be hard, maybe impossible, to not have it take a form which would reduce to "A and not A."

A bit of trivia: While Mike in _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ was fully conversant in several natural languages, the programmers of the HOLMES IV computer which was Mike's "body" wrote Loglan.

I apparently missed the Heinlein Centenary exhibit in Butler, Mo. by a matter of minutes last Sunday. . . Drat.

Yes, that's Loglan's moment in the sun, Heinlein's reference.

Anyhow, if you have the language bug, I'm in the middle of writing a story in Ceql at

http://ceqli.pbwiki.com/STORI-HU-HRANMAZO

Come read, enjoy, and comment on the discussion group.

There is now a Ceqli blog at:
http://ceqlizobloq.wordpress.com/