Hi! Two newsletters ago, I briefly mentioned that some people have attempted to craft analytically exact languages and hyperlinked to an article on John Wilkins, an academic from the 1600’s who really tried his hardest. The problem Wilkins had with natural language is that, in general, words tell you nothing about the things to which they refer (barring, I assume, the few scrabble-accepted onomatopoeias). To “remedy” this “problem”, Wilkins invented a “universal” language which he outlined in an essay titled,
People of the Soup
People of the Soup
People of the Soup
Hi! Two newsletters ago, I briefly mentioned that some people have attempted to craft analytically exact languages and hyperlinked to an article on John Wilkins, an academic from the 1600’s who really tried his hardest. The problem Wilkins had with natural language is that, in general, words tell you nothing about the things to which they refer (barring, I assume, the few scrabble-accepted onomatopoeias). To “remedy” this “problem”, Wilkins invented a “universal” language which he outlined in an essay titled,