“I believe there are spiritual and ethical dimensions to the power dynamics that influence human societies and relationships, and those power dynamics play out in areas studied by linguistics.”
Could you please rephrase that in another way? Linguistics itself is involved inevitably & intertwined in human societies. It sounds like you only want to study the non-human involved parts of language (they just naturally ‘evolve’ without human intervention) which would of course be absurd and most likely isn’t what you are saying. Thanks.
I don’t remember who said it first. I use terms like doctrines, dogmas, etc. But that’s not the way most evangelical Protestants communicate, is it Jay313? Imago Dei?
And those things would occur under the headings of “socio-ecological evolution” and “cultural evolution,” not biological evolution. What you fail to understand is that “evolve” and “evolution” really do mean “change,” and when you try to force a specific, technical biological definition upon those words when used, for example, of cultural evolution, you actually misuse the term, despite your fetish for clarity and precision in language.
So you reject the scholarly consensus of linguists in this area, and instead you have your own ideas about language which are based in your personal theology?
Please give a specific example from a real language of a change that was intentional, teleological, goal-oriented, planned. I am just having a hard time envisioning how the changing features I study in a real language (like the dropping of /g/ from the onset of weak syllables, or the phasing out of the locative case inflection on nouns in favor of a phrase initial locative marker, or the fact that the stative prefix is no longer productive, but evidence suggests it once was and it remains so in related varieties) have anything to do with planning or goals in the population of speakers.
Linguistics is the formal study of language and communication. Societies can function just fine with no one studying linguistics. There are aspects of linguistics that are theoretical and mathematical and not applied and one can study those aspects with no reference to sociology or culture.
I have no idea what you are saying. Language change happens in populations of human speakers, obviously. Language is a human construct.
When I said I believe there are spiritual and ethical dimensions to the power dynamics that influence human societies and relationships, and those power dynamics play out in areas studied by linguistics, I was referring to the fact that sociolinguists study how language is used as a tool to establish and maintain social hierarchies, express respect, cooperate, get people to do things, establish and perform social identities, establish and reinforce solidarity with in-groups, establish and maintain distance from outsider groups, etc. The spiritual condition of humanity and the general brokenness of human culture mean that in many of these areas there is injustice and oppression.
I think that this video by Potholer54 describes what you are saying very well. It also gets into what created languages look like vs. evolved ones as well as debunks the claims of spontaneous language generation at the Tower of Babel and the claims that ancient Chinese characters describe the Genesis account or the flood as some are prone to teach.
You realize, I hope, that when orthodox is capitalized, it refers to a specific tradition of Christianity (i.e. not Roman Catholic or Protestant), and it’s not an adjective referring to Christian beliefs that are traditionally accepted as right. George may be the only Orthodox Christian participating, but that does not make him the only one with orthodox beliefs. I eagerly await the “vocabulary according to Al-Khalil” lesson that I sense is coming, but you might want to check a dictionary first to see how the rest of us use Orthodox and orthodox.
Considering your comments this sounds laughable but you might fail to understand that
If you are the owner of a horse and have failed to understand it’s language resulting in serious injury you might look at at language in a different way. Language as a form of non-verbal communication is as old as life per se, as it is an expression of will. If you look at life as the ability to move material and energy at will you notice was right at the beginning of creation as it is so beautifully phrased in John’s gospel.
If you accuse others of lowering the bar of your conversation you should perhaps try to communicate with people who are a match to your intellectual calibre- if you understand what I mean
As to what was disappointing about your reply to her, I’m surprised that you need an explanation, seeing how it was officially “flagged by the community” and put into cloaked mode. But since you asked: I thought your reply was both dishonest and uncivil–especially after you admonished another participant with “I request more grace in your dialogue.”
Obviously, Christy understands the difference between “orthodox” and “Orthodox”, which was why she explained that difference to you—and you know that. Your use of the term probably left a lot of readers unsure that you understood the distinction, so Christy’s explanation was entirely appropriate.
I was disappointed because I expected better.
I see no need to discuss this further—and I will probably delete this response later today.
Since posts have not discussed any issues relevant to the original topic in a while, i will close this down. Should you have any further issues to discuss, please start a new post
