Constructed Languages

[gusl]

Is it possible to invent a human language which is:

(1) easy to learn
(2) fully expressive
(3) logical: free of linguistic ambiguity

how many of the above can you fulfill at the same time?

Toki Pona: 120 words, pidgin
LojBan
Esperanto
Basic English: 850 words


Maybe this is a question for the folks at the ILLC.

Comments

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

After living enough, I've learned not to expect languages (or people) to be logical. I guess I used to assume by default that people were like me.

But I shouldn't have to tell you why it's desirable to improve inter-human communication.

Our minds seem tolerant of a wide range of "illogical" linguistic structures, as long as they're learned during childhood. But it would be nice to be able to express things as precisely as you want and with little effort. In other words, I want a faithful, efficient code. An interesting question is: how far can we go towards that before it becomes incompatible with the human brain?

But I'm not *THAT* eager to try and change people's language. As one of my links says: Esperanto is a very neat solution looking for a problem.
Basic English, however, seems to be a good solution to a real problem.
Hm.. okay, that's illogical, but I think you understand.