>
>Mike wrote:
>[snippet]
>
>>
>> _If_ I understand you correctly, then I don't think this is a good thing
>>at all. It
>> would lead too pseudo communication and misunderstandings with no exit ..=
=2E.
>> brrrrrrrrrrrrr (getting the shivers just _thinking_ about the messes
>>that could
>> create.
>
Robin Turner wrote:
>Me too.  Go to Turkey, call an unmarried adult female a "woman" (kadin)
>and get a slap in
>the face.  Languages just don't map onto each other very well, and an IAL
>needs its _own_
>definitions of words, even if they're translated into other languages.
>
>On the Lojban list we have long, and sometimes, I admit, tedious, debates
>as to what a
>particular word means, but this is _necessary_ , since without a standard
>you can get
>into awful misunderstandings.  It's not the scientific/technical
>"international
>vocabulary" that causes the problems (everyone agrees what an isotope or
>an operating
>system is) but the everyday words like "woman" or "like".  Speakers of an
>INTER language,
>if I have understood the concept correctly, would be in the unenviable
>position of having
>to continually negotiate meaning e.g.
>
>"Actually, when I said to come round in the 'tarde', I meant something
>like English
>'afternoon', which starts at mid-day and goes on till tea-time, not
>Spanish 'tardes'
>which seems to go on half the night ....  What do I mean by 'tea-time'?
>Oh, forget it."
>
>co'o mi'e robin.
 
I can well imagine having the same problemes speaking English. I have found
this myself, when I tend to say evening when my native-speaker counterpart
will talk about night classes! Night is sleeping time for me. The mental
picture I get when I hear that someone "used to attend night classes" is a
guy beginning a glass at 23.00 and finnishing 03.00 (11 pm - 3 am).
 
And then, getting further into the conversation you understand that that
was not what they meant.
 
In another message Robin Turner wrote:
>Most misunderstandings do have exits, but you can waste a lot of time
>looking for them, and
>repairing the damage you did when you blundered through the entrance.
>anyone who's lived in
>a foreign country will tell you this.
 
At some seminar I once heard something like this statement: "If a group of
people are non-native speakers they will use more time of their
communication for transaction than native speakers would do."
 
This concurs with my experience in our Swedish classes. But, let's say,
the transactions at an Interlingua conference go on rather smoothly too,
and surprizingly so as it is a "man-made" language one is speaking.
 
Before going to my first Interlingua conference I had a feeling it would be
like when I was speaking Spanish to a Spanish person; that I understood
most - but not all - of it. This was not so.
 
=46rom this experience I think one can say that people using an auxiliary
language can understand eachother very well. Let's say that I am speaking
English to a Frenchman, and we have both learnt English at school.
 
We will have a lot of litterature and mass media impresions in common, and
we may be exposed to the same kind of misunderstandings as if we spoke
Esperanto or Interlingua, I think, provided we were equally fluent in all
the langauges compared.
 
Hoping this makes any sense.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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