Hallo!

On Sun, 30 Jan 2011 15:03:04 +0100, Lars Finsen wrote:

> Den 30. jan. 2011 kl. 13.11 skreiv Samuel Stutter:
> 
> > Linguistics is (sort of) a science and, like any science (or art,  
> > or social science, or engineering or whatever) when it gets more  
> > complicated requires more complicated language to explain - a  
> > language (is it Terry Pratchett who first said this) originally  
> > used by apes to explain to other apes where the best fruit is is  
> > hardly going to be useful when describing the details of sub-atomic  
> > particle interaction or the way in which lentition works. While I'm  
> > sure everyone on list tries to explain as much as possible in  
> > layman's terms, sometimes it can get a bit complicated and - like  
> > this nasal thing - have contradicting applications or theories or  
> > understandings. Thus is life.

Indeed.  It is *never* easy to express complex, abstract notions
in plain simple terms.  This is not merely a problem of linguistics,
it is a problem of *any* science.  Other sciences are just as full
of difficult terminology as linguistics is.  Did you ever try
reading a dissertation on quantum physics?  Those beasts are *full*
of difficult, hard-to-grasp terminology as bad as anything found
in linguistics - and they are full of difficult, hard-to-grasp
*mathematics*.  The latter, at least, is *not* common in linguistics.

But most of the more advanced terminology is not at all necessary
to describe a language; granted, there are grammars around which
unnecessarily make use of advanced terminology, but such grammars
are considered badly written even by academic linguists, and I
don't think the grammars discussed *in this list* are of that kind.
Most of us are amateurs ourselves, and make little use of advanced 
terminology.  I don't see how the discussion in this list is too
sophomoric for amateurs like you and me to cope with.

> It can't be denied that linguistics has well above average opacity in  
> its terminology.

Not really.  This is your personal impression because you, being
interested in it, forayed deeper into linguistics than into other
sciences, I guess.  It is not fair to compare a linguistics
dissertation with a physics schoolbook.  You should compare it
with a physics dissertation, and then the chances are good that
you'll find the linguistics dissertation to be more comprehensible.

>       Especially its English terminology. Perhaps the only  
> thing that can top it is chemical substance naming, but chemical  
> terminology apart from that is relatively transparent in comparison.  
> I wonder what Icelandic linguistic terminology is like. Wouldn't  
> surprise me if it was much more sensible. Perhaps you'll meet me  
> again on an Icelandic linguistics forum some day :-)

I don't know about Icelandic linguistic terminology, but as far as
I know about Icelandic in general, they probably make less use of
Greek/Latin internationalisms, substituting expressions made of
native words - which are not necessarily more transparent.
 
> > And on the spiritual level of the conlang, what I do is just to  
> > leave it outside the door and do it in my own time - I'm sure you  
> > can join another list as well if you want a conculture or religio- 
> > spiritual discussion - you don't have to leave this one.
> 
> Well, there are a couple of loose ends that I'd like to tie up before  
> I go; hoping to find time for that. But I haven't really formed any  
> close relationships here and it's not as if I've contributed very  
> much, so no big losses really. Maybe I'll just go nomail and come  
> back if I miss y'all too much. Let's see what it sums up to.

Oh, you seem to be seriously pissed off about us.  Nobody hinders
you from leaving this list.  If you feel like that, just go away
and leave us alone.  I am sorry about that, because your conlangs
are of decent quality (not outstanding, but well done), and some
of your contributions have been useful.  Farewell.

--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html