Improving human language

[darxus]

I want people to gradually stop using different words to say the same thing just because they were born on different parts of the planet.

One word at a time, start speaking the same vocabulary. Maybe something better than we have now, formed from all the languages we do have, maybe Esperanto.

"Ten words account for 23.7 % of the words on any page..."

English: the, of, and, a, to, in, is, you, that, it.

	English	Esperanto
1	the	la
2	and	kaj
3	of/from	de
4	I/me	mi
5	in/into	en
6	to/towards	al
7	no/not	ne
8	he	li
9	was am/are/is will be	estis estas estos
10	that	ke
	she	ŝi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_common_words_in_Esperanto

So, Esperanto? Other? What words would you like to start with? I may just start trying to use the above 10 Esperanto words instead of the English.

I have recently been obsessing with HTML5, a new standard of a 19 year old language. I've been working on creating a schema for it - a formal machine readable definition of the language. I considered the possibility of doing this with English, and doing work on a grammar checker. I figured I would get very upset with the inconsistencies of English. Then I thought it would be fun to take the refinement process used on HTML and apply it to human language.

Comments

[motomuffin.livejournal.com]

But... differences in and among languages are so interesting!

[darxus.livejournal.com]

Yes. I am not suggesting we abolish them. I am just suggesting we stop using them by default.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

And so full of nuances and ideas that people in different places just don't have!

I think whoever wrote the story about the Towel of Babel got it wrong. I think that God, in His infinite wisdom, decided that rather than have us sit on his doorstep for eternity in the mistaken belief that it'd make us just as good as Him He'd simply give us a gift that would let us gradually figure it all out - diversity of language, so that we may one day encompass the Divine in a way a single human mind can't ever dream of. . .

[agnosticoracle.livejournal.com]

If god didn't intend us to speak English why did he write the bible in it!!!

[moonshadow.livejournal.com]

In general, I think this is cool, though English is becoming a pretty standard language in many parts of the world. And also I don't really like Esperanto. :P Maybe a bit too logical for me. Not poetic enough for an English major.