Autocoding project proposal.

[Stefaan A Eeckels]

On Sun, 27 Jan 2002 13:16:33 GMT
"Timothy Rue" <threeseas at earthlink.net> wrote:


> there seems to be some variable in determining the dividing line between
> what is a language and what is a dialect. For example, linguist disagree
> over whether Chinese should be considered a single language or several
> different languages.

A language is a language when it is considered by a
large majority of its users to be a separate language.
Example: "Vlaams" is not a language, but "Lëtzebuergescht" is.

> What is the purpose of language? 

Communication.

> What is it's fundamental requirement that
> makes a language not just a noise and/or scribbles?

Shared conventions that convey specific meaning.

-- 
Stefaan (GPG Fingerprint 25D8 551B 4C0F BF73 3283 21F1 5978 D158 7539 76E4)
-- 
"Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which
 could only have originated in California." --Edsger Dijkstra